‘Godsend’: Australia wins support for policing pact to counter China

Nuku’alofa, Tonga: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has scored a significant diplomatic victory, locking in support from Pacific leaders for a far-ranging $400 million policing pact designed to counter China’s growing security presence in the region.

The quicker-than-expected show of support for the Pacific Policing Initiative came despite pushback from some Pacific leaders, who said the pact was “cryptic” and risked entangling the Pacific in the superpower rivalry between China and Western nations led by the United States.

Albanese and three fellow leaders announced on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga on Tuesday that the policing agreement had been endorsed by forum leaders.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese greets Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka at the forum.Credit: AAP

While stressing the initiative will be “Pacific-led”, Australia will be the main funder for the initiative, spending $400 million over five years on the pact and setting up a new co-ordination hub at Australian Federal Police facilities in Brisbane.

The initiative will also see four regional training centres established across the Pacific, beginning with Papua New Guinea, and the creation of a new multinational standing police unit ready to respond to natural disasters or other crises.

This masthead reported on the weekend that Australian officials were confident of gaining support for the policing initiative, despite concerns from some leaders it could be perceived as “anti-China”.

Underlining Beijing’s energetic attempts to expand its influence in the Pacific, the leaders’ meeting on Wednesday took place in a high school sports stadium that was funded by China and opened last week by China’s ambassador to Tonga and Tonga’s crown prince.

Progress on the policing pact has rankled Beijing, with the state-owned Global Times newspaper quoting an expert saying the agreement “not only violates general principles in international relations, but also infringes on [Pacific nations’] sovereignty to independently choose co-operation partners”.

China has courted Pacific leaders in an attempt to supplant Australia as the region’s primary security partner, with its police previously entering Pacific countries such as Fiji and Kiribati, and seeking to strike policing pacts with nations such as Papua New Guinea.

Albanese said: “This policing initiative continues a long history of Pacific police forces working together to strengthen regional peace and security, and to support each other in times of need.

“This is a Pacific-led, Australia-backed initiative, harnessing our collective strengths. We are stronger together.”

Hailing the importance of the agreement, PNG Prime Minister James Marape described the Pacific as “the biggest un-policed space in planet Earth”, saying nations like his faced major challenges including drug trafficking and illegal fishing.

Asked whether the initiative meant a policing deal with China would not be necessary, Marape said: “We have our security partners; at the moment, Australia remains our security partner of choice, especially for policing matters.”

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said it had been a “godsend” for Pacific police officers to receive training overseas, adding he was sure the new initiative would “succeed for our benefit”.

A day earlier, Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai told fellow Pacific leaders that “we need to make sure that this [policing initiative] is framed to fit our purposes and not developed to suit the geostrategic interests and geostrategic denial security postures of our big partners”.

Leonard Louma, director-general of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, described the pact as a worthy initiative but said many aspects of it remain “cryptic” and should benefit locals rather than “the geostrategic denial security doctrine of our big partners”.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group includes Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Mihai Sora, a Pacific expert at the Lowy Institute and former diplomat in the region, said: “Australia would be celebrating this as a win for the region, and an endorsement of Australia’s role as the main security partner for Pacific Island countries”.

“It’s not an easy thing for so many diverse countries to come together to agree on something so complex and sensitive as regional security co-operation,” he said.

While noting that Pacific countries could still pursue individual policing agreements with China, Sora said that “this initiative aims to fill those gaps in policing that China purports to be responding to”.

One of the United States’ most important foreign policing officials, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, is in Tonga for the forum, reflecting the US’s renewed attention on the region.

During his trip, Campbell will also open a new US embassy in Vanuatu.

Albanese and Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo on Wednesday celebrated the entry into force of the Falepili Union, a landmark climate resettlement treaty announced last year, with Albanese describing it as “groundbreaking”.

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