Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong to ramp-up official visits to South Pacific to counter Chinese push to expand its influence

Penny Wong is preparing a visit of South Pacific nations, heading to Fiji on Thursday just as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi embarks on an eight-nation Pacific tour.

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong will dramatically ramp-up official visits to South Pacific nations to counter an unprecedented Chinese push to expand its influence in the region.

The Australian understands Senator Wong is preparing a blitz of South Pacific nations, heading to Fiji on Thursday as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi embarks on a massive eight-nation tour of the Pacific starting in the Solomon Islands.

The Prime Minister is expected to undertake a major trip to Indonesia in coming weeks, and will visit Papua New Guinea as soon as possible.

Penny Wong meets Wang Yi in Canberra in 2017.

He and Senator Wong will also attend the Pacific Island Forum in mid-July, where they will present the nation’s more ambitious climate change policies as evidence that Australia is listening to its Pacific partners.

In Suva, Senator Wong said she would meet with Fiji’s Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, Pacific Island Forum secretary-general Henry Puna, “to discuss how we can best secure our region and help build a stronger Pacific family”.

“The visit, in my first week as Foreign Minister, demonstrates the importance we place on our relationship with Fiji and on our Pacific engagement,” she said.

“Australia will listen to our Pacific partners as we work together to face our shared challenges and achieve our shared goals – including tackling climate change, pandemic recovery, economic development and regional security.”

While in Fiji, Senator Wong will deliver a speech at the PIF secretariat on Australia’s new energy, climate change and regional commitments.

She is expected to travel to most of Australia’s other Pacific partners in the weeks following her initial Fiji trip.

Before flying back to Sydney on Wednesday from the Quad meeting in Tokyo, Mr Albanese said his US, Japanese and Indian counterparts had discussed the “nature of the region” and “making sure that we reach out to other countries, including engaging with the ASEAN nations here in going forward with our common views”.

Japan and the US, led by Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell, are also planning to increase their footprint in the region to stifle Beijing’s soft power push and military ambitions.

The Chinese foreign ministry revealed late on Tuesday that in addition to Solomon Islands, Mr Wang would visit Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste.

The visit will pile pressure on the new Albanese government, which hopes to rebuild and cement Australia’s status as the “partner of choice” for Pacific Island countries amid surging Chinese efforts to co-opt regional leaders.

The Wang trip, unveiled as the Quad summit closed in Tokyo, is aimed at countering intensified US and Australian diplomacy in the region.

(L-R) Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attend a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in 2019 in Beijing.

During the trip, Mr Wang is expected to formally sign the controversial Solomon Islands security agreement, and a new “Blue Economy” memorandum of understanding, revealed previously by The Australian.

He is likely to unveil a host of other MoUs during the trip, and will reportedly progress a new security agreement with Kiribati.

The Chinese Embassy in PNG has also been lobbying the PNG government to allow it to provide assistance to the nation’s security forces to prevent outbreaks of violence during the country’s election’s period next month.

While in Fiji, Mr Wang will host, for the second time, a meeting of the region’s foreign ministers.

He will also undertake a “virtual visit” to the Federated States of Micronesia, and hold video conferences with the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Cook Islands, and Premier and Foreign Minister of Niue.

Following in the footsteps of his predecessors, Mr Albanese will prioritise trips to Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. But with PNG due to hold general elections from July 2-22, there could be delays getting into Port Moresby.

Mr Biden, flanked by Mr Campbell, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, were understood to have discussed with Mr Albanese and Senator Wong rising geostrategic competition in the South Pacific after Solomon Islands signed a security agreement with China last month.

The Australian understands Mr Biden’s senior advisers were “very positive” about working with the Albanese government to expand the reach of the Quad and allies in the Pacific.

Lowy Institute China expert Richard McGregor said he believed the upcoming Wang trip was the biggest ever undertaken by a senior Chinese figure.

“Senior Chinese leaders including Xi Jinping have visited Pacific nations before but there has never been, as far as I know, a high-profile minister making a trip of this dimension and length,” he told The Australian.

“When you consider the extent of China’s global interests and the relatively small size of the Pacific countries, that tells you immediately that Beijing has ambitious long-term plans in the region.”

He said the agreements signed during the trip “will provide a valuable road map of Beijing’s priorities, and to a degree, what the countries themselves are willing to sign onto”.

The trip, which runs until June 4, is “beneficial to the peace, stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region”, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters.

Wang Wenbin said China attached “great importance to developing friendly relations with Pacific island nations” and called the countries “good friends and partners that have equality, mutual benefits and common development”.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said the Chinese foreign minister’s one-day visit, with a 20-strong delegation, would be a “milestone” in the two countries’ relationship.

The Chinese minister will spend one day in Honiara and hold a joint news conference with foreign minister Jeremiah Manele.

Mr Sogavare said he looked forward to a “productive engagement” with Beijing, “an important development partner at a very critical time in our history”.

Labor has pledged to increase Australia’s 2030 emission reduction target to 43 per cent compared with 2005 levels but has refused to ban new coal and gas mines, or curb fossil fuel exports, as Pacific leaders have called for.

Senator Wong spoke directly to Pacific leaders in a video message just hours after being sworn into her new role, declaring Australia “knows that nothing is more central to the security and wellbeing of the Pacific than climate change”.

“We have heard the Pacific and we will act – standing shoulder to shoulder with the Pacific as we address the climate crisis.”

She and Mr Albanese will also present Labor’s new Pacific policies to regional leaders at next month’s PIF meeting, including a $525m aid boost over four years, new rules to allow more Pacific workers into Australia, and a lottery-style plan to permanently settle up to 3000 Pacific people in Australia each year.