We’re turning to China because you neglect us, says East Timor president

The islands of the South Pacific don’t want lectures, they want help. And they’ve learned to play superpower rivalry to their own benefit, warns Jose Ramos-Horta.

East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta. Picture: Valentine Dariel Sousa/AFP

China’s efforts to win over the South Pacific island nations are a warning to Australia and the West, which have neglected the region and bred resentment among its leaders, according to one of east Asia’s elder statesmen.

Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace prize winner who is president of the small nation of East Timor, will receive Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, at the end of his eight-nation tour of the South Pacific and southeast Asia.

On his first stop in the Solomon Islands this week Wang finalised a deal that will permit Chinese security forces to operate there, arousing anxiety in the US and especially in Australia, which regards the Pacific as its back yard.

Ramos-Horta, 72, said East Timor would not enter into any such security agreement with China — but he hopes, anyway, that China will invest as much as $AU 4.23 billion in a huge offshore oil and gas field, which Australia has so far failed to do.

He said that Asia’s smallest and poorest countries faced a dilemma: they desperately needed aid and investment but were caught in an intensifying rivalry between the US and its friends on one hand, and China on the other.

Australia ‘wasted time lecturing’

“Why would the Solomon Islands seek out China for support in maritime security and for the police?” he asked The Times. “Maybe because the Solomon Islands’ closest neighbour, in this case Australia, has not responded to their need. Maybe their neighbour wasted time lecturing them on human rights instead of trying to help.”

Speaking from the capital, Dili, where he was elected president this month, Ramos-Horta added: “It’s a wake-up call. The islands in the Pacific have learnt how to play superpower rivalry to their benefit.”

He spoke as Penny Wong, Australia’s new foreign minister, embarked on a hastily arranged tour of her own, intended to woo Pacific leaders. “We want to be a partner of choice,” she said in Suva, the capital of Fiji. “We want to demonstrate to your nation and other nations of the region that we are a partner who can be trusted, who can be reliable. We want to work together as part of the Pacific family.”

Australia has confirmed that it will send defence personnel to the Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea to help with an election in July.

Scramble for influence

During the Second World War bloody battles were fought between Japan and the US in the Solomon Islands and Palau for control of their air strips and harbours. In any future conflict between China and the US, they would have similar importance — hence the scramble for influence over them during a time of rising tension.

East Timor, which gained its independence from Indonesia 20 years ago, is part of southeast Asia, rather than the South Pacific, but it faces similar challenges in overcoming poverty, and low standards of healthcare and education.

Ramos-Horta won the Nobel peace prize in 1996 for his lonely campaign in exile for Timorese independence. He said that small nations faced a difficult balance in staying out of what looks to some like another Cold War. “I want the US and Australia to support us because they care about our people, because they care for peace and stability. I don’t want them to feel I’m blackmailing them by playing the China card.”

But when Wang visits Dili next week he is likely to be pressed for help in funding development of the Greater Sunrise offshore oil and gas field. Not everyone believes that the huge investment will bring sufficient returns.

If China steps in it will be a huge boost to East Timor. “I would hope that China will be a big investor,” Ramos-Horta said. “The sooner the better.”

The Times