US strategy to keep a check on China in the Pacific

The Biden administration has announced $US810m ($1.2bn) in development assistance for 12 Pacific Island nations.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosts a working lunch with Pacific island leaders on the margins of the meeting in Washington on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

The US has announced $US810m ($1.2bn) in development assistance for 12 Pacific Island nations as part of a new economic and security compact aimed at keeping them out of China’s growing sphere of influence.

The Biden administration unveiled America’s first Pacific Partnership Strategy on Thursday as it hosted a summit of 12 Pacific leaders in Washington, promising them an alternative to “pressure and economic coercion by the People’s Republic of China, which risks undermining the peace, prosperity, and security of the region” .

“US prosperity and security depend on the Pacific region remaining free and open,” the strategy says, promising to boost education opportunities for islanders, bolster US coast guard presence among the 12 nations, which collectively encompass 15 per cent of the Earth’s surface, and assist with pandemic-recovery, health and infrastructure.

It picked the consul-general in Melbourne, Frankie Reed — a former ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga, Nauru and Tonga — as the first US envoy to the Pacific.

The strategy recognises climate change remains “the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific and our commitment to the progress and the implementation of the Paris agreement”.

This week’s summit and the new strategy emerged from concerns in Washington, and Canberra, that US had not paid enough attention to the region, creating opportunities for Beijing to expand its influence, most notably demonstrated by the wide-ranging economic pact struck by the Solomon Islands with China in April.

“The history and future of the Pacific Islands and the United States are inextricably linked,” Vice-President Kamala Harris told Pacific Island leaders in July, as she announced plans to expand the US diplomatic presence from six to nine embassies in the region, and host a two-day, first Pacific Island leaders summit in Washington.

President Joe Biden will host heads of government or state from Fiji, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, and New Caledonia at a dinner at the White House on Thursday (Friday AEST). Australia’s US ambassador Arthur Sinodinos has attended the summit as an observer.

The US said it would open a USAid mission in Suva by next September.

Maritime security expert Peter Oleson, a retired US official, said the summit and the related pacts made it look like the US was “almost over-reacting in terms of the timing and what they were seeking to achieve”. “There’s almost a frantic nature to it; this will take a long time, it needs to be a slow, bottom up rebuilding of relationships after years of ignoring Pacific Island nations,” he told The Australian.

The release of the strategy came amid speculation the islands nations were divided over the strategy, after reports theSolomon Islands would refuse to sign onto the document.

A US senior administration official said negotiations over the joint declaration remained “productive and ongoing”, playing down any division with the Solomons, whose Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said his nation has been “unfairly targeted” in a speech to the UN General Assembly last week.

Last month the Solomons suspended docking rights for US and allied navy ships without warning, angering members of congress and stoking concerns Beijing intended to create a military base in the island nation of around 700,000 people, strategically located around 2000km northeast of Australia.