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Australian Polity, Volume 10 Number 1 & 2

March 2022 issue of Australian Polity

March 2022 issue of Australian Polity

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A week ago, The US Indo-Pacific coordinator, Kurt

Campbell, said the US had not done enough to assist

the region. ‘If you look and if you ask me, where are the

places where we are most likely to see certain kinds of

strategic surprise – basing or certain kinds of agreements

or arrangements – it may well be in the Pacific,’ he said in

what many understood as a reference to Chinese plans

to upgrade an airstrip on one of the islands of Kiribati.

Closer to Australia, pressures in the Solomon Islands

have been exacerbated by tensions arising from the

current government’s ties with China. Ongoing civil

unrest in Honiara arises from both economic issues and

the government of Prime Minister Manesseh Sogavare

to end diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of China

in 2019. Both AFP and ADF personnel were deployed

to the Solomons in November following civil unrest in

the capital. Payments from a Chinese fund to MPs were

used to secure votes for the embattled prime minister.

More recently, Chinese police have been invited to train

members of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.

control the sea lanes of the Pacific will become a reality

under the domination of the repressive Chinese regime.

This article was first published in the Spectator Australia.

“China…has been

pushing its influence

in Australia’s Pacific

neighbourhood.”

The CCP has also wooed PNG, proposing a major city,

port infrastructure and a fisheries hub on Daru Island in

the Torres Strait, north of Cape York. The scheme did

not eventuate, but other proposals have been floated

occasionally.

China is entitled to pursue investment opportunities

globally, but its pattern of behaviour suggests mixed

motives. Ports in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Africa

involve not only economic investments, but strategic

opportunities. Chine has invested more than $1.3 trillion in

42 Commonwealth states alone since 2005. The existence

of ‘toxic’ clauses in BRI contracts, such as occurred

with Uganda’s Entebbe airport, illustrates the predatory

nature of these agreements. Given the convergence

of the economic and the military interests of the CCP,

an otherwise benign investment always carries longer

term dangers.

Australia has responded with the South Pacific stepup

– a necessary programme given the new strategic

competition in our backyard. The funding of Digicel to

provide a communications network in the South Pacific is

both sensible and strategic. But Australia and New Zealand

must do more. Otherwise, Admiral Yamamoto’s plan to

Australian Polity 23

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