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