Australia urged China to avoid “coercion” in the Pacific Islands and to be “more transparent in the aid” it provides on Wednesday, acknowledging a “state of permanent contest” between Beijing and the West.
Australia’s Pacific minister Pat Conroy said new economic opportunities for Pacific Island nations should not be “accompanied by coercion and interference”.
“We want to see a region where states can exercise sovereignty, free from coercion, and in accordance with international law,” he said in a speech to a public policy think tank in Australia.
“We want a region that is peaceful and stable,” he said ahead of a Pacific Island summit in Tonga later this month.
“China should be more transparent in the aid it is giving, and should treat infrastructure projects as opportunities for the Pacific to grow local employment, skills and procurement.”
Australia on the same day drew a line in the sand over China’s involvement in policing the Pacific.
Pacific Minister Pat Conroy used an address to a public policy think tank to ramp up pressure on China to be more transparent in the region as Beijing worked to increase its security presence through policing pacts with island nations.
Conroy referred to Pacific nations rejecting a Chinese push for a regional security agreement in 2022.
“The region has also spelled out … that the security of the Pacific is the shared responsibility of the Pacific family,” he told the McKell Institute.
In the South Pacific, Canberra and Washington have been jolted into strengthening their ties with island nations since Beijing signed a secretive security deal with the Solomon Islands in 2022.
Beijing has in more recent months embarked on its own flurry of influence-building endeavours, including injecting US$20 million into the Solomon Islands’s budget.
The leaders of both Solomon Islands and Vanuatu were hosted in Beijing earlier this month for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The United States last year re-opened its long-defunct embassy in the Solomon Islands, followed by the establishment of an embassy in the Kingdom of Tonga.
