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SYDNEY – Australia said it would create a development fund and provide Pacific island countries with more than $ 2 billion for infrastructure projects while strengthening military cooperation, while Allies of the United States take a stronger stance against China in the region.
Australia also announced Thursday it would open new diplomatic posts in the Pacific, while New Zealand announced new funding to strengthen cultural engagement with small Pacific states.
The United States and its allies are increasingly coordinating their efforts to counter what officials in Washington and elsewhere see as Beijing's attempts to influence smaller nations through infrastructure loans as part of its Belt and Road initiative. Last month, President Trump signed the Build Act, which brings US private enterprise development funding to $ 60 billion.
"Australia has a continuing interest in a strategically secure, economically stable and sovereign southwest Pacific," said Premier Scott Morrison in a speech to soldiers at a military barracks. . "This is our patch."
The Loans and Grants Program – a $ 1.5 billion infrastructure and approximately $ 700 million in capital for the Export Finance Agency – will give priority to essential telecommunications, energy, transport and water, said Australia. Canberra also plans to create a mobile defense training team to help Pacific countries improve their armed forces and strengthen their peacekeeping and disaster response capabilities.
Asia-Pacific leaders will meet next week in Papua New Guinea, where Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to open the Beijing portfolio. The commitments made over the past year would make China the second-largest donor behind Australia in the Pacific region, behind that of the United States and its allies since the Second World War.
Beijing, which aims to help the Pacific countries achieve peace, stability and prosperity, urged other countries to "abandon the Cold War mentality" and consider its relations with States of the Pacific objectively. But former Western allies' intentions vis-à-vis impoverished island nations whose strategic value exceeds their size and wealth.
The UK recently announced the creation of three new diplomatic posts in the Pacific, while France gained a de facto seat in a key regional group, the Pacific Islands Forum, when its Pacific territories joined the Pacific Islands. 39; Union.
Australia announced Thursday that it would open diplomatic missions in Palau, Marshall Islands, French Polynesia, Niue and Cook Islands. New Zealand said it would create a $ 6.8 million fund to strengthen engagement with Pacific states on military, cultural and sporting issues.
In September, a senior US official said the United States, along with Japan and Australia, was trying to create an Internet network in Papua New Guinea to block a Chinese telecom company.
"We have witnessed a growing concerted effort to really improve the game and compete with China in the Pacific," said Jonathan Pryke, director of the Pacific Islands program at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute. "The image of growing cooperation between Australia, the United States and Japan is slowly emerging."
Last week, Australia announced that it would redevelop a South Pacific naval base in Papua New Guinea, which would likely give US and Australian forces better access to the southern approaches to the South China Sea.
Australia is also taking a cautious approach to Chinese investment in strategic sectors of the country.
On Wednesday, the country's treasurer said he was ready to block a $ 9 billion takeover of Australia's largest gas pipeline operators by the Hong Kong-based group.
CK Infrastructure Holdings
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fear that the agreement will confer too much power on a foreign investor.
And on Thursday in Beijing, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne, who is visiting Australia, said she had expressed concern to her Chinese counterpart about China's internment of Muslims in China. the northwest of the country. She did not explain the discussion.
Write to Rachel Pannett at [email protected]
