China and the South Pacific

from w
I read this article this morning and will re-post it without comment as I'm not as expert in such matters, but it does provide food for thought. It is from a Sydney newspaper.
China: the new big buddy on our block November 6, 2009 .

Expulsion of Australian and New Zealand diplomats from Fiji might need to be seen against the backdrop of increasing Chinese influence in the Pacific, writes Craig Skehan.

With unabashed Beijing-style censorship, the military regime of the Fiji coup leader Frank Bainimarama ensured the local press reported no criticism of this week's expulsion of senior Australian and New Zealand diplomats.

"They made sure none of the attacks got in the papers," a Fijian journalist said of the totalitarian rulers whom China helps prop up.

Getting even less attention was a committee of inquiry that is indicative of serious flaws in China's expansion in the Pacific.

The committee, appointed by the Papua New Guinea Parliament, is investigating rioting sparked in May by safety breaches and the mistreatment of locals by Chinese overseers at a $1.2 billion mine, including alleged attempts to pay overtime with tinned fish rather than cash.

That tensions at the Ramu Nickel and Cobalt Project led to attacks on Chinese shops in Port Moresby, and other centres, underscores deep-seated ethnic sensitivities. Several rioters were shot dead and future bloodshed may be inevitable if grievances fester.

The visiting Chinese Executive Vice-Premier, Li Keqiang, said the Ramu project symbolises "mutual trust". But who trusts who in a region that has extended cargo-cult hands to whatever power dips its oar in the Pacific's warm waters, in the couple of decades since colonial masters moved on?

In the 1980s we fretted about expanding Soviet influence. Along came the Taiwanese with their chequebook diplomacy. Taipei and Beijing one-upmanship - built on pursuit of diplomatic recognition - has diminished as cross-strait relations have improved, however marginally.

But in our backyard, the growing emergence of a new totalitarian super-bogey has us worried. Chinese insidiousness and corruption of the very political ethos we hold dear - and which we helped cultivate in our region - seems to threaten attachment to democratic principles and the respect for human rights that underpins them.

More than 3000 Chinese enterprises are registered in Pacific island nations - often to the chagrin of the locals with whom they compete. They open trade stores and take-away food outlets, and dump cheap Chinese imports on suffocating local manufacturing.

In the Solomon Islands, where in 2006 a mob burnt down Honiara's once quaint weatherboard Chinatown, anti-Chinese feeling was fanned even by new Chinese arrivals collecting empty soft-drink bottles.

In Fiji ethnic Indian and indigenous prostitutes face competition from Chinese women brought in for Asian fishing crews. And there have even been grisly murders among Chinese settlers over control of a lucrative market in shark fins.

Around the region, islanders can be seen sloshing tumblers of whisky with Chinese and other entrepreneurs to seal deals. Up for grabs are rainforest logs and seafood, oil, gas and minerals. So are government construction contracts - many financed by foreign aid.

Much of the large-scale Chinese migration to the region in recent years has been from the seaside province of Fujian. Estimates across the 14 independent Pacific island states put the total Chinese population as high as 200,000. In the 10 years to 2005, island trade with China increased tenfold, by one calculation. China arguably outranks Japan and Taiwan in terms of involvement and influence across the islands.

Among the arrivals are criminals who produce and smuggle drugs and run rackets, including gambling.

In Nuku'alofa, in 2006, eight people died in rioting and many Chinese businesses were destroyed. Up to 70 per cent of the Tongan capital's trade stores were owned by newly arrived Chinese.

Once Britain and France, then Australia and New Zealand, regarded the islands region as their turf. Australia and New Zealand still take on responsibilities that China does not, such as policing the Solomons when that country nearly collapsed in 2003.

China intervenes when its nationals are at risk.

Australian aid has not kept pace with needs, however, leaving gaps for China and others to fill. This is exploited by island political elites who object to Canberra's lecturing against corrupt and inept governance.

On some assessments, China is the South Pacific's third-largest aid donor - behind Australia and Japan - and often it flows from direct dealings with island leaders. That can benefit those who do the negotiating.

In Fiji, in 2006, before Bainimarama ousted the elected government of Laisenia Qarase, the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, announced $600 million in soft loans for development projects across the Pacific islands. Bainimarama's coup did not cut Fiji out.

A 2007 report to the US Congress noted the growing influence of China in the islands, against the backdrop of Washington's policy of stopping adversaries gaining a strategic advantage in the region.

China has focused on so-called soft political and economic power in this region but a Singapore University political scientist, Paul Buchanan, argues that the introduction of hard, or military, power is not beyond Beijing. In the Samoa Observer, recently, Buchanan warned the US must not ignore China's strategic challenge to sea lanes of communication, resources and diplomatic leverage because Australia and New Zealand could not counter the Chinese push.

China's modernisation of deep-water ports and airports in places such as Fiji - as well as development of military-to-military ties, not least with Fiji - coincides with Australia largely suspending its links. As China builds maritime and air capabilities, it is keen on intelligence gathering in the region - including eavesdropping on the US, Australia and New Zealand.

Australia has overreacted to some perceived threats. But it has under-reacted just as often. It confronted ethnic bloodletting in the Solomons but stood by as Australian companies tore out some of the last great stands of rainforest. HIV-AIDS was taking a terrible toll in PNG before Canberra was prodded from complacency.

The Chinese vice-premier also discussed military co-operation with PNG while visiting Port Moresby this week, sources say.

The Australian high commission's Suva network was good enough for officials to learn a fortnight ago that James Batley was for the diplomatic high jump.

For months whispers from Fiji's military establishment revealed Bainimarama's army of yes men had been ordered to collect evidence of meddling to justify Batley's expulsion.

In the end, the declared reason for moving against the Australian and New Zealand high commissioners was that Sri Lankan judges were being denied transit on their way to Fiji to replace judges sacked by Bainimarama in April.

Bainimarama's promise to re-establish the form of democracy in place before his 2006 coup - ethnic Indians were denied full parliamentary representation according to their numbers - rings hollow, with elections pushed out to at least 2014. There is a view that Bainimarama is trying to avoid prosecution for treason or in relation to the deadly beating in 2000 of four soldiers who purportedly conspired in his overthrow as military chief.

Don't expect the new big buddy on the block to argue for a return to Fijian democracy.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

Australia not looking at Fiji, but China is

from w
from the Canberra Times journalist looking at the relationship between Oz and Fiji.

Poor links with Fiji part of wider Pacific problem
NICHOLAS STUART
7/10/2008 9:43:00 AM

The Pacific has always been our backyard, and a friendly place that we've used for restful holidays to ''get away from it all''. As a result we took the tiny island states for granted, even when they were beginning to fall apart from internal conflicts and violence. We're still doing it; sleeping in blissful ignorance, even though the old regional dynamic is dangerously threatened and about to change forever to our immense disadvantage.

The clearest example of how these secure regional waters have suddenly changed into treacherous ones can be seen in Australia's relationship with Fiji. A series of coups, and the current military-dominated Government (that we don't approve of) threw up a series of diplomatic challenges. How would it be possible to criticise the army for seizing power and still maintain a close relationship with the people of all ethnic groups on the islands?

Achieving this balance has proved to be completely beyond Australia's capacity. Instead of redoubling efforts to find a new way of engaging with different constituencies, Australia is now perceived as a wishy-washy regional power, prevaricating between action and rhetoric, completely unable to decide how it should act. By trying to walk in the centre, and sticking to a delicately neutral line, it has managed to alienate everyone.

The biggest blunder was probably the heavy-handed military exercise that took place just off the coast of Fiji in 2006. This was gunboat diplomacy of the worst sort; farce that rapidly descended into tragedy when a helicopter was lost off the deck of HMAS Kanimbla. Two men died and another eight were injured. This terrible event vividly demonstrated if there was any doubt that Australia had absolutely no capacity to take any military action against the coup leader. But when Fiji's Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama visited China recently he didn't just intend to spend his time watching the Olympic Games. When he left Beijing he took a sensational present with him: a multi-billion-dollar soft loan that at one stroke has completely emancipated the islands from any reliance on Australian aid. Fiji has realised as have other Pacific islands that the emerging Chinese superpower is now ready to back its desires to engage with the region with serious money.

In a matter of weeks Australia has lost its once pre-eminent status in the region. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was unable to provide even an off-the-record briefing about either the detail of the loan to Fiji, or how it might be spent. It would be difficult to find a clearer indication of just how we were blindsided by the Chinese initiative, which has left our own efforts in the region completely outflanked.

It is neither possible nor desirable for Australia to buy influence in the region as it cannot hope to match the large amounts of money that a superpower can throw at the island states. Nevertheless, where Australia has been able to shine in the past is by demonstrable goodwill, contact and genuine assistance over a long period of time.

The flagship of our defence program has been provided by the Pacific Patrol Boat program, which was announced with much fanfare by then prime minister Bob Hawke, at a Pacific Forum meeting in 1983. Originally the program was to equip eight countries with 10 patrol boats; it was such a success that 12 countries now operate 22 of the boats.

The vessels are small (just 31.5m long and operated by a crew of 19 sailors), but they're crucial for the islands. The boats represent the only way the forum countries can police their waters; by preventing illegal fishing and providing a presence for the fragile governments of the Pacific. The micro-states don't have a lot of money and as a result there have been difficulties with the program.

For example, instead of being at sea for up to 50 days a year, some of the boats have averaged less than 36 days. That's been caused by crewing difficulties and the cost of the fuel needed to operate the boats. Unsurprisingly, some of the micro-states find it difficult to obtain the hard currency required to achieve everything they'd like, but at least the program demonstrates that Australia does care for its neighbours. Instead of costing us about $12million a year, costs have blown out to nearly $50million a year.

This coupled with the fact that the program will come to its natural conclusion in less than a decade has now led to an amazing submission to a Senate inquiry. Despite the program's success, some bureaucrat has decided our military ''does not intend to recommend a Defence-led follow-on [Pacific Patrol Boat] program in the options taken forward to Government''.

This may save a few dollars, but the idiocy of this approach should be self-evident. The program comprises influence and access beyond its financial value. If Australia doesn't choose to maintain its links with the islands, they will quickly become the beneficiaries of Chinese aid and a crucial interaction with the region will be lost forever.

In a move that could have relevance for the way we treat the Pacific, just last week the United States military established its own new regional grouping. Africa Command will now join the three other US military headquarters that span the globe (in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific). The US military understands that the skills necessary to guarantee victory demand an understanding of the unique geographic and cultural factors in different areas. This is an insight that has seemingly eluded Australia's military which concentrates on teaching officers how to fight; they are meant to pick up the other equally crucial skills along the way. This might have been acceptable in the past, when the Pacific was just a backwater, but now that it has become a significant area of conflict, Australia needs commanders who have intimate familiarity with the region and personal contacts with the islands. Assuming the region will just look after itself is no longer good enough.

Nicholas Stuart is a Canberra writer.