U.S. and China battle for influence in Pacific island nations

The Washington Post NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga — China is everywhere in this Pacific island kingdom, from the grand central embassy packed with diplomats, to the young Tongans who have been on student exchanges to Chinese universities, to the government’s balance sheets, burdened with sky-high debts to Beijing.

Now, as Washington fears that Beijing is outcompeting it in even the tiniest of countries, the Biden administration is rushing to boost long-dormant ties to island nations across the region where China has a strong presence. Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week became the first-ever Cabinet official to visit Tonga, dedicating a new U.S. Embassy in this low-lying capital, and other officials are due to fan across Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, Palau and elsewhere in the weeks to come, seeking to close the gap in a region that administration officials acknowledge has gotten

“short shrift.”

The question will be whether Washington’s enticements can be enough to corral nations where China has a years-long head start. The United States largely abandoned the region after the Cold War.

Already, the leaders of the Solomon Islands have cast themselves deeply into Beijing’s camp, signing defense and policing pacts over American objections. Fiji has agreed to law enforcement cooperation that gives

Chinese officials sweeping powers on its territory, but the new government has vowed to rip it up. Tonga is deeply in debt to China. And previous bursts of interest from Washington have quickly dissipated, leaving local leaders unsure whether this time is different.

“The United States is determined to be a strong partner,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday after meeting with top Tongan leaders. He said that Tonga and other Pacific island nations were free to pick their partners, including China, and that they did not face a choice between Washington and Beijing. But he added that he was worried about Chinese behavior toward the region.

“As Chinese engagement with the region has grown, there has been some, from our perspective, increasingly problematic behavior,” he said, including predatory financing, the militarization of the South China Sea, and See PACIFIC Page 7

Pacific

From Page 6 investments that undermine other countries’ sovereignty.

“It is a clear indication to us of the desire and commitment by the United States of America to strengthen relations between our two countries,” said Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni, speaking alongside Blinken after their meeting. “We’ve been asking the United States to actually have a presence here for a very long time.”

The stakes could be enormous. Despite their small size, each country has an equal vote inside the United Nations. They control fisheries and seabed minerals over a stretch of ocean three times larger than the continental United States. And they sit as beacons in a region that has strategic importance in any conflict involving China. One leader, then-Micronesian President David Panuelo, declared in March that Beijing had been engaged in “political warfare” to gain control of his country’s strategic infrastructure, which lies within striking distance of a key U.S. military base in Guam. China “is putting forward an order defined by . . . economic coercion,” Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told an audience attending a Brookings Institution event last week. “We see them engaging in other forms of corruption and influence throughout the region.”

The benefits to China have been significant: Several island nations have dropped their recognition of Taiwan in favor of Beijing, a core Chinese demand. And Beijing has won expanded access for its fishing fleet. Its outreach to the region is omnipresent - just as Blinken was touching down in Tonga, a Chinese military-run hospital ship was sailing away from a weeklong visit to Kiribati, with planned visits to Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, East Timor and Tonga itself, according to the Chinese Defense Ministry.

Even Blinken’s meetings here came under the banner of the Chinese government: He met top Tongan leaders in the St. George government building, built in 2015 with an $11 million grant from the Chinese government. Visitors pass under a bronze plaque that says “China Aid” in red letters and Chinese characters, hung over the front door.

Spooked by inroads China has made into the region, the State Department has moved rapidly this year to build up a diplomatic presence after President Biden hosted Pacific leaders at the White House in September. The United States opened embassies in the Solomon Islands in January - it closed its embassy in Honiara in 1993 - and in Tonga in May. There are plans for two more in Vanuatu and Kiribati.

You “may not have received the diplomatic support and attention that you

See PACIFIC Page 8