China View: The Outer Pacific in Chinese Foreign Policy
M Swiet Productions
In recent years, China has exercised greater influence abroad - and the world has noticed. Questions of how Chinese foreign policy may be impacting the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Southeast Asia have shifted the world’s geopolitical center to Asia. However, there is a lack of coverage on topics that regard the Outer Pacific, and in particular the sub-regions of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. Occupying the eastern longitudes on world maps, these sub-regions are made up of thousands of small and medium sizes islands.
Micronesia, to the East of the Philippines, is made up of four archipelagos: the Caroline Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Mariana Islands, and the Marshall Islands, some of which are often referred to as the Federated States of Micronesia. Just below Micronesia, to the North of Australia, there is Melanesia, including the independent countries of Fiji, Vanuatu, The Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Western New Guinea, and New Caledonia. The biggest set of islands, however, remains Polynesia, The Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Tuvalu, Samoa, New Zealand, and the Easter Island.
The Outer Pacific: Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. (Credit: BRITANNICA)
While this region is often under-researched, it is an important Oceanic region that extends to the North until the South Pacific and englobes a diversity of cultures, civilizations, and languages. As mentioned in a previous article exploring Taiwanese aboriginals, the majority of the Oceanic populations have Austronesian origins and may have moved around the Pacific, bringing their genetic features all over East Asia. There may be therefore genetic connections between Austronesian civilizations to the peoples of countries like China, The Philippines, Indonesia, spreading until Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.
What does China have to do with the Outer Pacific? The Outer Pacific sub-regions of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia are incredible touristic destinations where nature still seems to rule how humans lead their life, and provides simple but astonishing experiences to tourists, especially to those coming from huge metropoles in the Mainland. That of the South Pacific, however, is a type of luxury tourism which, in the Chinese case, mainly involves tourists belonging to the middle-class to higher elitist classes. The graphs below show that certain islands in the Pacific are main recipients of international tourism, and these often include Fiji in Melanesia, French Polynesia, and Guam in Micronesia. The graphs below also show the average of tourism per each sub-region separately (red line).
“Number of tourist arrivals registered in the Fijis (Melanesia) each year.” (CREDIT: worlddata.info; World Tourism Organization)
“Number of tourist arrivals registered in French Polynesia (Polynesia) each year.” (CREDIT: worlddata.info; World Tourism Organization)
“Number of tourist arrivals registered in Guam (Micronesia) each year.” (CREDIT: worlddata.info; World Tourism Organization)
* data is given in millions of tourists.
A video by CGTN from 2019 reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping has been aiming to enhance cooperation with the Pacific islands. These are particularly attractive to Chinese investment, which mainly targets developing countries often not taken into consideration by other powerful economies. From the Chinese perspective, it is in China's interest to promote cooperation in both East Asia and the Pacific region in the hope to encourage long-lasting peace and amity among a diversity of populations, working together to uplift their region and enhance regionalism. Some of these Pacific islands, however, have for long been under the influence of the US, and some are concerned that the increasing presence of China will eventually create a conflict of interest, and put Pacific islands in the difficult position of choosing who to side with. This is because, like many countries in South East Asia, the Pacific sub-regions too were for long under the influence of colonialism under the hands of Europeans and, later, Americans. Hence why some islands still have English or French names. In this sense, China shares with the South Pacific a similar story as many Chinese were sent by foreign settlers into the Pacific islands to work as slaves for the colonial populations. Below, on the right, is an interesting story covered by TheCoconetTV which reports the adventures of the Chinese in Polynesian Samoa. From this extract of a longer documentary, one could easily understand the injustices Chinese men, particularly, went to suffer on these islands. In fact, while many created their own families with local women, this was considered illegal, and new fathers were often sent back to China whenever this happened, therefore Samoan kids from these unions grew up without the male father figure in their life.
It is difficult, however, to tell whether China is still attached to history or whether the motives driving cooperation between China and the South Pacific are solely economic. Various interviews also show the mainstream US or Australian perspective aligning into the common concern that China might be embracing these developing economies only to later benefit from their weaknesses. In the TV programs 60 Minutes Australia and Sky News Australia, experts declare to be worried “What the Chinese tend to do is that they put heavy investment In countries that simply do not have the means to pay the debt back. So they're getting countries addicted to debt and then when they call in the debt, countries can't pay, so the Chinese would take a port, or a territory, or an island.” This is what happened to the Solomon Islands, which already in 2019 agreed to lease the island of Tulagi to the Chinese, as part of a cooperative agreement to develop a refinery on the island, which experts worry will eventually be utilized for other means, such as for military means. The Solomon Islands were one of the few countries still recognizing Taiwan as an independent entity, but they broke off ties with Taiwan so that they could announce cooperation with China and, therefore, agreed with the “One China” policy, recognizing China as the sole official Chinese state.
From an international conference in Micronesia, it has emerged that China does not mean to have military scopes in the South Pacific. In fact, when a Chinese official was asked about whether he thought cooperating with states normally under the sphere of influence of the US would lead to potential conflicts, the official asked the journalist “Do you really believe that Pacific island countries, including Micronesia, would really like any other country to dominate them? I don’t believe so. […] They highly appreciate that China always treats them on an equal basis.” He later explained this type of approach is the norm in Chinese foreign policy. In fact, this is also what happened in Papua New Guinea, which joined the Chinese Belt and Road initiative in 2018 and has since been the largest recipient of Chinese investment in the region. Thanks to the early stages of this initiative, trade volume achieved a year-on-year growth of 25% in 2017, jumping to nearly 3 billion dollars.
How is this however influencing Australia, the Biggest economy in Oceania? From the Australian perspective, encounters with Chinese ships closer to the Australian borders have not helped improve the view of the Australian government towards Chinese cooperation with the South Pacific islands. China and Australia have shared significant and positive corporations for years, however, Australia might now feel that China is getting too close to its waters both geographically and politically. A video by 60 minutes Australia below explains this view, which may serve to Chinese to better understand the perspectives of all parties involved before going forward with agreements that would dangerously shake up the balance in the region.
