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A specialist in the Indo-Pacific, Cleo Paskal is a Canadian researcher associated with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, after leading the project “Geostrategic Perspectives for the Indo-Pacific 2019-2024” at the independent institute Chatham House in London. It analyzes the impact of the exceptional visit of the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, from May 26 to June 4, to eight Pacific island states in order to seal numerous bilateral security and economic agreements: East Timor, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa.
Why does China make so much effort to establish cooperation with Pacific island states? What is its overall objective?
It all starts with geography: if you look offshore from the coast of China, the first thing you see is a chain of islands blocking you, stretching from Japan to the Philippines to Taiwan. Space may seem vast, but if you want to deploy submarines and planes, or access the high seas, it’s not. To reach the Indo-Pacific, but also the Arctic, China needs to break this chain and, for that, to take Taiwan. From Taiwan, it will be able to project its power, create an area of control, and this includes the islands of the Pacific.
To this end, China has made a huge effort to develop the world’s leading navy. Under cover of its “civil-military fusion” doctrine, it can also deploy fishing fleets to serve its naval power.
The goal is to win a “political war”. The second determining map is therefore that of the so-called “civilian” infrastructures, ports or airports, that China acquires in the islands: its excellent strategists have studied history, many of these are places used by the United States and Japan. during the Second World War.
Wang Yi wanted to sign a regional agreement on security and the economy, two related subjects for China, but he seems to have failed on this multilateral aspect…
There was never any talk of a real multilateral agreement. Four of the Pacific island states recognize Taiwan [Tuvalu, Marshall, Palau et Nauru] and Beijing does not dialogue with them. The Chinese test ideas, offer a lot to get less. We cannot speak of failure. They have excellent intelligence, they are very likely to tap the phones of leaders in the region, and they know exactly who to negotiate with. It is important for them to identify who is fighting them, such as the President of the Federation of Micronesian States, David Panuelo, who courageously warned of the threats that China represents for regional peace. He is the target of very violent political attacks.
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