SUVA, Fiji – US Vice President Kamala Harris reassured Pacific Island leaders of greater US involvement after admitting on Wednesday that the US may not have provided the diplomatic attention the region deserves beforehand.
Harris’s virtual speech to the Pacific Islands Forum, held in Fiji’s capital Suva, comes as China competes for greater influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
She proposed the creation of new embassies in Tonga and Kiribati, a Micronesian state that split off from the 18th-nation forum this week, dealing a serious blow to regional harmony.
Harris also proposed that the US Congress triple funding for fisheries aid to $ 60 million a year, and nominated the first US envoy to the forum.
“The United States is a proud country in the Pacific and has an enduring commitment to the Pacific Islands, so President Joe Biden and I are working to strengthen our partnership with you,” said Harris.
“We recognize that in recent years the Pacific Islands may not have received the diplomatic attention and support you deserve. So today I am here to say directly that we are going to change it – she added.
Harris’s involvement was welcomed by Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimaram, president of the forum, who invited her to speak.
Her invitation was remarkable given that the forum’s dialogue partners – including the United States, China, the United Kingdom and France – were not invited to this year’s summit.
“I think it is clear that the United States certainly looks much more like the Pacific partner that we have traditionally considered,” said Bainimarama.
In Beijing, a Chinese official said his government welcomed greater support from others to help develop and revitalize the Pacific islands, but warned that such efforts should not be made to counter China.
“We believe that when undertaking cooperation with island countries, all countries should be guided by the principle of openness, inclusiveness and not to attack third parties or harm their interests,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.
The United States and the richest nations of the forum, Australia and New Zealand, are concerned about the security pact signed this year between China and the Solomon Islands.
They fear the pact could lead to the creation of a Chinese naval base in the South Pacific less than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) off Australia’s northeast coast.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrived in Suva on Wednesday and plans to hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Solomon Manasseh Sogavare.
The Albanian government was elected in May with promises to take further action on climate change and an additional AU $ 525 million ($ 358 million) spent on regional aid. Climate change is the forum’s biggest security concern.
Australia also has a security pact with the Solomon Islands, and Australian police have kept peace in the capital Honiara since the violence at the end of last year.
The new Australian government described the China-Solomon Pact as the worst failure of Australia’s Pacific policy since World War II.
Albanians admitted in Suva that Australia in recent years “has not paid enough attention” to the Pacific Island region. “And I know the Biden administration said that,” he added.
“I am very pleased with the increased US commitment to the region,” said Albanese, describing the Harris support package as “significant”.
Both the Solomon Islands and Kiribati have recently transferred their diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing. Kiribati’s withdrawal from the forum is interpreted as deepening China’s influence in the region.
Is New Zealand a Pacific island?
| New Zealand Aotearoa (Maori) | |
|---|---|
| Official languages | English Maori NZ sign language |
Is New Zealand part of the Pacific Islands? New Zealand has always been geographically the Pacific Island Group. As New Zealand’s identity shifted from a remote outpost of the British Empire, increasing emphasis was placed on links, both cultural and political, to other island nations in the Pacific.
What is considered island Pacific?
These are the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Palau, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna.
How many countries are in the Pacific islands?
In addition to tens of thousands of islands, islets and atolls, there are 15 independent island states in the Pacific. This may interest you : Whitmer Announces Business Expansion, Creates Manufacturing Locations, and Generates Flint Investments. The independent nations are: Northern Mariana Islands.
What ocean is between Japan and California?
Map [Map of the Pacific Ocean between the coasts of California and Mexico and Japan, the Philippines and the coast of China]. Read also : United States: National Day of South Sudan.
What is the ocean next to Japan? Sea of Japan, Japanese Nihon-kai, Russian Yaponskoye More, also known as the East Sea, Korean Tonghae or Donghae, the marginal sea of the Western Pacific. It borders Japan and the island of Sakhalin to the east, and Russia and Korea on the Asian continent to the west. It covers an area of 377,600 square miles (978,000 km2).
Is Japan connected to the Pacific Ocean?
The Sea of Japan is connected to the East China Sea in the south by the Tsushima and Korean Straits and to the Sea of Okhotsk in the north by the La Perouse and Tatar Straits. This may interest you : Changing lifestyle to improve consumption of oral medical food products likely to top US$11 billion by 2032: Fact.MR study. To the east, it is connected to the Inland Sea of Japan via the Kanmon Strait and the Pacific Ocean via the Tsugaru Strait.
What is the name of the ocean between Japan and USA?
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earth’s five ocean divisions. It stretches from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on its definition, Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia to the west and the Americas to the east.
Who renamed the South Sea?
The Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa coined the term “South Sea”. when he traveled through the Isthmus of Panama and reached San Miguel Bay, naming the ocean ahead of Mar del Sur (“South Sea”) because of its location along the southern edge of the isthmus.
What is the name of the South Sea now? The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, is a reservoir of salt water that covers approximately one-sixteenth of the total area of the world’s oceans. The Southern Ocean consists of parts of the world oceans south of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans and their tributary seas surrounding Antarctica below 60 ° S.
How did the 5 oceans get their names?
The 5 oceans have been given different names for geographic, navigational, scientific and historical reasons. Historically, explorers and geographers have recognized the existence of 4 oceans – the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian and the Arctic.
What did the Spanish call the Pacific ocean?
Magellan named the ocean Pacífico (or “Pacific” meaning “calm”) because the expedition found calm waters after sailing through the rough seas at Cape Horn.
Is South Africa in the south Pacific?
South Pacific is the area consisting of all routes between points in the USA / Canada and points in the Southwest Pacific through the Pacific. Southwest Africa means points in Africa consisting of Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland.
What area is considered the South Pacific? The South Pacific was bounded to the west by the Southwest Pacific Area, to the North by the Central Pacific Area, and to the East by the South East Pacific Area. Originally it included the island groups of Ellice, Phoenix, Marquesas, Tuamotu, Samoa, Fiji and the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia and New Zealand.
Which islands are considered south Pacific?
- Cook Islands. Less famous than neighboring Tahiti, these 15 islands, named after English explorer Captain James Cook and operating as a self-governing nation with ties to New Zealand, are home to 19,000 people known for drumming and dancing. …
- Samoa. …
- Tonga. …
- Easter Island (Rapa Nui) …
- Vanuatu. …
- Guam. …
- Palau.
What does south Pacific include?
South Pacific means a region including Australia, Christmas Islands, Cocos Islands, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and the island of Futuna.
