U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has unveiled plans to increase its diplomatic footprint and foreign aid investments in the Pacific Ocean in an effort to combat China’s growing influence and military designs. as well as reversing decades of declining U.S. influence and high-level interest in the United States. the region.
The United States plans to open two new embassies in the Pacific Islands — in Tonga and Kiribati — and appoint the first U.S. envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris during a virtual address to the 18-year-old. nation’s forum this week. The Biden administration is also submitting requests to Congress to replicate $ 60 million in fishing aid funding for the region, and is drawing up plans to open a Pacific Island Agency regional office. The United States for International Development to help the region adapt to the effects. of climate change.
The sheer number of announcements comes as the U.S.’s top global rival, China, seeks to advance the Pacific Islands and contest for more geopolitical influence in the region as part of a diplomatic campaign that alarmed Washington and its allies. In April, Solomon Islands signed a bilateral security cooperation agreement with China that appeared to give it a possible military position on the island chain, raising concerns in the United States and Australia as well. which sent top U.S. officials to try to maneuver the Chinese. government and the Solomon Islands court to win the agreement.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has unveiled plans to increase its diplomatic footprint and foreign aid investments in the Pacific Ocean in an effort to combat China’s growing influence and military designs. as well as reversing decades of declining U.S. influence and high-level interest in the United States. the region.
The United States plans to open two new embassies in the Pacific Islands — in Tonga and Kiribati — and appoint the first U.S. envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), the U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris during a virtual address to the 18-year-old. nation’s forum this week. The Biden administration is also submitting requests to Congress to replicate $ 60 million in fishing aid funding for the region, and is drawing up plans to open a Pacific Island Agency regional office. The United States for International Development to help the region adapt to the effects. of climate change.
The sheer number of announcements comes as the U.S.’s top global rival, China, seeks to advance the Pacific Islands and contest for more geopolitical influence in the region as part of a diplomatic campaign that alarmed Washington and its allies. In April, Solomon Islands signed a bilateral security cooperation agreement with China that appeared to give it a possible military position on the island chain, raising concerns in the United States and Australia as well. which sent top U.S. officials to try to maneuver the Chinese. government and the Solomon Islands court to win the agreement.
“The security agreement that was signed between China and Solomon Islands was really a step forward in the path of strategic competition,” Richard Marles, deputy prime minister and defense minister of Australia, said to reporters in Washington on Thursday. “This will greatly change the national security framework for Australia.” Marles said the United States and Australia were looking to be a “natural partner of choice” for the Pacific Islands, but needed to pay enough attention to the region to earn their trust.
The consensus among officials and experts in the region is that new actions by Washington are too late but not too late.
In her remarks, Harris admitted that the Pacific region had achieved a brief shift in U.S. foreign policy in recent decades. “We recognize that in recent years, the Pacific Islands may not have received the diplomatic attention and support they deserve. So today, I am here to tell you directly: We will change this, ”she said.
“It is very clear now that the United States did not have a Pacific strategy and did not pay enough attention to this region that goes back decades,” said Charles Edel, a former State Department official. United States and an expert on the region at the Center for International Strategies and Studies (CSIS). “There has been a very rapid run to rectify this, both in the short term but also to put us on the path to a more sustainable and strategic approach.”
The United States has long had agreements with the so-called Free Associated States of the Pacific Islands — Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau — both of which govern the U.S. diplomatic relationship with the United States. those countries and allow Washington to bring in aid, a little more. $ 200 million a year through the State and Home Departments. The Department of Defense also regularly conducts missile tests on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. But island nations have criticized the Biden administration for failing to pay enough attention to talks and trust funds to help manage that assistance: Negotiations to re-establish pacts, which should expire next year for Marshall Islands and Micronesia as well as in 2024 for Palau, stalled as arguments over how to distribute funds among the three warm states.
Despite the ongoing turmoil, leaders at the forum praised the sharp rise in high-level US interest, representing something of a diplomatic victory for Washington over Beijing that Harris was allowed to speak at the forum. , even virtually. Other major PIF-joining powers — including France, Britain, and, most notably, China — have not been invited to this year’s summit to make room for genuine regional interests.
“I think it’s clear to see that the United States is certainly looking a lot more like the Pacific partner that we have traditionally kept as,” Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said at the forum.
Solomon Islands leader Manasseh Sogavare also said in an interview on the side of the forum that he would never leave a Chinese military base in his country and referred to Australia as “the security partner of the choice ”of his country in response to the West. shouting about its security pact with China.
But it doesn’t mean the United States and its allies can declare victory, particularly as China continues to increase its engagement with the region. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi toured the Pacific in late May following China’s security deal with Solomon Islands, with the aim of bringing more island nations closer to Beijing through a pact regional. But hopes of creating a deeper relationship in the Pacific have shown that they have not borne fruit as leaders have made it clear that China’s proposed multilateral agreement will not.
“I think this is a huge propaganda defeat for China, the way it has been treated by the islands themselves,” said Alexander Gray, a senior fellow at the U.S. Foreign Policy Council and former director for Oceania and security. Indo-Pacific in the United States National. Security Council during the Trump administration. But if China manages to put a base in the Pacific Islands that is beneficial to the host country, he said, “that will have a ripple effect with other countries considering it.”
Further complicating matters for Washington, it makes sense in the region to take high-level attention only when there is a crisis or when Beijing offers high-level attention to it first. “The United States has a history of putting relations with the Free Associated States on the back burner and ignoring them until a crisis arises. That’s not the best way to maintain friendships, ”said Robert Schwalbach, who is the chief of staff of Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, a non-voting member of the U.S. Congress for the Northern Mariana Islands.
Freely Associated States (FAS) are sovereign states but receive US economic assistance and give the United States basic rights. In March, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken appointed Joseph Yun, a senior career diplomat and seasoned negotiator, to negotiate changes to the agreement governing the FAS-US relationship. . And both members of Congress and island nations have been upset by the speed with which negotiations are moving.
“There is an obvious tension between what Pacific Island leaders want, as far as more attention from the United States, and why the United States is giving this, which is China-focused,” said Gregory Poling, director. of the South-East Asia and Maritime Asia Program. CSIS Transparency Initiative. “The US government, despite its size, still has finite resources. So whenever you decide to focus on a specific region, there is a good chance that it will be linked to the ‘China challenge’. “
Governments in the Pacific are also struggling with the idea of being caught as pawns in China and the United States. fear that geopolitics could confuse more urgent concerns for island nations — more importantly, climate change. Both the United States and China were barred from physically attending the four-day meeting in Fiji as attendance was personally open only to member nations, and seems to confirm the wish of the leaders of the Fiji. Peaceful to avoid any outside pressure during their summit.
“The region is not to be seen as part of a China-US military game,” said Derek Grossman, a researcher on Indo-Pacific security issues at Rand Corporation.
Still, there could be a silver line for small island nations pushing for more investment and economic aid from the major powers. “When it’s happening to both China and the United States and its allies, that’s good,” Poling said. “It simply came to our notice then. You will take advantage of this. You live in a world of great power competition. Make the most of it. ”
Although the United States and its allies have seemed to listen more closely to the concerns of island nations as the region slips further into Beijing’s orbit, experts say it is clear that the demolition Pacific strategy has been accelerated.
“We’re not there yet in terms of treating it as a high enough priority on our part,” Gray said. “The islands are of the same strategic geographical importance as they were in the 19th century. If you are trying to project power from the Western Hemisphere to East Asia, you will have to go through the Central and Northern Pacific and the islands that lie on those sea lanes. “
