Dragon in paradise: China's rising star in Oceania

National Interest, The, Summer, 2003 by John Henderson, Benjamin Reilly

STILL PREOCCUPIED with the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government risks overlooking important developments in peripheral regions. One such development is the growing role of China in Oceania--a vast Pacific Ocean area that covers nearly a third of the globe. Oceania includes 14 independent island states and related territories that, along with Australia and New Zealand, make up the Pacific Islands Forum, the main regional body. Since the Cold War's end, as the United States has downgraded its involvement in Oceania, China has increased its own investment. In an evolving relationship between the mighty and the micro states of the world, this shift of great power valence may bear important long-term consequences for the changing balance of international security.

Changing Partners

DURING THE Cold War, the United States engaged the Pacific island nations through a policy of "strategic denial" aimed at thwarting Soviet efforts to establish a regional naval presence. But in the post-Cold War period, U.S. links to the region have been significantly downgraded. This has been accompanied by the departure of former colonial powers like Britain, and an increasing focus on Asia at the expense of the Pacific by regional allies such as Australia and New Zealand. Japan has become the region's largest aid donor, South Korea is showing increasing interest in the region, and Taiwan effectively "buys" diplomatic recognition from some of the smallest island states. But most significant by far among these new players is China.

China, however, is not just filling a political vacuum created by Western neglect. It is incorporating the Pacific islands into its broader quest to become a major Asia-Pacific power. The result may be a new and unwelcome role for Oceania from the U.S. perspective. While the region is unlikely ever to become the center of superpower competition, it may well become an important arena for China to establish footholds of influence, recruit new allies and to test its growing strength and ability to command allegiance in a region hitherto dominated by the Western powers.

At a broad level, China's expanding Pacific role is an inevitable by-product of its rising power. But there is also a particular congruence between China's broader foreign policy objectives and the interests of many Pacific island states. China's long-term goal is to ultimately replace the United States as the pre-eminent power in the Pacific Ocean. For the island states themselves, by contrast, the objective is partly to play the "China card"--to flirt with a potential U.S. adversary in an attempt to revive declining post-Cold War Western interest and aid payments. The net result is a strong complementarity of divergent interests in China's growing relationship with Oceania. As a result, it can no longer be taken for granted that Oceania will remain a relatively benign "American lake."

It has taken two to dance this tango. The Pacific is now clearly an area of low U.S. priority. In recent years Washington has closed embassies in the Solomon Islands and Samoa, pulled out aid posts in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and cut back on scholarships and other assistance. Meanwhile, China's expanding influence in Oceania has gone almost unremarked in Washington. This is partly because most Pacific island states have viewed China's growing role in Oceania with favor rather than fear. Their leaders and diplomats have not tried to focus American attention on what they deem to be unproblematic. Faced with increased political instability and a precarious economic future, even the relatively small involvement of a large power can have a major impact on domestic developments in many Pacific states. Moreover, the generous assistance they get from benefactors such as China and Taiwan, which (unlike their Western counterparts) do not set pre-conditions of "good" (that is, democratic) governance for receiving deve lopment aid, is particularly welcome in the region.

The trend of recent years has therefore been for Pacific island states to "look north", and China has encouraged this process through the extensive use of "visit" diplomacy. Over the past two years, China has hosted the leaders of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuata, Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga, Kiribati and East Timor. It is now accepted routine that the first official overseas visit by a new head of government from the region is made to Beijing, not to Canberra, Washington or Wellington. The extensive range of these visits means that most Pacific island leaders have had much closer personal contact with and a greater knowledge of the Chinese leadership than they do of senior politicians and officials in the United States. For China, such "visit" diplomacy provides a lucrative return on a modest investment. It stands as an example of how skillful diplomacy can enable a state to gain influence over vast areas through the acquiescence of very few people.

Trouble in Paradise