At a sun-drenched park on Suva’s waterfront, Fiji’s rugby-loving military ruler Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama extols the benefits of taichi as a master of the Chinese martial art looks on.
“It can be used in self-defense and as a form of meditation or as a sport,” Bainimarama told public servants last month.
Bainimarama’s conversion to taichi’s gentle techniques was not prompted by disillusionment with the tough sport he grew up playing — rather, it symbolizes his quest since his 2006 coup to forge closer links with China.
In one of the more unusual examples of Beijing’s “soft power” diplomatic initiatives, after a ministerial visit China sent the taichi master to Fiji to encourage exercise among its public servants.
More conventional signs of China’s influence are dotted around the nation, including the Navuso “friendship bridge” and a hydro-electric scheme under construction at Nadarivatu.
Experts say that Fiji is keen to boost trade with Asia’s rising economic superpower. However, they also said Bainimarama wants to send a message to Australia and New Zealand that the country can look elsewhere if they maintain efforts to isolate it diplomatically.
“A lot of the Chinese angle is a stick to try to beat Canberra and Wellington into signing up for Bainimarama’s reform agenda,” Jon Fraenkel of Canberra’s Australian National University said.
Since the coup, Australia and New Zealand have pushed the regime to restore democracy, pushing for Fiji’s suspension from the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum and the Commonwealth. The US has also criticized the regime and the EU has suspended aid payments.
Suva’s response has been a flurry of diplomatic activity involving China.
However, Fergus Hanson from the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think tank, said there were questions about the depth of the relationship between Beijing and Suva. Immediately after the coup, China was locked in a battle with Taiwan for diplomatic influence in the Pacific and promised generous aid to Fiji, he said.
Some projects are going ahead, much of the heat had now gone out of the China-Taiwan rivalry in the Pacific and not all of Beijing’s pledges had been met, he said.
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