Fiji’s prime minister yesterday said that China should not be allowed to gain a permanent military foothold in the strategically contested South Pacific region, adding that a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait would impact Pacific islands.
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said China does not need a military base in the region to project power, as shown by an intercontinental ballistic missile test.
China has spent years cementing its influence in a string of Pacific island nations, challenging traditional security partners such as the US and its ally Australia.
Photo: Bloomberg
The islands are trying to cope with a big, powerful China seeking to spread its influence, Rabuka told the National Press Club in the Australian capital, adding that Beijing understood he would lobby other Pacific leaders against such a base.
“Pacific leaders in all their recent discussions have tried to go for policies that are friendly to all and enemies to none — and it is a fairly tough course to steer, but it is possible,” he said.
The Pacific would feel the impact of any conflict over the Taiwan Strait between major powers, a possibility already being planned for by China and other nations, he said.
Fiji opposes the establishment of a military base by China, he said, in response to queries on Beijing’s security ambitions in a region where it already has a security pact with the Solomon Islands and a police presence in several nations.
“If they want to come, who would welcome them?” he said. “Not Fiji. And I think that China understands that well.”
China’s embassy in Fiji did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Beijing has previously ruled out establishing a military base in the Solomon Islands.
China did not need a base to project power, as Beijing tested an intercontinental ballistic missile in September last year that flew over Fiji to land in international waters, Rabuka said.
China showed off its coast guard to 10 visiting leaders of Pacific islands last month, after registering two dozen of its vessels with a regional fisheries commission last year, although it has yet to start South Pacific patrols.
The China Coast Guard would need to “observe our sovereignty, our sovereign waters,” Rabuka said.
Fiji’s cooperation with China to develop infrastructure should not affect how it interacts with Australia, New Zealand and the US, he added.
To manage strategic competition in the region, Rabuka is trying to build support for an Ocean of Peace treaty to ensure outsiders respect its unity and the “rejection of coercion as a means to achieve security, economic or political advantage.”
Leaders of the 18 members of the Pacific Islands Forum are to consider the pact at a meeting in September.
Beijing has spent hundreds of millions of dollars building sports stadiums, government offices, hospitals and roads in Pacific nations such as the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
The diplomatic charm offensive has already borne fruit. Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and Nauru have in the past few years severed longstanding diplomatic links with Taiwan in favor of China.
The Solomon Islands is seen as a particularly close friend of China in the region, after it in 2022 signed a secretive security pact with Beijing, fueling fears China might seek to use the archipelago as a military base.
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