China has renewed efforts to curry favor in Pacific island nations, a new report found on Wednesday, after charting a “resurgence” in Beijing-backed aid and infrastructure funding.
Over the past decade, China has lavished billions of dollars on Pacific island nations, part of ongoing efforts to build influence in competition with the US and its allies.
Having cut back on Pacific aid at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s commitments have climbed in recent years, the Lowy Institute said in a new study.
Photo: AFP
“Beijing has emerged from a pandemic-induced lull with a more competitive, politically targeted model of aid engagement,” the Australia-based think tank said in its annual Pacific aid report.
“The uptick in Chinese spending has been accompanied by a resurgence in new Chinese project commitments, signaling a revival in its ambition to engage in major infrastructure works in the Pacific,” it said.
Australia — traditionally the Pacific’s partner of choice — remained the largest donor, but US funding now narrowly trails that of China, the second-largest bilateral donor in the region, authors Alexandre Dayant and Riley Duke said.
In 2022, the most recent year with complete data, China spent $256 million — up nearly 14 percent from three years earlier.
Australia spent US$1.5 billion, and the US spent $249 million — both figures falling after a sharp increase the previous year.
There had been a noticeable shift in the way China engages throughout the region, the report said.
Instead of splashing cash in a broad-brush approach, Beijing was increasingly zeroing in on a handful of friendly Pacific Island states.
Solomon Islands and Kiribati were singled out for school upgrades, new roads and government vehicles after severing diplomatic links with Taiwan in 2019.
Papua New Guinea, which signed a security agreement with the US last year, saw development funding from China dwindle.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS