Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals.
Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands.
Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through.
Photo: AP
“The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said on Monday evening in a statement.
Pacific nations Kiribati, Cook Islands and Nauru sit at the forefront of a highly contentious push to mine the depths of the ocean.
Kiribati holds rights for deep-sea mining exploration across a 75,000km2 swathe of the Pacific, in a region known as the Clarion Clipperton Zone. Through state-backed subsidiary Marawa Research, Kiribati had been working with Canada-based The Metals Co to explore the mineral deposits. However, that agreement was terminated “mutually” at the end of last year, the company told AFP.
A Kiribati fisheries official said the nation was now exploring opportunities with other foreign partners.
The Metals Co said Kiribati’s mining rights were “less commercially favorable” than other projects with Pacific nations Nauru and Tonga.
Kiribati’s announcement comes as international regulators begin a series of crunch meetings that could decide the fate of the nascent industry. The Metals Co and other industry players are pushing the International Seabed Authority to set rules allowing large-scale exploitation.
Kiribati, a climate-threatened archipelago that is home to about 130,000 people, lays claim to an ocean expanse that forms one of the largest exclusive economic zones in the world.
Kiribati President Taneti Maamau’s administration in 2019 severed diplomatic links with Taiwan in favor of China.
Chinese companies have in recent years been granted rights to harvest Kiribati’s profitable fisheries — one of the nation’s few natural resources besides minerals.
A visiting cadre of Beijing police have also visited the capital, Tarawa, to help train local Kiribati forces.
Tessie Lambourne, a leading member of Kiribati’s opposition, said China seemed to be seeking access to “our maritime space for its own interest.”
“I always say that our government is bending over backwards to please China,” she said.
China and Cook Islands last month struck a five-year cooperation agreement to study the Pacific nation’s seabed mineral riches. The deal did not include any exploration or mining license.
Companies hope to earn billions by scraping the ocean floor for polymetallic rocks, or nodules, that are loaded with manganese, cobalt, copper and nickel — metals used to build batteries for electric vehicles.
Nauru and Kiribati believe the industry holds the key to economic prosperity in a region where scarce land is already under threat from rising seas.
However, Palau, Fiji and Samoa are staunchly opposed, pushing for lingering environmental questions to be cleared up before anyone takes the plunge.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS