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.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
Burmese President Min Aung Hlaing yesterday cut all prisoners’ sentences by one-sixth, a blanket measure that a source close to deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi said would further shorten her detention. Aung San Suu Kyi has been sequestered since a 2021 military coup, but the senior member of her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party said that while her term had been reduced, her remaining sentence is still unclear. “We also don’t know exactly how many years she has left,” the source told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The military toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government
RSS