Vanuatu minister tells Australia to respect China policing deal<\/a><\/p>\nVanuatu’s internal affairs minister says Australia needs to respect his country’s plan to sign a new policing agreement with China, and has taken a swipe at Pacific Minister Pat Conroy as controversy over the proposal rumbles along.<\/p>\n
The work gets done. The ribbon-cuttings follow. The influence sticks.<\/p>\n
Beijing has also been reinforcing security ties, hosting the fourth Ministerial Dialogue on Law-Enforcement and Police Cooperation with Pacific Island countries last week.<\/p>\n
Ministers from Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Samoa, Nauru and Papua New Guinea gathered in Jiangsu province to discuss closer policing links and “professional, efficient, friendly” cooperation.<\/p>\n
The meeting reflected how China now frames its Pacific ties not only in economic but also in security terms.<\/p>\n
And while Western capitals focus on defence alignments, Beijing’s messaging leans on “shared development”.<\/p>\n
At the celebration of six years of diplomatic relations in the Solomon Islands, China’s ambassador Cai Weiming praised the “deepening friendship” between the two nations and reiterated Beijing’s role as a “responsible major power” \u2014 one that builds infrastructure, not divides alliances.<\/p>\n
However, every kilometre of road and each mining deal carries a political purpose \u2014 the long game is UN votes and the steady isolation of Taiwan.<\/p>\n
The Pacific may look small on a map, but with around a dozen UN member states scattered across its islands, it carries a collective diplomatic weight that Beijing values.<\/p>\n
That strategy was reinforced again this week, when Vice-President Han Zheng met PNG Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso in Beijing.<\/p>\n
Han pledged to “elevate” a comprehensive strategic partnership and expand cooperation in trade, infrastructure and climate adaptation \u2014 and Rosso reaffirmed Papua New Guinea’s “one-China” position.<\/p>\n
Loading\u00a0Prosperity and unease<\/p>\n
China’s speed also has a cost.<\/p>\n
In Solomon Islands, community elder Stanley Vatiande warned that the Gold Ridge tailings dam “could break at any time if a disaster strikes” \u2014 a real concern in a country prone to floods and earthquakes.<\/p>\n
That tension runs through many Chinese-backed projects: jobs and infrastructure on one side, environmental risk and social unease on the other.<\/p>\n
Prosperity today, uncertainty tomorrow.<\/p>\n
For Australia and the US, the Pacific is no longer a comfortable backyard \u2014 it’s a battleground of credibility.<\/p>\n
Canberra promotes “Pacific family” values and governance reform; Washington adds defence cooperation.<\/p>\n
Beijing counters with visible transformation.<\/p>\n
In places where development has been slow and uneven, a new road can weigh more politically than a promise of reform.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Beijing is repositioning itself as a climate leader \u2014 a message designed to resonate across the islands.<\/p>\n
In late September, China announced new emissions targets: a 7\u201310 per cent cut from peak levels by 2035, non-fossil energy to exceed 30 per cent, and wind and solar capacity to rise to six times the 2020 level.<\/p>\n
The signal to Pacific partners was clear \u2014 China is not just a builder, but also a global climate problem-solver.<\/p>\n
Whether and how Beijing can achieve that goal remains an open question.<\/p>\n
China’s Pacific playbook works because it turns necessity into advantage \u2014 yet the same visibility that builds trust could also undo it.<\/p>\n
If projects like Gold Ridge and the Tina Hydropower Station deliver growth while managing environmental risk and community consent, Beijing’s model will embed.<\/p>\n
If they don’t, the very visibility that fuels its influence could erode it.<\/p>\n
For Pacific nations and for China, that responsibility now lies not in grand ceremonies, but in how the roads hold, how the revenues are shared, and how communities are heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China’s rise in the Pacific isn’t just about aid or diplomacy \u2014 it’s about survival and power. As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3686,512,37334,135727,43,25502,6827,44,10956,36818,135726,41,39,42,40,9731],"class_list":["post-223549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-beijing","tag-china","tag-china-economy","tag-gao-mingfeng","tag-headlines","tag-hydropower","tag-mining","tag-news","tag-pacific","tag-solomon-islands","tag-tina-hydropower-project","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}