Global Courant
This is the concluding part 2 of a series. The first part appeared yesterday.
As we have seen, Fiji’s new Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, set a new course for Fiji’s domestic and foreign policies, including an apparent turn from China to so-called traditional allies such as Australia.
However, Fiji’s new government has also taken an approach of balancing the interests of external power, which at times seems indecisive, but at other times is a signal to some observers the loss of Chinese influence. In this piece, I argue that covering China is merely a reflection of the tightrope walking that Pacific leaders must perform.
The most notable example of a cautious approach to China came in January 2023, when Rabuka decided not to renew a memorandum of understanding between the Fiji Police Force and the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.
The agreement oversaw the training of Fijian police officers in China and the posting of Chinese officers for periods of three to six months in Fiji, as well as the transfer of equipment.
What is lost in the framework of geostrategic competition is that such decisions are, at least ostensibly, not primarily intended to favor one power over another, but to serve the interests of the Fijian people.
In this light, when Rabuka in June this year qualified the status of the MOU, saying it was “under review,” made sense. The Prime Minister has also said that if conditions are right, the MOU could be extended.
Fiji’s former Prime Minister Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama (R) shakes hands with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang (L) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 16, 2017. Photo: Asia Times Files / AFP / Pool / Nicolas Asfouri
Another example of the difficulty in managing converging external interests in Fiji also occurred in the immediate post-election period.
A press release from the Fijian government was issued on January 23 reconfirmed Fiji’s support for the “one China principle”, which states that there is only one China, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), of which Taiwan is a part.
However, there will be an official message from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 24 restored the Beijing-unfriendly name “Trade Mission of the Republic of China (Taiwan)” for Taipei’s representative office in Suva.
And then, in June, the government of Fiji reversed its decision was such that it could not include the controversial term Republic of China. Taiwan claimed the reversal came under pressure from the People’s Republic of China.
Seesaw calibrations
Attempts at high-level meetings between Rabuka and Chinese officials have not gone well. In April Rabuka skipped met with visiting Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu. Furthermore, the Prime Minister canceled a trip to China when he was injured after tripping on a staircase while looking at his cell phone.
Perhaps echoing the wavering calibrations in Fjii’s relations with China, China’s new ambassador, Zhou Jian, said commented that his country would still be open to a security deal with Fiji.
That didn’t seem to work, because three months later in Fiji signed a defense agreement to strengthen military training and maritime security with Aotearoa New Zealand.
Nevertheless, Rabuka’s new direction in foreign relations deserves more context. Comments that to claim The zero-sum results in the geostrategic struggle between China and the United States and allies overlook how the new prime minister has also used his platform to criticize so-called traditional partners.
Within a week of taking office, Rabuka told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that “Australia and New Zealand and the United Kingdom and America… have not reoriented their thinking to the international landscape in which we are all equal.”
Echoing his predecessor’s comments, Rabuka added: “China has come in with a blank sheet of paper. They have seen us as mere development partners.”
What is clear is that China is seen in Suva more as a trade and investment partner, and to a lesser extent as an aid partner, than as a security partner. In keeping with the emphasis on commercial relationships, media in both China And Fiji have reported on the importance of trade for bilateral relations with tourism highlighted as a crucial sector in Fiji’s economic recovery from Covid-19.
Members of the Chinese Social and Cultural Youth Association perform a dragon dance during the Chinese New Year celebration at the Suva Civic Center in January 2020. Photo: The Fiji Times /Jovesa Naisua
Rabuka has continued the pattern established by his predecessor of attending the annual Chinese New Year celebrations organized by the Chinese community in Fiji.
During this year’s festivities he recognized the contributions of Fijian Chinese, stating: “The Chinese diaspora in Fiji may be small, but they are influential and playing an integral part in Fiji’s development.”
In an interview with Voice of South Pacific, a Chinese-language news app, Rabuka discussed his long association with Fijian Chinese while growing up in rural Fiji. The message was one of familiarity with Chinese communities rather than populist exclusion.
In conversations, my Chinese friends from Fiji have expressed relief at the change of government. While many Fijian Chinese supported Bainimarama’s call for inclusivity over who can identify as ‘Fijian’ and/or were cautious about Rabuka’s history of ethnonationalism, they sensed fatigue in the former Prime Minister due to the post-Covid economic stagnation and the widespread corruption that private enterprise.
In Oceania, the stakes are getting higher. Regional leaders appeal It seems that the efforts to keep power politics and militarization out of the region are falling on half-deaf ears. Signs of a militarizing space include the Solomon Islands-China security treaty, the development of AUKUS and the opening of a new American base in Guam, the first in 70 years.
The United States has done that explained a vision for a Pacific-led engagement through the September 2022 Pacific Partnership Strategy, closely aligned with the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Continent in the Pacific agreed by the members of the Pacific Islands Forum in 2021.
In contrast, the Biden administration’s February 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy outlines a much clearer rationale for the presence in the Pacific: the threat from China. In March 2023, China announced a 7% increase in military spending, citing escalating threats as an explanation.
The high stakes of external political, economic and social influence in Oceania are a reality. Since the middle of the last decade, momentum has only increased toward greater economic and military competition, which are deeply intertwined.
Prime Minister Rabuka’s comments and his government’s policies towards external powers do not, in my opinion, indicate a turn from China to the United States and allies. What they do identify is the difficult middle path through these competing interests.
Prime Minister Rabuka is calibrating his ties with the big power. Image: Twitter
Officials from the United States and China can point out that the interests of Pacific islanders are at the heart of their interventions. However, the increased political, diplomatic and economic presence of Washington and Beijing alone means that these statements should be treated with skepticism.
The pressure to choose is a reality and a desired outcome for forces outside the region. The United States and China must fulfill not only their economic promises, but also their promise to leave the choice of political and development partners to the people of Oceania.
But the task of the policymaker to translate ‘no choice’ into tangible benefits for the people of Fiji and more broadly the people of the Pacific Islands, in an atmosphere of tacit terms of friendship, is difficult.
So it’s no surprise that regional political leaders are feeling pulled and pressured in multiple directions as they consider all the costs and benefits of this renewed interest in their blue continent.
Henryk Szadziewski PhD (henryksz@hawaii.edu) is an affiliate of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
His work on Oceania and China has been published in Political Geography, Geographical Research and Asia Policy. He is currently working on a book entitled Mapping Chinese Fiji.
Republished with the kind permission of Pacific Forum.
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