Global Courant
The announcement comes as US President Joe Biden prepares to host a second summit with Pacific Island leaders in Washington DC.
Joe Biden, the President of the United States, is about to announce the opening of new embassies in the Cook Islands and Niue as part of a charm offensive to block China’s invasion of the South Pacific.
The announcement about the new diplomatic missions on Sunday came as Biden prepared to welcome Pacific Island leaders to Washington, D.C., for a two-day U.S.-Pacific Island Forum Summit.
The discussions are expected to focus heavily on the impact of climate change in the region.
Biden has placed great emphasis on improving relations in the Pacific amid growing US concerns about China’s growing military and economic influence. Plans about the embassies were confirmed by two senior government officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity before the formal announcement.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden would use the summit to “strengthen ties with the Pacific Islands and discuss how we address complex global challenges, such as addressing the existential threat of climate change , promoting economic growth and promoting sustainable development”.
The leaders were scheduled to be honored Sunday at a Baltimore Ravens football game and visit a Coast Guard cutter in the Port of Baltimore for a briefing by the U.S. Coast Guard commander on combating illegal fishing and other maritime issues.
Pacific Island leaders have been critical of rich countries for not doing enough to control climate change, despite being responsible for much of the problem, and for benefiting from loans that have been provided to vulnerable countries to mitigate their effects.
At last year’s summit, the White House unveiled its Pacific Strategy, an outline of its plan to help the region’s leaders tackle pressing issues such as climate change, maritime security and protecting the region from overfishing. It pledged that the U.S. would add $810 million in new aid to Pacific island nations over the next decade, including $130 million in efforts to hinder the effects of climate change.
Meg Keen, director of Pacific Island Programs at Australia’s Lowy Institute, said while the US had opened new embassies and USAID offices in the region since last year’s summit, Congress had yet to approve the funds.
She added that Pacific island states “welcome the US’s renewed involvement in the region, but do not want geopolitical fighting to result in an escalation of militarization.”
The Pacific Island Forum includes Australia, Cook Islands, Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands , Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
The White House said most members of the 18-member forum sent their top elected official or secretary of state to the summit.
But the administration was “very disappointed” that Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of the Solomon Islands, who was in New York last week for the United Nations General Assembly, chose not to remain at the White House summit, an official said .
The Solomon Islands signed a security pact with China last year.
Vanuatu Prime Minister Meltek Sato Kilman Livtuvanu is also expected to miss the summit. He was chosen by lawmakers earlier this month to replace Ishmael Kalsakau, who lost a vote of no confidence in parliament over, among other things, signing a security pact with US ally Australia.
The US is still negotiating the opening of an embassy in Vanuatu but has not significantly increased its engagement with the country, which considers China its largest external creditor. China sent police experts to Vanuatu last month and signed a police agreement.
U.S. efforts to deepen engagement with the Pacific Islands this year also include opening embassies in the Solomon Islands and Tonga and renewing agreements with Palau and Micronesia that give the country exclusive military access to strategic parts of the Pacific ocean.
The US has yet to renew a similar deal with the Marshall Islands, which wants more money to address the legacy of large-scale US nuclear testing in the 1940s and 1950s.
A Biden administration official said he was confident of reaching a deal with the Marshall Islands.
