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China's new Pacific Pact alarms the West: Blinken speaks of the "greatest challenge" - despite Putin

2022-05-26T17:24:23.092Z


China wants to conclude a pact with ten Pacific countries. The US and Australia are alarmed. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warns of major challenges from Beijing.


China wants to conclude a pact with ten Pacific countries.

The US and Australia are alarmed.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warns of major challenges from Beijing.

Munich/Washington – As if the Ukraine war wasn't enough: The West is looking at China with growing concern.

Western countries have reacted with alarm to a planned cooperation agreement between China and several South Pacific countries.

Beijing is trying to increase its influence in the region, Australia's new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said on Thursday.

The US government also warned the Pacific States against "opaque" agreements with Beijing.

China's draft pact, entitled "Common Development Vision," envisages far-reaching security and economic cooperation with ten island states, including the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Papua New Guinea.

"Even as President Putin's war continues, we will remain focused on the greatest long-term challenge to the international order -- and that emanates from the People's Republic of China," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a keynote address on China policy on Thursday in Washington.

The People's Republic is the only country "that has both the intention to transform the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do so".

In the US, China is increasingly seen under the magnifying glass of a deepening conflict between the world's democracies and autocracies.

Blinking: China is subverting global order

China also owes its rise to the stability and opportunities of the international order, said Blinken in the long-awaited speech at George Washington University.

“Probably no other country in the world has benefited from this more than China.

But instead of using its power to strengthen and revitalize the laws, agreements, principles and institutions that enabled its success - so that other countries can also benefit - Beijing is undermining them," Blinken added.

The Chinese Communist Party under head of state and party leader Xi Jinping has “become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad.”

Blinken nevertheless emphasized that the USA and China had to get along with each other.

China plays an essential role in the world economy and in solving global challenges such as the climate crisis or the corona pandemic.

"So this is one of the most complex and consequential relationships we have in the world today."

China's Activities in the Pacific: Expanding the Sphere of Power

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to the Pacific region on Thursday, where he will visit eight island countries.

On the Solomon Islands, he rejected criticism of the Pacific plans, which are said to include economic support worth millions.

"China's cooperation with the Pacific Island countries is not directed against any particular country," he said in Honiara.

China had just concluded a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, which caused great unrest in Australia and New Zealand.

Both fear Chinese military bases in their backyards, although Honiara has since ruled that out.

Wang Yi also emphasized that China has "no intention at all" to set up a military base in the Solomon Islands.

Military base or not: China is showing an increasing presence in the South Pacific, where until a few years ago many islands still maintained diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a breakaway province.

It was not until 2021 that the Solomon Islands switched their diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

Due to Beijing's one-China principle, each country can only maintain diplomatic relations with one of the two countries.

For the vast majority of the world, that means: With Beijing.

In any case, this development shows that China has been working increasingly for years to expand its sphere of influence beyond the so-called first island chain.

This chain of islands consists of Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines, among others, and shields China from the open ocean – to the annoyance of Beijing, because US allies are the dominant force there.

The draft agreement with the ten Pacific Islands now offers them the prospect of a free trade agreement and thus access to China's huge market.

And that's more than the US IPEF initiative that US President Joe Biden just launched on his trip to Asia.

It deals with cooperation with Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea in supply chains, climate protection and other economic issues.

There is no free access to the US market.

In exchange for the free trade agreement, China would be involved in police training and cybersecurity development on the islands, and would be given better access to local natural resources.

The pact could be finalized on Monday when Wang meets with the region's foreign ministers in Fiji.

US and China: growing confrontation in South Pacific

The South Pacific is thus increasingly becoming another arena for competition between China and the USA.

According to the State Department, the US government fears that the agreements could be negotiated "in a hasty, non-transparent procedure".

China has a "pattern of offering opaque, vague deals with little transparency or regional collusion," State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

Australia's new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also warned of China's growing influence in the region.

Australia must respond and step up its engagement in the Pacific region, he said.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the region has no need of Beijing's security support.

"We firmly believe that in the Pacific region we have the means and the capability to respond to any existing security challenges," she said.

Meanwhile, Blinken asserted in his speech: “We are not looking for a conflict or a new Cold War.

On the contrary, we are determined to avoid both.” The US wants to cooperate with China wherever possible – and argue wherever necessary.

He stressed, "We have profound differences with the Chinese Communist Party and with the Chinese government.

But these differences exist between governments and systems, not between our peoples.” Conversely, China repeatedly accuses the US of having a “cold war mentality”.

At the moment it does not look like a policy of relaxation.

At least when it comes to climate protection, the wire has not yet been torn.

At the current World Economic Forum in Davos, China's climate officer and experienced negotiator Xie Zhenhua - the only politician to have personally traveled from China - explained that he exchanged views with his US counterpart John Kerry every eight to nine days.

(ck/dpa)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-05-26

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