The Chinese foreign minister is touring the Pacific islands. He tells the skeptical island nations not to “be too scared” about China. They fear that China wants to hide its true intentions. Because according to her reading of Wang’s trip, China’s primary intention is not to improve the quality of life of the people on the Pacific islands, but to gradually gain access to and control over the Pacific Ocean.
Unfortunately, the bad news from China does not stop: The Beijing leadership under Xi Jinping has come under criticism worldwide for the shocking new evidence of the genocide of the Uyghurs. In the Covid pandemic, the government quickly locked millions and millions of people at home, some without sufficient food and medicine.
In Hong Kong, Beijing deployed an extreme hardliner who, as one of his first official acts, had Cardinal Joseph Zen, a supporter of the democracy movement, arrested. The message was clear: in Hong Kong, the freedom of religion that exists in godless China next door is now at an end.
Alexander Görlach is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York. The PhD linguist and theologian teaches democratic theory in Germany, Austria and Spain as an honorary professor at Leuphana University. In the 2017-18 academic year, he was at National Taiwan University and City University Hong Kong to conduct research on China’s rise. He is currently researching new technologies at the University of Oxford’s Internet Institute and how they are used in democracies and abused in dictatorships.
This year, for the first time since the massacre perpetrated by the Communist Party on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, there will be no memorial services for the victims in oppressed Hong Kong. The fear that Beijing will have priests deported and interned in the People’s Republic under its so-called “security law” is too great.
Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on a business-as-usual tour of the Pacific Islands with the aim of making these small countries dependent on Beijing. If Wang had his way, they would all have agreed to a security deal that would have massively expanded Beijing’s influence over the islands. For the moment, however, the island states brushed Wang off: they didn’t want a regional deal.
Nevertheless, individual players, the Solomon and Fiji Islands as well as Samoa, have already reached bilateral agreements with Beijing. However, the world only knows exactly what is being agreed upon if something leaks out. Despite this obscure demeanor, which Beijing also exhibits in the contracts of its controversial New Silk Road initiative, Wang Yi tells the skeptical island nations not to “be too scared” of China.
At the same time, journalists who want to accompany the minister’s tour are prevented from physically asking Wang questions. Contrary to what the politician claims, Beijing is obviously concerned with covering up its activities in the Pacific.
That is why Australia, Japan and the USA are alarmed. Because according to their interpretation of Wang’s trip, China’s primary intention is not to improve the quality of life of the people on the Pacific islands, but rather to gradually gain access and control over the Pacific Ocean.
The core of the cooperation should therefore be the equipment and training of the local police, which would require security forces from China to work permanently on the islands. China also wants to support the states when it comes to cybersecurity, which in reality would mean being able to control internet and telecommunications on the islands.
When it became clear that this aspect, which was negotiated under the “security” heading of the agreement, would be rejected by the islands, Wang pulled the ripcord and halted the procedure. As a result, Beijing intensified its canvassing and published a paper entitled “Mutual Respect and Moving Forward Together”.
The 24-point document no longer contains a direct reference to security-related cooperation. Nevertheless, the projects that Beijing is already promoting and will continue to promote on the islands as part of its “New Silk Road” initiative can also be used militarily, should agreement be reached at a later date. For the moment, Beijing can suffice to get its foot further in the door.
Where Beijing is headed in the long term becomes clear further west in the Pacific. Artificial islands have already been raised and militarized there. Chinese mercenaries occupy parts of the Spratly Islands belonging to the Philippines. Beijing claims they are Chinese territory. The International Court of Justice has already clarified at the end of a procedure that Beijing is in the wrong.
However, the Beijing dictatorship does not care. For Xi, the law of the strongest applies. He has therefore started territorial disputes with 15 of his neighbors, the best known being the conflict over the island democracy of Taiwan, which he has already threatened with invasion and occupation.
During his trip to Asia at the end of May, US President Biden therefore declared that he would provide military support to Taiwan in the event of a war of aggression by the People’s Liberation Army. Washington also stated that if Beijing were to militarize the Solomon Islands, it would also respond militarily.
The USA understands the strategy of the People’s Republic as follows: China wants to become the hegemon of the Pacific in order to dictate the conditions of world trade and, if necessary, to be able to manipulate or stop it at will. After the USA modified its China policy in relation to Taiwan last week, this realization step is still pending in other capitals, including Berlin. The example of Vladimir Putin and his war against Ukraine shows that the longer you wait to change course, the higher the costs.
