Beijing's growing clout in strategic region irks U.S., Australia
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks on a recent island-hopping trip to the South Pacific. Beijing wants to boost its influence in the region through infrastructure projects such as one near a sea wall in Fiji, left. (Source photos by AP)
TOKYO -- China's drive to boost its influence in the South Pacific has set alarm bells ringing in major Western powers and revived uncomfortable memories of events in the strategically important region during the run up to World War II.
At that time it was Japan's southward advance that stoked apprehension and uncertainty in governments around the world. Now, parallels with modern China's growing assertiveness are spooking countries including the U.S. and Australia.
Wang’s trip appeared to underscore China’s desire to make the South Pacific part of its sphere of influence — especially as it included a proposal to strike a sweeping agreement on a range of issues with 10 countries from the area.
Even though the deal wasn’t signed during the visit, a leaked draft stirred concern among Western policymakers as it showed China pushing to help South Pacific countries build police forces, digital governance and cybersecurity systems. Such steps would significantly bolster Beijing’s clout in the region.
China’s initial efforts in the South Pacific were aimed at persuading any nations with formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan to sever those connections. Indeed, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati in 2019 broke off relations with Taiwan and established diplomatic ties with Beijing.
China has also expanded its economic presence in the South Pacific with lavish aid. Western nations suspect that Beijing’s ultimate goal is to build military bases there.
That suspicion was reinforced by a security pact China signed with the Solomon Islands in April. While its contents remain secret, it is most likely designed to open the door to high-level military cooperation between the two countries. Some fear the pact will allow Beijing to send troops to the island nation and use its ports for naval visits.
Experts believe China’s medium-term goal is to block U.S. military intervention in areas behind the so-called third island chain, which starts at the Aleutian Islands and runs south across the center of the Pacific Ocean toward Oceania. Building bases in the South Pacific, which straddles the second and third island chains, would help China create “unsinkable aircraft carriers” in the high seas.
Nearby Australia is particularly worried. China is clearly seeking to use its footholds on South Pacific islands for military purposes, said an Australian security official. Beijing’s advance will become unstoppable unless it is blocked now, the official warned.
But China is just repeating what it has been doing in areas closer to home for years: It has built several artificial islands in the South China Sea, installing missiles and radars there.
And the South Pacific is no stranger to tussles between outside powers.
During World War I, Japan occupied a German colony in the Micronesian islands, which included the Marianas and Marshall Islands. Japan took formal control there in 1920 after the League of Nations gave it a mandate.
At first, Japan focused on building infrastructure like ports and airports on those islands as private-sector projects. However, in the late 1930s, it accelerated the construction of military bases there. By the time Japan was at war with the U.S. in December 1941, its military had built about 10 ground bases in the region.
“In the 1920s, Japan began racing to build strategic military outposts in the South Pacific in anticipation of war with the U.S.,” said Tomoyuki Ishizu, director of the Center for Military History at the National Institute for Defense Studies, the Japanese defense ministry’s research arm. “Japan sought to build ‘unsinkable carriers’ in the middle of the Pacific to strike American battleships each time they approached from the U.S. mainland and Hawaii.”
In fact, when war broke out in the Pacific, the Japanese military used its bases in the region to invade and occupy the key American naval outpost of Guam and other places. In 1942, it seized control of Rabaul, the then capital of the Australian Mandated Territory of New Guinea, turning it into a major Japanese naval and air installation.
Japan then moved to occupy Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands to cut sea lines of communication between the U.S. and Australia. The Japanese and the U.S.-led Allied forces fought a notoriously fierce battle there from 1942 to 1943.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, second from right, on a tour to inspect the country’s southern island province of Hainan in April. (Xinhua/Kyodo)
For both the U.S. and Australia, China’s expansion into the South Pacific conjures up images of bloody conflict during that war.
“If China were to establish military outposts in the region, those strategic positions would complicate U.S. and allied military operations in peacetime and in war,” said Toshi Yoshihara, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“In peacetime, those outposts would be used to entrench Chinese leverage, monitor U.S. and allied military movements, and enhance China’s situational awareness in the region. In wartime, China would be better positioned to interdict the movement of U.S. forces across the Pacific and to threaten sea lines of communication connecting the U.S. and Australia.”
“The potential wartime challenges would resemble those that the imperial Japanese forces posed during the Pacific War,” Yoshihara said.
A key question is how far China is aware of the sense of alarm its action could trigger in the U.S. and Australia, which have not forgotten the hardship and suffering they endured during the war with Japan.
China started serious research into past wars, especially the war in the Pacific, in the 1980s, according to a Chinese military expert. But those efforts mostly focused on factors and events leading to the Pearl Harbor attack and certain individual battles, including the Battle of Midway. It is questionable how far Beijing is aware of the emotional and psychological impact its military presence in the South Pacific could have on the U.S. and Australia.
Given the growing tensions between Washington and Beijing in the South China Sea as well as the Taiwan Strait, it would be extremely dangerous if China wades deeper into risky waters in the South Pacific without understanding the sense of dread its actions will likely prompt among Western powers.
