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Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

OPINIONPoliticsJune 7, 2022

China has aided Sāmoa for decades, often when New Zealand hasn’t

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

After a week of concern about China’s dealings in the Pacific, former Sāmoan diplomat Leiataua Tuitolova’a Kilifoti Eteuati points out that it’s nothing new.

At the end of last month, during a brief visit to Apia by China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, Sāmoa and China signed an agreement on economic and technical cooperation that affirms existing cooperation arrangements between the two countries.

The documents for the handing over to Sāmoa of the recently completed Sāmoa Arts and Culture Centre, and the Sāmoa-China Friendship Park, were also signed, as was an exchange of letters for a fingerprint laboratory to be added to the Sāmoa Police Academy project that China approved for funding last year.

This triggered panic in overseas media, and perhaps in other governments, which were hyper-concerned about the influence of China in the Pacific.

But these exchanges are normal bilateral transactions between friendly countries that routinely emphasise the desire “to strengthen diplomatic relations” and to “continue to pursue greater collaboration” on matters of “mutual interests and commitments”. The two countries have signed several similar agreements over the past 30 years. The documents signed in Apia over the weekend confirmed what already exists between Sāmoa and China, rather than a different approach to their relationship as speculated recently in some foreign media reports and commentaries.

Sāmoa and China have enjoyed friendly relations since Sāmoa established diplomatic relations with China in 1975, becoming one of the first Pacific Island countries to do so. Since then, China has greatly assisted Sāmoa by funding, through grants and soft loans, the implementation of several large multimillion-dollar infrastructure projects, which have delivered significant benefits for the people of Sāmoa. Soft loans are loans with heavily reduced interest rates and favourable terms to the borrower. They are sometimes forgiven or turned into grants. This kind of development assistance has not been available from Sāmoa’s traditional aid donors such as New Zealand, Australia and the United States, which normally provide aid as grants tied to specific projects such as good governance.

In the aftermath of the catastrophic tropical cyclones Ofa in 1990 and Valerie the following year, Sāmoa asked China, a non-traditional aid donor for the country, for development assistance to build a central government building to house government offices instead of repairing the severely damaged old buildings, scattered throughout Apia, which had housed the government offices before the cyclones.

China quickly agreed to Sāmoa’s request, a soft loan was approved, and the construction of a large eight-storey government office building on reclaimed land on Apia’s waterfront was started in 1992 and completed in 1994.

Since then, China has funded and built the sports facilities for the 2007 Pacific Games held in Apia, which included a state-of-the-art aquatic centre; the court complex at Mulinu’u, where all the courts in Apia, including the Lands and Titles Court, are now housed; the National Hospital at Moto’otua, and the new terminal buildings at the Faleolo International Airport, to name some of the major projects.

The government and people of Sāmoa are proud of these facilities, and they enjoy the greatly improved services provided to the public through their use in different sectors. On the other hand, there has been growing concern about the increasing national debt from the loan component of funding as more and bigger projects are planned. There is also growing awareness that while a soft loan may be forgiven or turned into a grant, someone holding such power to decide how much you owe them should be something a country factors into its decision making.

Sāmoan prime minister Fiame Naomi Mataʻafa and Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi at the agreements-signing ceremony in Apia on May 28 (Photo: Vaitogi Asuisui Matafeo/Samoa Observer/AFP via Getty Images)

A new government, a new approach

The new government under prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa has been acutely aware of the seriousness of this problem, and it therefore decided, soon after taking office last year, to withdraw and discard the plans for the Vaiusu harbour development, negotiated by the previous government, and expected to be funded under China’s development aid programme. The reasons given for this decision were that the planned huge wharf and harbour facilities were not needed in Sāmoa at this time, and the loan component of the total cost, estimated at US$100m, would increase Sāmoa’s debt to an unacceptable level.

This was a bold decision and it was not welcomed by Sāmoa’s former prime minister, Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, or the Chinese authorities, as this project has taken several years of negotiations and planning, and they were close to a final agreement to proceed with implementation.

Former Sāmoan head of state Tuiatua Tupua Tamasese Taisi Tufuga Tupuola Efi meeting with then Chinese president Hu Jintao in Beijing in 2008 (Photo: Adrian Bradshaw-Pool/Getty Images)

But it was a crucial decision to make because after almost 40 years of continuous HRPP government, it was important that Fiame and her cabinet make a strong statement to the Sāmoan public and to other interested parties that the new FAST government would act decisively and without fear in the best interests of the people of Sāmoa.

The visit by Wang Yi was really about promoting a proposal by China for joint action with the 10 China-aligned Pacific Island countries on issues such as cybersecurity, policing, greater use of land and ocean resources, marine mapping and expanded political ties.

While being happy to listen to Wang on this proposal, Fiame was clearly disappointed with the way it had been handled in relation to the Pacific island countries. Ultimately, the adoption of this proposal would seriously undermine the Pacific Islands Forum, and this is an outcome that Sāmoa, a strong and consistent supporter of the forum, would not be expected to accept.

In this context, Sāmoa agrees with New Zealand that issues that have regional impact, such as security issues in the wider sense as adopted by the Pacific Leaders Forum in the Boa Declaration on Regional Security (2018), need to be referred to the forum for discussion and resolution according to established regional agreements.

The considered decision by the New Zealand government not to send the foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, to the Pacific Island countries in reaction to the visit by China’s foreign minister is appreciated, as Covid-19 is still a serious issue for many people in the region, and the positive and active role New Zealand plays in the region is well known and understood. Reactive visits with little substance are mostly counterproductive.

The recent extended visit by Australia’s newly appointed foreign minister Penny Wong, on the other hand, has been timely because it provided the opportunity to inform the region of the measures that the newly elected Labour government in Australia proposes to take in relation to Pacific regional issues. The pledge to act decisively to help combat the devastating impact of climate change and the plan to open up the Australian labour market to workers from the Pacific Island countries are two messages that regional countries needed to hear.

The people in the different Pacific Island nations will ultimately decide on the level and nature of the influence of foreign players in their countries. And New Zealand and Australia are in a position – which countries outside our region do not have – to work constructively with the island countries to offer migration and working opportunities to improve the lives of their people by adding, upgrading and seriously improving the operation of the labour mobility programmes already in place.

In the end, Aotearoa should be confident that a strong and ongoing relationship based on real partnership should hold true.

Keep going!
NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Chinese president Xi Jinping meet in Beijing in 2019. (Photo: Kenzaburo Fukuhara – Pool/Getty Images)
NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Chinese president Xi Jinping meet in Beijing in 2019. (Photo: Kenzaburo Fukuhara – Pool/Getty Images)

PoliticsJune 2, 2022

China ramps up rhetoric, warning NZ it could ‘lose at both ends’ after Biden-Ardern talks

NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Chinese president Xi Jinping meet in Beijing in 2019. (Photo: Kenzaburo Fukuhara – Pool/Getty Images)
NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Chinese president Xi Jinping meet in Beijing in 2019. (Photo: Kenzaburo Fukuhara – Pool/Getty Images)

In what one expert calls a ‘warning shot at New Zealand’, a Beijing media mouthpiece condemns Jacinda Ardern for following Australia’s path and signing up to ‘gangster logic’.

Beijing has ramped up the rhetoric following the meeting between Joe Biden and Jacinda Ardern at the White House, issuing a warning via its media mouthpiece that New Zealand risks “giving up its previous political wisdom”, following the lead of Australia by “messing up ties with Beijing” and losing “the Chinese market”. If it relied on the US to fill the gap, the Global Times editorial asserted, “New Zealand may lose at both ends eventually”.

The editorial and accompanying commentary come after the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson denounced the joint statement between the US and New Zealand. Zhào Lìjiān’s said the document “distorts and smears China’s normal cooperation with Pacific Island countries, deliberately hypes up the South China Sea issue, makes irresponsible remarks on and grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs including issues related to Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong.” That was echoed in the Global Times commentary, which bemoaned that “New Zealand joined such campaign of smearing and demonising”.  

Of particular concern to Beijing is the characterisation of “China’s Pacific ambitions” and a passage which alludes to the potential for a Chinese base in the Solomon Islands, noting the countries “share a concern that the establishment of a persistent military presence in the Pacific by a state that does not share our values or security interests would fundamentally alter the strategic balance of the region and pose national security concerns to both our countries.”

That amounted, said the Global Times, to “gangster logic”, which “suggests sovereign countries in the South Pacific Ocean have no right to sign agreements with other countries”, and imagines balance only in the terms of “US and Australia’s long-term hegemony and dominance in regional affairs. They take the South Pacific region as their own, untouchable sphere of influence and strongly oppose China-initiated programmes,” said the Global Times, in comments attributed to academic Xu Shanpin. 

On New Zealand specifically, it stepped up the rhetoric by referring directly to China-Australia relations, which has corroded dramatically over recent years. “Australia should serve as a vivid example for New Zealand,” the editorial warned. “Canberra messed up ties with Beijing. And the Chinese market it lost was almost in no time grasped by the US. If giving up its previous political wisdom, New Zealand may lose at both ends eventually. There have been various examples about how the US tricked and failed its allies.”

China’s involvement in the Pacific had prompted “a typical US response – stirring up trouble, driving a wedge by smearing China’s intention and choreographing a so-called security threat.” New Zealand had been “roped in by the US”, it said. “There is a transactional sense when [Ardern] parroted the US’s ‘security concerns’ in the Pacific region, as a way to trade for economic interests with such political echoes”.

In comments attributed to another academic, Chen Hong, it said: “Given that New Zealand has been trying hard to maintain its political independence with its own national interest as the guideline for its diplomatic and security policies, Washington seems to have found it a good timing to pull Wellington closer in its strategic orbit when New Zealand is trying to extricate itself from the economic slump.”

New Zealand was urged to preserve its “productive and mutually beneficial” relationship with China, which remains the country’s biggest export market – a reliance which has prompted senior government ministers to encourage diversification.

The rising rhetorical tone suggested China “believe that New Zealand is buckling under pressure to align itself with the US”, said Robert Patman, an international relations professor at the University of Otago. That was a misapprehension, “but China believes its chances of extending its sphere of influence over the Pacific Island states depends on depicting the United States and its allies as threatening the independence and sovereignty of those countries”. 

Through the foreign ministry statement and Global Times editorial “China is firing a warning shot at New Zealand”, said Patman. “For our part, we’re saying: if you insist on trying to impose yourself on the Pacific Island states, our position will converge with the United States, because we share fundamental values with the United States … We have a pragmatic relationship with China.”

Beijing should not be surprised, he said, that New Zealand “does not welcome China’s multilateral package which consists of linkage between economic aid and security assistance”.

As China continued to seek a stronger foothold in the Pacific, as evidenced in foreign minister Wang Yi’s partially successful eight-state, 10-day tour of the region, New Zealand needed to measure its response, said Patman. “What we can’t do is tell the Pacific states we know what’s best for them and we’re going to protect them from the ‘Chinese menace’. That would be an affront to sovereign states. What we have to do is give them options, so they can push back against China.”

There was one conspicuous and urgent opportunity to do that, he said. “An area where all Pacific Island states are really concerned is on the need to combat climate change. They need firm action from Australia, New Zealand and United States. That’s a life and death issue for them.”

It was condescending, however, to imagine that the Pacific nations were geopolitical “pawns”, he said. “Microstates with minimal resources are trying to maximise external support for their respective countries by plugging in to what’s on over … New Zealand has done that, too, to some extent.”

Speaking to TVNZ today, foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta cautioned against an overreaction. “China has been active in the Pacific for a very long time, and it’s really important that New Zealand retains its approach which is to be consistent, predictable, and respectful in the way that we work with China because our relationship has matured,” she said.

New Zealand did not take its relationship with Pacific nations for granted, she said. “We have a very different approach, and we are not defined by China and the way that they are conducting their relationship.”


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