A bank. A rugby team. A larger police force.
Over the span of 12 days — and in time for Christmas — Australia has unveiled a string of deals with Pacific Island nations to dole out what those countries may have put on the top of their wish lists. The agreements appeared to be the culmination of months of behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts aimed at curbing China’s growing influence in a strategically vital corridor of the Pacific Ocean.
On Friday, Australia announced the latest agreement, a 190 million Australian dollar ($118 million) deal designed to help the Solomon Islands expand its police force over a four-year period.
The Solomon Islands has been a focal point of heated competition between China and the United States and its allies. In 2022, the nation of 700,000 reached a secret security pact that appeared to grant broad leeway to Beijing to exert influence and use the islands as a stopover for military operations.
Signed after a period of violent unrest that rocked the Solomon Islands in 2021, it allowed China to send armed police officers or military forces to assist in maintaining order. The deal raised alarms among officials in Canberra and Washington.
Since then, the Biden administration has made a clear diplomatic push into the Pacific, opening embassies, pledging investments and hosting leaders at a summit at the White House while nudging Australia to build up its influence in the region.
But Chinese police training officials are already in the Solomon Islands. The Australian deal announced on Friday did not appear to contain commitments from the Solomons to alter existing pacts with China or to preclude it from entering into future ones.
“What that does is reduce any need for outside support,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said at a news conference Friday.
In a June visit, Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele of the Solomon Islands had asked for Australia’s assistance in beefing up his country’s police force.
The policing deal is a significant achievement for Australia, but it falls short of the level of assurance it would have wanted against Chinese military involvement, said Mihai Sora, the director of the Pacific islands program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney research institute, and a former Australian diplomat who has served in the Solomon Islands.
“It keeps Australia in the game,” he said. “But it doesn’t slow down that pace of competition with China for security access and engagement in Solomon Islands.”
Still, it was the third time in less than two weeks that Australia made it clear that it is willing to cater to the needs of its smaller neighbors to edge out China’s entreaties.
Last week, Australia and Nauru unveiled a treaty in which the latter said it would not enter into any security agreements without consulting Canberra. In exchange, Australia pledged $90 million in financial support and announced that Commonwealth Bank of Australia would offer its services in Nauru. The country had held discussions with officials at Chinese banks after Bendigo, another Australian bank, announced it was leaving Nauru, potentially leaving it without any..
Two days later, Australia announced a deal to establish a National Rugby League team in Papua New Guinea, where the Australian sports league is extremely popular. Officials said Australia would spend about $375 million over a decade to set up the team.
That deal was announced as a security agreement between the two countries went into force. While the exact terms were not disclosed, Australian news media reported that the new deal contained a clause that allows Australia to pull the plug on the rugby funding if Papua New Guinea enters into a security partnership that violates its commitment to Australia.
Asked about the agreement’s “China clause,” Pat Conroy, Australia’s minister for international development and the Pacific, noted that Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister had publicly stated the country would not sign a security deal with China, and that Australia is the country’s “security partner of choice.”
“So, that strategic trust underpins this agreement,” Mr. Conroy told ABC Australia, the national broadcaster, last week. “And obviously there’s a clause in this agreement that allows the commonwealth to withdraw funding, and the N.R.L. will be required to withdraw the franchise.”
Oliver Nobetau, a fellow at the Lowy Institute, said Australia may get a great return on its investments if it can fend off China from having a presence in the region.
Between the three deals, Australia is pledging to spend 930 million Australian dollars — about $600 million — over several years. The Pacific, a sparsely populated region, already accounts for 44 percent of Australia’s foreign aid, according to an analysis by the Devpolicy Blog of the Australian National University.
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