The Chinese are here to stay
Conversations about China in Oceania have often descended into two main streams. One stream is increasingly antagonistic and borders on racism. The other is more accommodating, understanding, and welcoming of China’s presence and generous aid to Pacific island states.
But somewhere in the middle is a mainstream view which alerts Pacific island states about unchecked engagement with China, yet at the same time encourages a careful management of bilateral friendship that would produce long-term economic and social benefits to all concerned.
Despite the fact that China has opened up its system to the changing winds of the times, there are still cold-war attitudes that prevail, not so much from China but from certain corners of the West, as the following statement from Cleo Paskal of Chatham House reveals in an interview with International Affairs Forum (January 2014).
‘It’s important to understand that China is a repressive, authoritarian dictatorship and it prefers to deal with other dictatorships. It’s not a stabilizing factor in international affairs. If it decides to deal with a country, it wants to make sure that the people who sign the deal with them are going to stay in power. They are not a force for good in international affairs. This should be a concern to all of us,’ she said.
There is no evidence that backs this claim in the Pacific, as in the case of Tonga where the biggest loan ever made in the island kingdom’s history was signed between China and an outgoing government as Tonga became democratized in 2010. The people who signed the deal with China did not stay in power.
The $118 million pa’anga loan was for the reconstruction of Nuku’alofa’s CBD where 80% was destroyed in the 2006 riots, including 30 Chinese stores and businesses.
It is interesting that the year when two major riots in the Pacific – Solomon Islands (18 April 2006) and Tonga (16 November 2006) affected Chinese businesses in those two countries, it was also the year China held a China-Pacific Island Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum Ministerial Meeting on 5 April 2006 in Nadi, Fiji.
This strategic meeting was cosponsored by the Governments of China and Fiji, and attended by leaders from almost every Pacific state. There were 600 participants.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao delivered the keynote address, and this was the highest level of participation from the Chinese government at a meeting in the Pacific Islands.
Premier Wen offered for China to write off debts on loans from China from seven Pacific island nations. He also offered several hundred million dollars worth of preferential loans, tariff reduction, development assistance and investment.
A ‘Cooperation Guiding Framework’ was signed between China and various leaders of the Pacific Islands, and this may have been the starting line of a new level of Chinese engagement in the Pacific islands.
Fiji’s Prime Minister at the time, Laisenia Qarase described the economic high-level meeting as marking ‘a new page in regional history.’
‘China,’ he argued, ‘defines a new and compelling reality, politically and economically for the island countries.’
But the China critics maintain that China’s engagement in the Pacific is motivated by greed and the quest for recognition as a regional power.
They also claim that the Chinese migration to the Pacific islands is like an ‘invasion’ of sorts, taking away business opportunities from locals.
The critics have focused on a socio-cultural misinterpretation that whenever and wherever tensions arise in any island nation concerning the Chinese, that the solution is a call for a ‘China Go Home.’
The focus is on the problems (real or imagined) that may arise instead of the benefits of Chinese involvement in business at ground level.
Tonga has been pointed out as an example where in just a few short years, 90% of retailing business have been taken over by Chinese migrants. It is alleged there is a growing tension between the Chinese businesses and the locals. But, this claim, even true in some incidences, is generally so contradictory to the reality on the ground.
Most locals prefer to shop from Chinese stores. They are slightly cheaper, and their customer service is unmatched.
Since the Chinese have come into Tonga, domestic consumption has grown substantially, and buying and selling has become more robust, revitalizing the local economy.
One of the major concerns, and strongest criticism of Chinese by outside observers is the claim that the Chinese migrants have brought in to Tonga (and other Pacific islands) an increase in criminal activities, crimes allegedly ‘new’ to the islands such as people trafficking, kidnapping and torture, murder, and money laundering.
But these allegations against the Chinese have raised more questions about Tongan criminal activities as well. Tongans are alleged to have been committing these crimes even before Chinese migration.
A Tongan police officer, who wanted to remain anonymous, said that for every Chinese who commits a crime in Tonga, there are Tongan counterparts who lead out or cooperate in the committing of these crimes.
There is no denying of the fact there are some criminal elements among Chinese migrants. But that fact can apply to any migrant group anywhere in the Pacific. And as for Pacific islanders, aren’t there criminal elements among them wherever they migrate to?
The criminal charges levied on the Chinese are simply and strongly biased, and smacks of racism. Crime is not a Chinese problem. It is a human problem. It is unreasonable and unfair to focus the blame on a race of people, yet suppress the positive socio-cultural narrative of such people.
A new mindset needs to be introduced into the ongoing conversations about China and the Chinese people in Oceania.
The overall consensus about Chinese migrants in Tonga is that they are vital to Tonga’s economic development.
And for China as a development partner, just imagine where many Pacific island states would be without that partnership?
Premier Wen’s words in Fiji in 2006 still strongly echo a promise to be realized in a growing and generally peaceful bilateral relationship.
He said: “As a Chinese saying puts it, ‘just as distance tests a horse’s strength, time will show a person’s sincerity.’ As far as China is concerned, to foster friendship and cooperation with the Pacific island countries is not a diplomatic expediency. Rather, it is a strategic decision. China has proved and will continue to prove itself to be a sincere, trustworthy and reliable friend and partner of the Pacific island countries for ever.”
Terrence Wesley-Smith (2007) of East West Centre, Hawaii, has argued that China’s primary objective is to gain the support of island states for its One China policy, in isolating Taiwan.
Like any other industrial power, there is a growing interest in the natural resources of the region, especially marine resources including seabed minerals.
Wesley-Smith maintains that China is not setting itself up to assume a leadership or military role in the Pacific. He disputes the notion of China exploiting regional vulnerabilities, and that its activities have encouraged corruption and instability.
So-called US neglect of the Pacific, and the alleged mismanagement of the region by Australia and New Zealand are not significant factors in the rise of China in Oceania.
The economic rise of China is the most dramatic event of the 21st Century, which in itself has provided a challenge to the American dominance of the Pacific.
In Oceania, the Chinese are here to stay!
The Pacific Island states have seen China’s engagement in the Pacific as a welcomed broadening of options for assistance in their development endeavors.
This is what happened to Fiji when Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Pacific Island Forum, marginalized it as a result of the 2006 military coup. Brigadier Frank Bainimarama and his self-installed government had to look at other options for development partners.
China became the leading donor among a new group of development partners that included India, Kuwait, Qatar, and UAE.
But Wesley-Smith also argues that, ‘Western aid-leveraged efforts to impose neo-liberal reforms have made island leaders more receptive to peaceful coexistence, equality, respect for sovereignty, and the promise of untied aid.’
Pacific island states, despite their long traditional relationship with the West are not prepared to live out the 21st century in a one-dimensional Western controlled world.
China’s engagement with Pacific Island states has been largely misinterpreted, or at least mostly articulated by Western propagandists.
The US, Australia, New Zealand, and even the European Union, all have their own trade and economic entanglements with the growing economic superpower. It is not unreasonable that in Oceania, China just wants to be another partner to the Pacific islands among equals.
It is important to recall former Premier Wen’s 2006 speech in Fiji: ‘Our respective economies are mutually complimentary. China has funding and technical expertise. The island countries are rich in natural resources. Herein lie huge potentials for bilateral cooperation.’
Eight years after Premier Wen’s speech in Fiji, current Premier Li Keqiang told the World Economic Forum on Africa in Abuja, Nigeria on 8 May 2014 that China’s support for African development will have no strings attached.
And with that he pledged an extra $12 billion in aid for the continent even as Chinese investment has already topped $25 billion.
What China is doing in Africa or any other part of the world, is also being done in the Pacific even though the amounts of aid differs due to size. But the message is the same: no strings attached.
Pacific governments need to carve out their own ‘China policy’ based on a new mindset, free of the traditional development biases, allowing each one to be guided wisely in managing this increasingly important development partnership.
