Australia and New Zealand said on Tuesday they were closely monitoring developments while downplaying a report that China wants to establish a permanent military base on the Pacific nation of Vanuatu.<\/p>\n
The Sydney Morning Herald said Beijing had approached Port Vila about the possibility, potentially upsetting the delicate strategic balance in the region.<\/p>\n
China has been aggressively growing its military and pushing its footprint deeper into the Pacific, forging closer links by showering nations with development money.<\/p>\n
The Herald, citing multiple sources, said Beijing\u2019s military ambition in Vanuatu would likely be realised incrementally, possibly beginning with an access agreement allowing Chinese naval ships to dock routinely for refuelling.<\/p>\n
This arrangement could then be built on, it added, with intelligence and security figures in Australia, New Zealand and the United States becoming increasingly worried about China\u2019s growing influence.<\/p>\n
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who travelled to Vanuatu last weekend with Britain\u2019s Prince Charles, said she was confident of Canberra\u2019s strong relationship with Port Vila.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not aware of a military offer being made by China to Vanuatu,\u201d she said, noting that the Vanuatu government had said to the newspaper it was not aware of such proposal.<\/p>\n
While China has been investing in infrastructure around the world, to date it has only established one military base — in Djibouti in northern Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have very good relations with Vanuatu and I remain confident that Australia is Vanuatu\u2019s strategic partner of choice,\u201d Bishop added.<\/p>\n
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she had read the Herald report and \u201cI can\u2019t comment on the validity of that\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what I can say is that we of course keep a watching eye on activity within the Pacific and that New Zealand is opposed to the militarisation of the Pacific generally.\u201d Australia\u2019s Lowy Institute estimates China provided US$1.78 billion in aid, including concessional loans, to Pacific nations between 2006-16.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Beijing lodged a formal diplomatic protest after a senior Australian minister called Chinese infrastructure projects in the region \u201cwhite elephants\u201d.<\/p>\n
During the spat, Australia\u2019s International Development Minister Concetta Fierravanti-Wells said the Pacific was \u201cfull of these useless buildings which nobody maintains\u201d, built by China.<\/p>\n
She also warned that unlike loans from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, Chinese financing had less than favourable terms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know what the consequences are when have to pay back some of these Chinese loans,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australia and New Zealand said on Tuesday they were closely monitoring developments while downplaying a report that China wants to establish a permanent military base on the Pacific nation of Vanuatu. The Sydney Morning Herald said Beijing had approached Port Vila about the possibility, potentially upsetting the delicate strategic balance in the region. China has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27528,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27526\/revisions\/27528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}