By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal
Earlier in my academic career at the University of Prince Edward Island, I was involved with the Institute of Island Studies. My own concentration was researching the political systems of self-governing tropical islands and archipelagos.
These are very small sovereign micro-states, both in size and population, found mainly in the Indian and Pacific oceans. In the past, they had become possessions of the major European powers, including Germany, Spain, France, and – especially – Great Britain. Later, Japan and the United States joined the list.
They are now independent entities, but their importance has not diminished. Their land areas may be modest, but they have exclusive economic zones (EEZs) extending out to 200 nautical miles in the surrounding waters.
For example, the Seychelles, 115 islands in the Indian Ocean 1,700 kilometres northeast of Mauritius, has a landmass of only 452 square kilometres, but the islands are spread wide over an EEZ of 1.33 million square kilometres.
Today, their 100,000 inhabitants have become part of a geopolitical tug of war between China and the U.S. In June, the country became the latest in a string of small nations around the world in which Washington has established, restored or is planning to open an embassy.
Meanwhile, China has built schools, hospitals, houses for low-income families, and public amenities, winning sympathy among those who felt abandoned by the U.S. departure 27 years ago. China constructed the National Assembly building and the adjoining Supreme Court, both important symbols of the country’s identity as a nation.
“They do the little things that America doesn’t do,” Seychelles President Wavel Ramkalawan told the Washington Post in an interview published Sept. 3. “This is why countries like China have come in, because there was a vacuum.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in the capital, Victoria, in January 2021. He met with the country’s foreign minister, Sylvestre Radegonde, and described the Seychelles as “an important member of the big family of China-Africa solidarity and cooperation.”
In much bigger Mauritius, Beijing has been pouring investments into the country, developing its tourist infrastructure and buying friends and influence there. The U.S. fears that China might build a military base in the Chagos Archipelago once those islands, currently governed by Britain, return to Mauritian control.
Washington currently has a major American military base on Diego Garcia. The 27 square kilometre atoll is Washington’s most important asset in the vast Indo-Pacific region west of Pearl Harbour. It doesn’t want to give away its crucial strategic asset, so it is currently bargaining with Mauritius over giving it a lease to the Chagos.
China is the only country to have maintained diplomatic missions in all six of the Indian Ocean Island nations. None of the traditional players -- the U.S, Great Britain, India, or France -- have embassies in all six, though the Maldives, south of India, will host a new American legation soon.
China also does not have any standing territorial or sovereignty disputes in the Indian Ocean, unlike former colonial powers Britain and France, so Beijing is often considered a welcome player and an alternative in the region.
In January 2022, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi flew to Moroni, the capital of the Comoros for bilateral talks with his counterpart. This three-island country of 850,000 people off the coast of east Africa is just 1,861 square kilometres in area but sits on the northern mouth of the Mozambique Channel, a critical waterway.
China is everywhere in the Pacific as well. In the island kingdom of Tonga, their impressive embassy hosts diplomats, while young Tongans are invited on student exchanges to Chinese universities.
In response, Tonga and the Solomon Islands saw American embassies opened this year, and elsewhere in the Pacific they are planned for Kiribati and Vanuatu. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken became the first-ever Cabinet official to visit Tonga this past July, dedicating the new embassy in the capital, Nukuʻalofa.
In 2019, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands both switched their diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China. Foreign Minister Wang visited both countries during an eight-country Pacific tour in May 2022.
One month earlier, the Solomon Islands announced that it signed a security agreement with China, just days before an American official was due to visit the Pacific nation in an attempt to derail the pact.
As for Fiji, police cooperation between China and Fiji began in 2011 based on a secretive memorandum of understanding on police cooperation between Beijing and the government of then-Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.
Last December, however, Bainimarama lost the prime minister’s office to Sitiveni Rabuka, a longtime rival who ran a campaign critical of China. A month later, Rabuka announced he intended to terminate the police agreement with Beijing.
Rabuka this past August also said he hoped the Pacific islands would remain a “zone of peace, a zone of non-aligned territories.” He spoke after attending a summit of the leaders of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, and host country Vanuatu, members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, meeting in Port Vila.
Fiji a week earlier had co-hosted an Indo-Pacific defence chiefs conference with the U.S., which China attended.
Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Ishamel Kalsakau himself came under fire for signing a security deal with Australia, after some lawmakers feared it could upset China, a major infrastructure lender.
