A terse emergency radio broadcast, picked up by a commercial flight, was the first warning that China was about to start live-fire drills under the flight path between Australia and New Zealand.
Within hours, after Australian authorities had been notified, air‑traffic controllers had rerouted 49 commercial flights between Australia and New Zealand to keep them out of harm’s way.
The incident on Feb. 21—which rattled officials in Canberra and Wellington—offers a just a glimpse into Beijing’s far-reaching plans in the Pacific, according to China watchers and recent analysis.
An April report from the Prague‑based research group Sinopsis warns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing is quietly bankrolling a dense web of “dual‑use” seaports, airstrips, and telecom networks in at least 10 Pacific Island nations, covering roughly 3,000 miles, forming a network of strategic nodes between Australia and the U.S. territory of American Samoa in Polynesia, just 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.Built for providing development aid, the dual‑use assets can be flipped to military use “at a moment’s notice,” the authors warn, giving the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) a ready‑made logistics chain thousands of miles from home. Experts say the report’s mapping will sharpen vigilance in Washington, Canberra, and Tokyo; and force island governments to weigh sovereignty costs before cutting their next ribbon.
U.S. commanders gauge Pacific power according to who controls three defensive arcs—all currently controlled by the United States and its allies. The first island chain—Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines—boxes China’s forces near their coast. The second island chain, anchored by Guam, stores U.S. munitions and reinforcements. The thinly populated third chain, running from Hawaii south to American Samoa and Fiji, shields sea lanes that link Asia and North America.
Network of Seaports, Airfields, Telecoms
Exhibit A is Luganville Wharf in Vanuatu, a South Pacific Island nation located along the third chain just over 1,000 miles northeast of Australia that was a major U.S. Navy base during World War II.A $97 million Chinese loan in 2014 lengthened the pier to 361 meters (0.22 miles), large enough for cruise liners but also, crucially, destroyers or supply ships.
In December 2023, locals spotted men in PLA navy‑style uniforms clearing land behind Luganville’s airport, according to Sinopsis. It warns that a Chinese outpost there could allow the PLA to disrupt air and sea traffic between the United States and Australia while monitoring joint military exercises in nearby waters.
“Beijing is laying the groundwork for overseas bases and logistics hubs under the guise of development aid,” Shen Ming‑shih, a fellow at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told The Epoch Times. “A wharf in peacetime becomes a resupply point in a crisis.”
Shen notes that most such Chinese projects sit in places with negligible commerce but high strategic value, proving geopolitics, not commerce, drives the loans.
China’s taste for “fishing parks” follows the same script.
“A fish base there makes no commercial sense,” Shen said. “Its value is military—perfect for monitoring Australia or even interfering with shipping in the Torres Strait.”
The report groups Daru with Vanuatu’s Luganville and several ports in Fiji and Tonga as top intelligence gathering sites for PLA planners.
Airfields in the region tell a similar story.
Chinese firms have upgraded or built 17 Pacific runways that can now take heavy transports. One sits on Kanton Island in Kiribati, roughly 1,600 miles southwest of Hawaii. Another is in Fiji’s remote Bua Province that was lengthened well beyond local needs.
China’s aviation investments scarcely align with economic engagement, the report notes, calling them a push by the CCP to penetrate the third island chain.
“Ports, airports, even undersea cables—they may look civilian but can be militarized overnight,” Shen said. “That shifts the balance east of Guam and complicates U.S. planning.”
Telecom networks round out Beijing’s dual‑use toolkit.
Huawei and other Chinese telecom giants have laid submarine communication cables, erected cell towers, installed satellite ground stations, and built national ID databases from Papua New Guinea to Tonga. Contracts often grant Chinese state entities data-sharing rights, embedding soft power—state-backed influence through media and technology—and potentially enabling espionage within Pacific nations’ essential services.
“Digital infrastructure is absolutely part of the new great game,” Sun Kuo‑hsiang, an international affairs professor at Taiwan’s Nanhua University, told The Epoch Times. “If China controls the networks, it can harvest data, sway politics, and secure its own military communications without firing a shot.”
Island Nations’ Debts, Politics; US and Allies Catching Up
Island leaders accept Beijing’s money because it arrives fast and yields projects that incumbents can tout at election time. Tonga, Samoa, and Vanuatu now owe more to China’s state-owned Export–Import Bank of China (Eximbank) than to any other creditor, the report says. Eximbank is also a major financier of the CCP’s widely-criticized Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).When Tonga sought relief from China for its ballooning debt, observers warned of a looming “debt‑trap” in which the CCP could force Tonga to grant it strategic concessions, like trading land or long‑term leases for repayment.
Sun says Beijing’s leverage extends to ballot boxes across the Pacific.
“Big checks help incumbents campaign on new roads or ports,” he noted. “Beijing then has a friendly elite who protects its projects.”
Western capitals, long accused of neglecting the Pacific, are now racing to offer alternatives.
Shen says Sinopsis’s findings will alert and “encourage allies to offer quicker, cleaner deals” to secure the Pacific island nations’ cooperation. The study urges Five Eyes partners to share satellite imagery and rehearse scenarios in which the PLA activates Pacific assets during a Taiwan crisis.
Yet their resistance has limits. “Most islands still need infrastructure,” Sun said. “If Western offers stall in paperwork, Beijing’s money wins by default.”
A brief shutdown of Tasman Sea airspace in February demonstrated how easily Chinese military movements can disrupt civilian traffic thousands of miles from the Chinese mainland. If Beijing stitches its Pacific projects into a seamless logistics chain, the U.S. Navy’s ability to surge forces—or simply keep trade routes open—will come under strain.
“Control the Southwest Pacific and you threaten the lifeline between the United States and its allies,” Shen said. “China learned that from World War II; now, it’s applying the lesson with ports and runways instead of carriers and artificial islands.”
Whether Washington and its partners can match Beijing’s pace, and whether Pacific nations can secure development funds without surrendering their autonomy, will determine how freely allied forces move when the next crisis erupts.
