Campbell’s Pacific Islands Trip ‘Critical’ as Beijing Exerts Influence: Experts

Leaders pose for a photo at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, on Aug. 26, 2024. Ben Mckay/AAP Image via AP

Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s trip to the Pacific Islands is “critical,” a maritime strategy specialist said as experts underlined the strategic importance of the region.

Campbell led a U.S. delegate that visited Vanuatu on Thursday to officially launch a new U.S. embassy after attending the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders meeting in Tonga, while the forum also hosted its largest-ever delegation from China.

The trip is part of the White House’s Pacific Partnership Strategy, which the Biden administration unveiled in September 2022 amid Beijing’s increased influence campaigns in the region and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea.

In email interviews with The Epoch Times, military and Asia-Pacific experts said access to the Oceania region is a crucial part of deterring a potential war over Taiwan, a self-ruled liberal democracy over which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in mainland China claims sovereignty.

The Pacific Islands, which are located among Australasia, Americas, and East Asia, “have lost none of their value with the passage of 80 years,” says James Holmes, professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College.

He was referring to the tiny islands’ strategic significance during World War II when the U.S. military used them as bases while closing in on the Japanese empire in the Pacific theater.

Beijing “would love to deny U.S. forces access to those islands” because it would give Chinese military strategic advantage in potential armed conflicts, Holmes said.

“That would give China time to sort things out in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, or East China Sea before U.S. forces could arrive in the theater in sufficient numbers to reverse aggression.

“Apart from the defensive benefits, access to the islands would open up offensive options for Beijing to extend its presence farther toward midocean,” he added.

Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is the continuation of an exiled power that controlled mainland China before the CCP took over in 1949.

The small island country now supplies most of the world’s top-end semiconductors. It’s also part of the first island chain in a U.S. maritime strategy to contain the former Soviet Union and the CCP.

While opinions differ on whether the United States should or will directly get involved if the CCP invades Taiwan, it has been arming the island and training its military personnel for its self-defense, particularly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The United States has to deter [Chinese leader] Xi [Jinping] from ever believing that China would win a war, says Andrew Harding, research assistant at The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center.

Since Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te took office in May, the CCP has stepped up its rhetoric against so-called Taiwan separatists and declared that “diehard” supporters of Taiwan independence can be punishable by death, and ramped up military and patrol activities in the Taiwan Strait.

Asked how likely it is for Beijing to win a war over Taiwan, Ivan Kanapathy, senior vice president of consultant firm Beacon Global Strategies, who previously served on the White House’s National Security Council staff as director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia and deputy senior director for Asian affairs, said the CCP is unlikely to win at this time but issued a warning over eroded deterrence and stagnant U.S. military strength.

“The CCP has mortgaged its legitimacy on eventually absorbing Taiwan. Deterrence across the Strait is eroding. The United States would win a war over Taiwan today, but at significant cost. If the United States does not dramatically increase military strength in the next couple of years, it will lose its decisive advantage and Xi Jinping may choose to attack,” he said.

Besides being a disadvantage in a war scenario, Harding said ceding access to the Pacific Islands would also allow Beijing to “threaten air and sea routes used for trade by American allies and partners.”

Therefore, “the United States, Taiwan, Japan, and other liberal democracies should take China’s ambitions and capabilities seriously. If they work together with the Pacific Islands states, then China’s malign ambitions can be halted and the region can remain peaceful,” he said.

Meanwhile, Holmes believes the United States should also partner with countries that do not fit in the category of liberal democracy, such as Indonesia, Singapore, and communist-ruled Vietnam, in a bid to defend the post-war system against “those who want to subvert the system, like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.”

“Let’s not rule out allies or partners because of their system of governance. Shoring up access is critical, and thus Kurt Campbell’s trip is as well,” he said.

Strings Attached

Amid intensified geopolitical competition between large powers, Pacific Island nations “have become diplomatic price-setters and are leveraging increased competition to maximize development benefits,” according to a recent report published by Australian think tank the Lowy Institute.

Ralph Cossa, president emeritus and WSD-Handa chair in Peace Studies at the Pacific Forum, said while Beijing has a right to engage with Pacific Island countries and it’s not a zero-sum game, “we need to be aware of Chinese efforts to undermine democracy and undercut Taiwan’s equally legitimate interests in improved relations.”

Undermining Taiwan has been one of the strings attached to Chinese money in the Pacific Islands.

Since 2019, three Pacific nations—the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and Nauru—have traded their diplomatic ties with Taiwan for relations with Beijing, leaving Taipei with formal diplomatic relations with 12 countries, including three Pacific nations.

Apart from the demand to undermine Taiwan, Cossa also said Beijing’s assistance “often comes with increased Chinese presence and Chinese workers, many of whom do not go home.”

He added: “Not responding to Chinese actions in the Pacific Islands would only encourage Chinese bad behavior elsewhere, including in Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere.”

Kanapathy also cautioned, “Beijing’s largesse typically benefits key elites and always comes with strings attached. Pacific Islanders should be very wary of overtures from Beijing.”

In April this year, Tonga caused concerns for considering a CCP offer to send police officers to this year’s PIF while neighboring New Zealand and Australia had already offered security assistance.

The tiny nation owes China a sizeable debt which it must pay back by 2028, and the CCP has declined to renegotiate a repayment plan, representing a huge burden for a nation with a gross domestic product of roughly $470 million.

In contracting the loan, Tonga involved itself in something that experts refer to as China’s “debt-trap diplomacy.” As a key feature in its relations with many countries, the CCP often issues large loans for foreign infrastructure projects with repayment plans dependent on optimistic estimates of the success of the projects.

Vanuatu’s new multimillion-dollar presidential palace is also the result of Chinese funding. Days after Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai attended the opening of the palace this summer, he went to China to visit leader Xi Jinping. After the talks, the nations issued a joint statement in which the CCP welcomed Vanuatu into its Belt and Road Initiative.

US Strategy Expected to Remain

The Biden administration’s U.S. Pacific Partnership Strategy is the first of its kind, and the White House hosted a PIF leaders’ summit in 2023, signaling renewed efforts to engage with Pacific island nations that the CCP is aggressively courting.

Asked if changes are expected if former President Donald Trump gets a second term in the upcoming election, experts said they do not anticipate changes.

“I would expect a Trump administration continuing the current U.S. effort since the concern about Chinese actions and objectives is bipartisan in the [United States],” says Cossa.

Kanapathy also said he expects “more continuity” as the Biden administration’s strategy “hews closely” to Trump’s 2018 Indo-Pacific Strategic Framework, while Harding said the Trump administration was “the first to create a separate position at the National Security Council responsible for ‘Oceania’ and would be expected to devote increased levels of attention and resources to the region.”

Holmes, on the other hand, said he hopes a second Trump administration would “acknowledge and adjust its abrasive approach to alliances,” which he said was one of the former president’s weakest areas.

The professor said he agrees that allies should accept their share of the burden, but believes putting allied leaders on the spot by making public demands is “no way to get to yes.”

The former president, known for publicly demanding that NATO allies increase their defense spending, recently said Taiwan should pay the United States for its defense, while his former national security adviser Robert O’Brien said he believes Taiwan should double the amount of its defense spending to 5 percent.

Reacting to the criticism, RNC Spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump has “put America First by standing up to China and imposing tariffs on Chinese goods in response to unfair trading practices” and that his leadership “has made alliances like NATO stronger by insisting our allies pull their weight and pay their fair share.”

Catherine Yang contributed to this report.