Values Over Money: Former Diplomat Says Beijing Unlikely to Win Over the Pacific

Australian High Commissioner, Ian Kemish AM, presenting a medallion to Edgar Jaupa in Kokoda, Papua New Guinea, on Nov. 3, 2010. AAP Image/Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

BRISBANE, Australia—Beijing’s efforts to extend its influence in the South Pacific is unlikely to undermine the West’s relationship with the region, says a former diplomat.

Ian Kemish, Australia’s former ambassador to Germany and high commissioner to Papua New Guinea, said Australian authorities were engaged in a “contest of values” for the region.

“Our identity ultimately cannot be underestimated, in my view, as an important factor in our ability to influence the region,” he told an audience in Brisbane on June 12. “And let’s be clear about it. The region is contested, and the contest is a contest of values.”

Mr. Kemish, who also headed the Southeast Asia and Consular Divisions at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was speaking at the “Securing our Future” forum hosted by the Australian National University’s (ANU) National Security College.

Money Not What the People Want

The now-adjunct professor at the University of Queensland said money was not enough to win over South Pacific nations and that it was the immaterial factors people cared about.

“The package of values, the identity that we offer ... is a vastly superior product to the authoritarian set of values that is on offer from Beijing,” Mr. Kemish said.

“The civil society in the region is actually concerned about the impact of China’s influence on the government’s national approaches to media freedom, political freedom, [and] freedom of expression.

“We’ve seen examples in the region where China’s influence has eaten away at local government’s commitment to some of those important principles,” he added. “So we do have a superior product to offer when we think of our cultural projection, but we still fall short to the considerable extent of our potential.”

Mr. Kemish said he was no “development junkie” and that aid did little to transform countries.

“That only comes through national leadership, and if you think that the Australian aid program is going to somehow transform the countries of the Pacific, you'll be waiting forever. It will not happen.”

He also wanted to dispel any notion that Beijing was pouring large amounts of aid into the region.

“They’ve hardly spent anything on development in the course of the last five years in the region,” Mr. Kemish said. “[The Chinese Communist Party] has narrowed [its focus], and has created vulnerabilities in a couple of individual countries.”

“China has no ambition whatsoever to match us as a development partner for the region, and therein lies a difference, a commitment to human support and humanitarian development.”

The professor’s comments come as several Pacific nations grapple with stability of their democratic institutions, while the CCP stretches its influence.

Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape (L) and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese pose for photos in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on Jan. 12, 2023. Andrew Kutan/AFP via Getty Images

In late 2022, the small island nation of Kiribati was plunged into a constitutional crisis when it suspended several judges, leaving the country without a judiciary.

Now, the former Justice David Lambourne, an Australian, is set to be deported after it was approved by President Taneti Maamau in April.

Meanwhile, Vanuatu has continued to experience one constitutional crisis after another with current President Nikenike Vurobaravu rejecting a request to dissolve Parliament.

Further, the Solomon Islands leadership has, for years, toed a pro-Beijing line accepting aid and development.

At the same time, other Pacific nations have chosen to tighten relations with Australia.

Tuvalu, in May, signed a security deal with the democracy to essentially give it “veto” power over any security agreement the Pacific government is considering entering into.