‘We Have Different Legal Systems’: Fiji Removes Chinese Officers Out of Its Police Force

People's Alliance Party leader Sitiveni Rabuka gestures during a press conference while counting resumes after the Fijian election in Suva, Fiji, on Dec. 17, 2022. Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP

The Fijian government has ordered the removal of Chinese officers from the country while still keeping a controversial police cooperation agreement with the communist regime.

The move came following a review of security ties with China in 2023, as the new government tried to walk the fine line between continuing economic cooperation and handling security risks with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

It is set against the backdrop of Beijing’s growing footprint in the region, including proposing new security arrangements, offering investment through private capital, opening Confucius Institutes, and dispatching its police forces to work with the island nations.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, who has been elected since December 2022, said that allowing Chinese officers to station inside Fijian police forces could undermine the country’s democratic system.

“Those officers working in our headquarters were repatriated. We have looked at that and there’s no need for us to have [Chinese] officers embedded [in Fiji],” Mr. Rabuka told the ABC on March 28.

“I did not know how that came about and I was uncomfortable because we have different legal systems and policing and investigating methods.”

While Pacific island nations all want to seek economic and political incentives from Beijing, they come with a cost, he noted.

The PM also added that the inner peace brought about by a democratic system with “tested legal systems” could be at risk if it’s replaced by “a new set of ideologies.”

“I have great-grandchildren living with me and I do not want them to be led in a way they’re not comfortable with.”

Fiji’s Close Policing Ties With CCP

The police cooperation pact was part of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between Fiji and China’s Ministry of Public Security in 2011.

This includes the training of Fijian police officers in China, the secondment of senior Chinese police personnel in Fiji, and two-way exchange programs between the Fiji police force and its Chinese counterparts.

Under the pact, the Chinese regime has also sent considerable amounts of surveillance, communications, and anti-riot equipment to Fiji in 2014, ahead of the national elections.

The wide-ranging security arrangements made Fiji the Pacific island country with the closest policing relationship with China until the CCP coined a secretive security deal with the Solomon Islands in 2023. Despite the removal of Chinese police from Fijian forces, this cooperation would remain.

Ties between China and Fiji have been strengthened during a lull in diplomatic relations with Australia after the country went through a period of democratic instability following two military coups staged by Rabuka in 1987.

While former prime minister Frank Bainimarama advocated for pro-Beijing policy, the new leader favoured closer ties with Australia, the United States, and France.

Australia, US Strengthen Relationships With Fiji

Previously, Mr. Rabuka had urged Australia and the U.S. to reorient their thinking about Fiji from “the output of their colonial regimes of the past” to an equal partner in the international landscape.

In recent years, Australia’s military engagement with Fiji has increased, with Fijian military officers now undergoing training to be able to integrate into the Australian armed forces.

The U.S. has also deepened its engagement and bilateral defence and security ties with Fiji, which have been welcomed by government members, including the Permanent Secretary for the Office of the Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs, Yogesh Karan.

Currently, the United Nations’ COMTRADE database on international trade states that China’s exports to Fiji total US$397.4 million worth of goods, according to data from 2021.

Victoria Kelly-Clark contributed to this report.