Taipei, Taiwan — Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is in China for a 10-day visit that includes meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang. Rabuka is the third South Pacific leader to visit China since early July as Beijing ramps up a charm offensive with leaders and governments in the region.
Analysts say Rabuka is likely to use his trip to promote his vision for regional order in the Pacific and focus on Fiji’s economic development. The trip is Rabuka’s first to China since he was elected in late 2022.
“I expect Rabuka to use his trip as an opportunity to promote his ‘Zone of Peace’ vision for Pacific foreign policy,” said Parker Novak, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, adding that Rabuka may push Beijing to “be a friendly power” in the Pacific.
Other experts say Rabuka will also try to deepen economic ties with China, including restoring the bilateral tourism relationship.
“Rabuka does focus much more on the economic aspect of Fiji’s relationship with China, including the support for development and the infrastructure support,” Tess Newton Cain, an adjunct associate professor at Griffith Asia Institute in Australia, told VOA by phone.
In a radio interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on August 12, Rabuka said he is looking to learn from China’s experience in poverty alleviation, describing Beijing’s achievement as an inspiration for countries in the Pacific and around the world.
Rabuka is also expected to seek support from Beijing to address Fiji’s development needs.
Following his meeting with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s summit in San Francisco last November, Rabuka said Fiji might look to collaborate with China on modernizing port facilities and shipyards, which he said were the key focus of the island nation’s sustainable economic development.
Beijing may try to use the visit to shore up its security presence in the region, Novak told VOA.
“Beijing may try to entice Rabuka to increase security cooperation between China and Fiji, but I think Rabuka would be hesitant to do so,” he said in a phone interview.
Earlier this year, Fiji agreed to maintain a policing deal with China that has sparked concern on the island among some police and political leaders and from Australia. The deal, which was signed in 2011 when the country was still under military rule, allows for the exchange of intelligence, visits, training and the supply of police equipment.
Rabuka, however, has remained cautious about advancing Fiji’s security relationship with China since he took office. Despite agreeing to uphold Fiji’s policing cooperation agreement with China in March, his government removed Chinese police officers from the Fijian police force, reiterating his concern about Beijing’s growing security presence in the region.
During his visit to Australia last October, Rabuka said he was more comfortable “dealing with traditional friends” like Australia, which shares “the same brand of democracy” as Fiji.
Beijing will also seek to grow its regional influence through state visits by Pacific leaders, Novak adds.
“The recent trips to the PRC by Pacific leaders from the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and now Fiji show how Beijing continues to use high-level visits as a diplomatic tool to advance its interests in the region,” he told VOA, using the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Rabuka’s visit highlights the “close relations” between China and the South Pacific region.
“[Leaders] of the two countries will have in-depth exchanges of views on China-Fiji relations and important issues of mutual interest,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a statement released on August 9.
While Beijing looks to increase engagement with Pacific Island countries, Anne Marie Brady, a political science professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, told VOA that China is imposing more conditions on these relationships, such as accepting more military and intelligence links with Chinese government agencies.
China has been deepening security ties with South Pacific countries in recent years, signing several security-related agreements with the Solomon Islands in 2022 and providing policing assistance to Kiribati.
China has also supported some key infrastructure projects in several South Pacific countries, including the 10,000-seat sports stadium in the Solomon Islands, the presidential palace in Vanuatu, and an airstrip in Kiribati.
Novak said that while China has tried to reframe the nature of its development aid to the Pacific region and may be making small shifts towards grant-based aid, its approach remains largely the same.
“The vast majority of the PRC’s aid [to the Pacific region] continues to be provisioned through loans rather than grants, and I expect concerns about debt to continue among Pacific leaders,” he told VOA.
Beijing’s increasing presence in the security and development sector in the South Pacific has prompted democratic countries, including the United States, Australia, and Japan, to step up their engagement with regional countries as well, including unveiling a plan to open an undersea cable connectivity and resilience center and providing more support in areas such as climate change, economic development, and maritime security.
As geopolitical competition between large countries drives increased engagement with Pacific countries, Newton Cain said the time and energy required for Pacific Island countries to manage the increased tempo of visits and talks could lead to the de-prioritization of regional issues at the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum, which begins on August 26 in Tonga.
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