The USAID office in PNG will also serve Vanuatu, which has close ties to China, and the Solomon Islands, which last year signed a security agreement with China and US officials say has yet to accept any US assistance. Have not agreed.
Speaking at the opening of the regional office in Fiji, Power said Washington had heard the Pacific region’s biggest request: “First and foremost, be present.”
“A stronger US presence in our blue Pacific makes our region more secure,” Fiji’s assistant foreign minister Lenora Curekaretabua said this week. In June, Querecaretabua led a delegation to China.
Meanwhile, Fiji’s military commander Ratu Joan Logavatu Kalonivai said after a meeting of defense chiefs on Friday that the geopolitical situation meant Fiji needed to develop networks to link up with “huge military installations”.
“The rules-based system is the only thing that allows small countries like Fiji to be equals when dealing with larger countries,” he said in a video statement.
Former Chinese diplomat Denghua Zhang, a research fellow at the Australian National University, said as the US and China escalate their rivalry, countries will find it difficult to balance their aid ties with both powers.
“China aims to garner support from the global south, including Pacific island nations, in its geostrategic competition with traditional powers,” he said.
