Western powers coming to terms with China in the Pacific

Transcript

The traditional external powers in the Pacific Islands are still coming to terms with China's increasing level of engagement in the region.

A conference held this week at the National University of Samoa, 'China and the Pacific: The View from Oceania', sought to counter misperceptions about China's role in the region, particularly its aid programme.

Organised by Victoria University's Contemporary China Research Centre in conjunction with the Centre for Oceania Studies at China's Sun Yat-sen University and Samoa's University, the conference pulled together a wide range of scholars and policy makers including rarely-heard Chinese voices on the issue.

Johnny Blades was there.

In the last decade, China's rapid growth has found it eager to spread its influence in a number of regions around the world, including the Pacific. There are economic and security reasons for this, but also, China says, because it wants to help smaller countries. China has recently announced a billion US dollar loan facility available to Pacific Island countries in the next few years. China's Ambassador to Samoa, Madame Li Yanduan, says China takes its role as a leading member of the global community seriously.

MADAME LI YANDUAN: It is our belief that common development is good for the interests of China and also the rest of the developing countries, so that's why we think the Pacific Island countries are important and we would like to contribute something to the development of this region.

Australia is still far ahead as the region's biggest aid donor, but China has rapidly risen to the top three Japan and New Zealand to sit in third place behind the USA. However, exact figures and data on China's aid programmes in the Pacific have not beenreadily available. A specialist in Chinese aid in the Pacific with the Lowy Institute for Public Policy, Dr Philippa Brant says this makes it difficult to find out the true value of Chinese aid to the Pacific.

PHILIPPA BRANT: I think the challenge is that we do have an expectation around transparency with some of our traditional development partners, and I think the challenge for China is that it has a small aid bureaucracy managing a rather large programme that's now one of the largest donors in the world and their statistical ability is not to the same level as other donors and so we have an expectation on China that, at the moment, they can't meet.

Chinese officials say effectiveness rather than transparency of its aid is China's priority. However various complaints have emerged from recipient countries about the quality of the aid projects. Dr Brant says that 78% of Chinese aid in the Pacific is in the form of concessional loans, which typically mean projects for building infrastructure such as roads and hospitals are carried out by Chinese contractors. But there are concerns in the region about a lack of follow-up by the Chinese.

PHILIPPA BRANT: We have traditionally seen a concern in the region about ongoing maintenance costs of some of these projects. But, to be fair, both the Pacific Island governments and the Chinese are realising that there needs to be some change in the way that these projects and programmes are implemented.

Yet to the apparent surprise of some traditional partners, Pacific island governments are indicating that China is often more responsive to their needs. Paul D'Arcy, from the Australian National University's College of Asia and the Pacific, says at the same time, Island leaders have learnt how to seek out beneficial aid partnerships.

PAUL D'ARCY: What we are now seeing is the nature of Chinese aid, is that we get Chinese entrepreneurs or Chinese companies coming and saying what do you want? Because they have to go sell that then to Chinese state banks and so it's very much more so a partnership at a ground level getting these aid programmes going.

The director of the University of Hawaii's Centre for Pacific Studies, Terence Wesley-Smith, says China's foray into the Pacific is the biggest challenge yet to the influence in the region of the traditional external powers, Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

TERENCE WESLEY-SMITH: It's not a military challenge, it's a challenge to a sort of regime of aid and support that's been developed over many decades and it's a regime of support which comes with an agenda.

Professor Wesley-Smith says for instance Australia's aid to the islands is often tied to conditions around political and governance reform and neo-liberal economic opportunities.

TERENCE WESLEY-SMITH: To this point there's sort of been a monopoly of aid donors who are agreed that these are the conditions and that monopoly has now effectively been broken by the emergency of China as an alternative aid donor which offers support without political conditions and from the islands' perspective, I think most Pacific leaders, at least, welcome this because it offers them new opportunities that they didn't have before -- new trading partners, new possible sources of investment, and possibilities of working with powers other than traditional external powers.

Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi says  China's aid in the region fills certain gaps.

TUILAEPA SAILELE MALIELEGAOI: The problem of course is that different countries, development partners of the region, have different priorities, and that's why I mention that China comes in as providing supplementary resources available to the region, covering those areas which are not covered in traditional aid donors' programmes.

Professor Liu Hongzhong of the Centre for Oceanian Studies at Peking University says some western countries are not used to seeing China's aid efforts in the region.

LIU HONGZHONG: Of course China has a big population and people will have doubts about the motives and whether they're going to take the lead or change the rules or whatever. So why don't we just take China as another traditional member of the donors. If New Zealand or Australia were going to donate, would anyone have doubts about their motives?

A number of delegates at the Samoa conference were at pains to point out that there is room for a wide range of partners in the Pacific region. Ambassador Li says China is not looking to usurp other donor countries, but to work together.

MADAME LI YANDUAN: We think the diplomatic corp, we think it's quite open and people just exchange the information about the assistance, development, land - something like that.

China is now showing that it is increasingly flexible and learning more about aid delivery by working with other donor countries in the Pacific, such as with Australia on malaria prevention in Papua New Guinea, and with New Zealand on a tripartite water project in the Cook Islands.