I spent about 18 months at the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Fiji in 2022 and 2023. During this time I observed that the Pacific Media’s coverage of Asia was dismal. It is no better on the other side either – South Pacific hardly exists in the Asian media.
I have noted that the Australian media in particular, as well as some of their think tanks, tend to interpret Asia to the Pacific, and spread the message that Australia and New Zealand, and its Western allies, are the region’s traditional friends and partners, and they are here to help the Pacific.
This lecturing is tempered with China-bashing rhetoric, where China is painted as an outsider infiltrating the region to exploit the people and the resources.
When I hear this rhetoric, I often think, what about Papua New Guinea (PNG), one of the most mineral rich countries in the world, whose mineral resources have been exploited by Australian and Western mining companies for over half a century, and what have the Papua New Guineans got in return? They are still one of the poorest countries in the world.
I still remember the very first international news feature I did in the early 1990s. It was about how the American Tuna Boat Association was plundering the fish resources of the South Pacific without paying any licensing fees to Pacific Island countries because the Americans don’t recognise the UN Law of the Sea Convention.
They still don’t, while they lecture to the Pacific about protecting a “rules-based order”.
Rules-based order – whose order?
A popular mantra of the Americans and their allies today is that they are protecting a “rules-based order” that is under threat from the rise of China and its alliance with Russia. But, outside the western bloc it is seen as mired in hypocrisy rather than reality.
The US and its European allies have been imposing unilateral sanctions and breaking international law at will – the latest being efforts to steal some $US300billion ($F678b) of Russian money held in Western banks to help pay for the arms supplied to Ukraine.
The rules they are talking about are rules they have set themselves, to rig the international economic and political order, to help themselves. Now, a majority of the world’s nations – known as the ‘Global South’ – are challenging these rules.
The problem is, the West only know how to lecture to others, they don’t know how to listen and respects other points of view.
Debts traps – whose traps?
Ever since the West established the so-called Bretton Woods institutions – the World Bank and the IMF, and later its avatars like the Asian Development Bank – the West has set the terms of international lending to the so-called Third World – their former colonies.
For half a century, West has used these debts – which they call “aid” – employing the IMF to impose structural adjustment policies to dictate economic and foreign policies to poor countries.
But, at the turn of the century, when a rising China started to lend big to developing countries especially to build infrastructure such as roads, ports and railways which are designed to link cities not only domestically but across regions, the West got alarmed. They no longer control the global development agenda that favour them, especially after China introduced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013.
If the BRI succeeds, the connectivity it creates will make Asia and the Pacific the centre of the global economy.
Even Australia has grudgingly realised that. In 2015, the Northern Territory government granted a 99-year lease over the Port of Darwin in Northern Australia, to a China government-linked Landbridge Group. After a security review, just before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited China in November 2023, the Australian government quietly announced on their website that the deal can go through[1]. Darwin is slated to be Australia’s link to the BRI and Asia.
By 2050, four of the world’s five largest economies are predicted to be in Asia – China, India, Japan and Indonesia. South Pacific countries are in its rim and to benefit from it, Pacific needs to link with the region through connectivity, media exposure, cultural interactions and intellectual links.
Australia, New Zealand reaching out to China
In June this year, China’s Prime Minister Li Qiang visited New Zealand and Australia to red carpet welcomes. In New Zealand, the two countries discussed to enhance their partnership through improving trade in services and goods, and intellectual exchanges. The same was agreed in Australia between the two countries.
In 2023, two-way trade between China and Australia was a record $A327billion ($F484.5b), accounting for 27 per cent of Australia’s total goods and services trade[2].
While Australia and New Zealand are trying to benefit from China’s economic rise, calling it “comprehensive strategic partnership”, their leaders and think tanks come to the Pacific to warn the region of Chinese “debt traps” and security threats.
Pacific linking with Asia
In a recent commentary in the China Daily, Chinese political science professor Li Wei argued that the China-US competition is set to be a long-term three-dimensional battle, with diplomacy, capital flows, and technological innovations playing pivotal roles.
In terms of diplomacy, he points out that the US system is based on its military alliance system, “which is relatively exclusive and rigid”. In contrast, China’s diplomacy is founded on a global network of partnerships that focus on cooperation, “which is more open and flexible”[3].
It is the latter that the Pacific Island leaders and policy makers need to understand. When China builds a port in the Pacific it needs to be looked at in terms of linking with the BRI, and China’s aid to the region needs to be seen in terms of building partnerships.
China’s aid to the Pacific
In 2023, I did a story for South China Morning Post in Hong Kong on how Chinese agriculture specialists are training Fijian farmers in rice cultivation[4]. There are no loans here and it is an aid project building partnerships between Chinese and Fijian agriculture sector introducing Asian knowhow.
When China offers to build a fishing harbour in Daru in PNG adjoing a Chinese built fish processing plant to export seafood products to China – the world’s biggest seafood market – it is again building partnerships between Pacific fisheries sector and the Chinese market. But, when this was announced in 2021, the Australian media went hysteric (I was in Australia at the time) seeing it as building a naval base 200km from its shores.
Linking Pacific to PanAsian rail network
On July 19th Thailand railways introduced a direct rail service between the two nations’ capitals – Bangkok and Vientiane. Chinese have build a 414km high-speed train line in Laos – a former French colony – which never had a railway. I went on this railway in May this year and it is an impressive technological feat built through rugged mountain terrain with 74 tunnels.
Very soon you can travel from Singapore to Beijing by rail. Right across Southeast Asia, the Chinese are building railways which would open up a huge market for goods, services and tourism that could be bigger than the European Union in years to come.
The ports being built in the Pacific, and Darwin, by Chinese companies, would link trade routes via Singapore through rail networks to the region. These should not be seen as debt traps and people in Southeast Asia see these as creating “opportunities”.
Why Southeast Asia matters to the Pacific
Two of the largest nations in Southeast Asia – Indonesia and the Philippines – are archipelago of islands. Indonesia has a population of over 200 million spread across 1600 islands, and Philippines has some 7450 islands with a population of 114 million.
The problems they face with climate change, typhoons, transport links, water resources and so on are similar to those faced by Pacific Island nations, but on a larger scale. They have tackled these problems with a certain amount of success in the past 30 years and brought millions of people out of poverty. Pacific countries would have lessons to learn and areas to collaborate.
Both these countries have good universities and vocational training centres. Philippines in particular, with its English language education system, will be a good location for Pacific students to look at for a foreign education.
I have done studies of community radio in the Philippines, and there could be areas for collaboration with the Pacific to develop local radio in small islands to address local development and cultural empowerment needs.
The Singapore model and the Pacific
I spent over 15 years, living and working in Singapore, a country that has transformed from a Third World to a First World country within a span of a generation. It is a country about 1/10th of Viti Levu island in land mass.
Singapore – like China – has not achieved this by sending their gunboats overseas to invade, occupy, massacre and enslave people and plunder their resources – like what the Europeans did to achieve this feat over a span of three centuries.
Singapore did it by developing their human resources and disciplining their population. Their political system is no different to that of China – the island of four million people – has been ruled for over 50 years not by a Communist Party, but the Peoples Action Party founded by Lee Kuan Yew.
Today, Singapore is among the world’s top five richest countries in GDP terms, and they have achieved it no doubt through an authoritarian political system. I enjoyed living there because the country is well governed, services are efficient, life is comfortable, and it is very safe to walk in the streets, even at dead of night.
Singapore is ideal for Pacific Island Countries to get their public servants and utility providers trained there. Singapore has world class universities and vocational training centers, and they work mainly in English. They also have a world-class public water utility that Fiji could learn from.
What I learned from Singapore is that authoritarian governments are not a bad idea if you can find honest politicians to deliver the public good.
Thailand’s development models
Another area the Pacific could look into is the sufficiency economics movement in Thailand. It’s a concept based on the Buddhist philosophy, but its application is very secular, and address sustainable development goals. Fiji’s Native Land Trust may find this model useful for sustainable community development.
Thailand is one of the world’s biggest tourism destinations. Currently, Thailand is developing in a significant scale what is called “community-based tourism” that is designed to get a larger portion of the tourism revenue into the community.
Pacific media could send reporters to look closer at this model and its relevance to developing tourism across the Pacific.
Asia is an opportunity not a threat
Pacific media need to source news material directly from Asia – not through Australian and New Zealand sources. Funds should be allocated for more Pacific journalists to visit Asia and report through their own eyes.
Asians are big travellers today – especially the Chinese – and Pacific media may collaborate with Asian media to publish travel features on the Pacific.
Universities also need to develop more collaborations with economics, science and journalism departments in Asian universities.
It is through direct experience of Asia that you can have a balanced view of the Geo-Politics in the region, and help to develop win-win situations.
Rise of Asia is an opportunity – not a threat.