China’s Pre-PALM Pacific Diplomacy

China hosted the leaders of two Pacific Island countries in mid-July: Vanuatu's Prime Minister Charlot Salwai from July 7 to 12 and Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele from July 9 to 15. It was Manele’s first visit to China since he took office in May; Salwai previously made a China trip in 2019.

The overlapping timing of the trips was not a coincidence. Both Salwai and Manele stopped in China ahead of their attendance at the 10th Pacific Island Leaders’ Meeting (PALM10), held in Japan from July 16-18. In all, PALM10 saw Japan host 14 top leaders from Pacific Island Forum (PIF) members: Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

Given the large number of Pacific leaders who made the trip north, it’s notable that only two tacked on a visit to China as well. In hosting Manele and Salwai, Beijing likely wanted to ensure that it was on the same page with two of its closest partners in the Pacific before the conclave in Japan, which is actively working to dilute China’s influence in the region.

The Solomon Islands has made headlines time and time again for its advancing relationship with China, from establishing diplomatic ties in 2019 to signing a major security deal in 2022. Vanuatu’s relationship with China is lower-profile but arguably deeper. According to research from the Lowy Institute, loans from China make up over 50 percent of Vanuatu’s external debt, and the Pacific Island nation is edging closer to the IMF’s threshold for a “high risk of debt distress.”

Brushing aside frequent (and frequently exaggerated) warnings about China’s “debt trap diplomacy” from politicians in Washington and Canberra, both the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have embraced Chinese infrastructure and development funding. Solomon Islands used Chinese companies – and Chinese grants – to construct venues for the 2023 Pacific Games. Likewise, the Solomons awarded the contract for a major expansion of Honiara port to China Civil Engineering Construction Company.

And just before Salwai’s visit to Beijing, Chinese officials attended a ceremony opening the China-built presidential palace in Vanuatu, estimated to have cost over $20 million, as well as a new building to house Vanuatu’s Ministry of Finance.

As expected, new deals were agreed to during the two prime ministers’ separate visits. Vanuatu’s government signed 13 MOUs with China during Salwai’s trip, headlined by an agreement to have China undertake road construction and improvement in the capital, Port Vila.

More concerningly, from the perspective of media freedom advocates, another agreement will see China “enhance the production and coverage capabilities of the Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation.” Given China’s conception of the media as a useful tool for the ruling regime – which purposefully negates the possibility of a free press – its training and education programs for foreign journalists are viewed with suspicion by liberal democracies.

Similarly, both Vanuatu and Solomon Islands have signed deals with China on police cooperation, which critics fear will bring Beijing’s heavy-handed approach to surveillance and “stability preservation” to both countries. Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands have also embraced Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications firm that is the subject of both human rights and cybersecurity concerns in the United States and Europe.

Interestingly, however, few new agreements were signed during Manele’s trip to China. While the Solomon Islands leader was free with his praise of China (and Xi Jinping specifically) and spoke highly of existing cooperation, he seems to content to essentially pause the relationship for now. Manele has signaled a more balanced stance in his foreign policy, including choosing Australia as the destination of his first visit abroad, and seems to be calibrating carefully before committing to new projects.

The slight hesitancy in Manele’s position versus the outright eagerness in Salwai’s was clear from the Chinese readouts of their separate meetings with Xi. According to China’s Foreign Ministry, Salwai reiterated support for the “one-China principle,” saying Vanuatu “takes Taiwan as an inseparable part of China.” He also said that Vanuatu “supports China on issues concerning Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Xizang [Tibet], human rights and the South China Sea.”

Manele likewise affirmed Solomon Islands’ support for the “one-China principle,” but steered clear of positioning his country alongside China on other sensitive issues.

These statements make for interesting reading alongside the Leaders’ Declaration issued following PALM10 in Japan, which was signed onto by all the attending leaders.

While China was not directly referenced in the declaration, the document saw PIF members buy in to several general framings often used by Japan and others to criticized China. The declaration included a nod to “the importance of the free and open international rules-based order,” adopting Japan’s diplomatic mantra. In Tokyo, Beijing is seen as the biggest threat to freedom, openness, and the rules-based order.

Notably, however, Japan’s preferred term of “Indo-Pacific” was entirely absent, with “Asia-Pacific” used in its stead. Beijing has objected to the new framing of a unified Indian Ocean-Pacific Ocean region, seeing it as intrinsically tied to the U.S. strategy to “contain” China. Clearly Pacific Island countries have concerns about embracing the “Indo-Pacific” concept as well.

That said, the PALM10 declaration also included a statement of “strong opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by the threat or use of force or coercion anywhere in the world” – phrasing often used by the United States and its allies to denounce China’s actions in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. The language is nebulous, however, and could just as easily be applied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – which most Pacific Island states have spoken out against.

Taken together, the visits to China by Salwai and Manele once again demonstrate that Beijing’s Pacific Island diplomacy is not a monolith. Each country has its own distinct relationship with China – some extremely close, some more cautious. And in these democratic nations, government changes can also bring in a change of policy, as in the case of the Solomon Islands.

And this is what full-on regional summits – whether Japan’s PALM mechanism or the two U.S.-Pacific Island leaders’ meetings in 2022 and 2023 – often miss. When there are a dozen-plus Pacific presidents and prime ministers in the room, there’s little time or space for the nuance of a single bilateral relationship. For comparison, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s individual summits with Salwai and Manele lasted just 15 and 20 minutes, respectively.

It’s hard to imagine Manele, much less Salwai, being invited to the United States for a nearly week-long cross-country state visit. In fact, the U.S. made sure to time both its Pacific Island summits with the United Nations General Assembly, precisely so it wouldn’t have to bother arranging separate visits for the attending leaders.

It’s clear that the level of prestige matters, especially to smaller states. Each such visit helps underscore China’s frequent argument that, as Salwai put it in his meeting with Xi, Beijing “treats small countries like Vanuatu equally, fully embodying equality and respect.”

The money is nice, but China’s willingness to spend its time on a small country like Vanuatu or the Solomon Islands may be its single biggest selling point.