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| Photo Credit: AP. |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Thursday unveiled a Pacific strategy designed to bolster U.S. engagement with more than a dozen island nations on issues including climate change and maritime security while pledging to expand the U.S. diplomatic presence in the region.
The Biden
administration released its new strategy, as well as plans for $810 million in
new aid for Pacific Island nations, as President Joe Biden prepared to meet
with leaders attending the U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit. The Democratic
president was set to address the summit on Thursday and then host the leaders
for a dinner at the White House. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with
leaders on Wednesday at the State Department.
The
president’s push to improve relations in Pacific comes amid growing U.S.
concern about China’s growing military and economic influence. Earlier this
year, the Solomon Islands signed a new security pact with Beijing, and ahead of
the summit signaled it would be hesitant to sign any end-of-summit statement
critical of China.
Among the
new initiatives the White House announced are plans to ask Congress to
appropriate $600 million over 10 years to support economic development and
promote climate resilience efforts for Pacific fisheries and establish a
regional mission of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Suva,
Fiji. The White House also reiterated previously announced plans to open
embassies in the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Kiribati.
The White
House also announced plans to recognize the Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign
states, after “appropriate consultations.” The U.S. currently recognizes the
islands as self-governing territories.
The 16-page
document notes “heightened geopolitical competition impacts” for the Pacific
Island countries that also directly affect the United States.
“Increasingly
those impacts include pressure and economic coercion by the People’s Republic
of China, which risks undermining the peace, prosperity, and security of the region,
and by extension, of the United States,” the strategy document says. “These
challenges demand renewed U.S. engagement across the full Pacific Islands
region.”
Among the
broad strategy aims laid out by the Biden administration in the document are expanding
the number of U.S. diplomatic missions from six to nine across the Pacific and
completing work to renew strategic partnership agreements with the Pacific
Island nations of Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands that are set to
soon expire. The strategy also calls for increasing the presence in the region
of the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
and the Pentagon.
Leaders from
Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the
Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, French Polynesia and New
Caledonia are attending the two-day summit. Vanuatu and Nauru sent
representatives, and Australia, New Zealand and the secretary-general of the
Pacific Island Forum sent observers, according to the White House.
White House
officials acknowledge that U.S. inattentiveness toward the region since the end
of the Cold War has left an opening for Beijing to exert its influence.
Plans for
the summit were announced earlier this month, just days after the Solomon
Islands called on the U.S. and Britain not to send naval vessels to the South
Pacific nation until approval processes are overhauled. The Solomons in April
signed a new security pact with China.
The Solomon
Islands signaled it was unlikely to sign on to a joint statement that the U.S.
hoped to have hashed out by the end of the summit, according to a diplomat
familiar with summit planning. The diplomat, who was not authorized to comment
publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the resistance is driven
in part by the Solomon Islands’ tightening relationship with Beijing.
The U.S. and
summit participants are working toward a summit-concluding joint statement that
is expected to avoid directly addressing China, but will include calls for
upholding freedom of navigation, respect the sovereign rights and territorial
integrity of nations in the region, and the urgency of acting on climate
change, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized
to comment publicly.
Just last
week, the Marshall Islands pulled out of a negotiating session with the U.S.
over their Compact of Free Association, which expires next year. The Marshall
Islands says the U.S. isn’t engaging on its claim for proper reparations from
the legacy of U.S. nuclear testing in the islands.
The Marshall
Islands says there was extensive environmental and health damage from the
dozens of tests in the 1940s and 1950s, which a settlement in the 1980s fell
well short of addressing.
Besides
their meeting with Biden, island leaders are scheduled to meet on Thursday with
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.