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Vanuatu-Australia security pact bans ‘foreign’ military bases
The treaty is the latest in a string of Pacific deals Australia has signed seeking to curb China’s expanding security influence
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Australia and Vanuatu signed a sweeping economic and security agreement on Monday that bars the establishment of any foreign military base on the Pacific island.
Vanuatu is at the centre of strategic rivalry between China and US allies in the South Pacific, and Australia has expressed concern that Beijing is seeking a permanent security presence in the region.
The agreement commits Australia to greater economic support for Vanuatu, whose largest external creditor is China, and it stops a foreign military power establishing a base there.
“What this does do is to provide certainty for Australia that there will be no foreign military base,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters after signing the deal in Canberra with his Vanuatu counterpart, Jotham Napat. “We have concluded a balanced agreement that will protect our collective and individual security and our sovereignty.”
China’s navy has made repeated port calls to Vanuatu.
Beijing also funded the expansion of a wharf in Luganville, once the largest US military base in the South Pacific, fuelling concern in Canberra and Washington that China wanted a naval base. China and Vanuatu previously said the wharf was for cruise ships.
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