China ups aid spending in South Pacific as it seeks to grow influence in Australia’s backyard
Beijing is ‘buying support’, according to researcher who found that its spending in region is second only to Canberra’s
China has emerged as the second-largest aid donor in the South Pacific, figures published on Thursday by a think tank show, illustrating its growing influence in a region traditionally dominated by Australia and New Zealand.
China’s US$1.3 billion-worth of donations and concessionary loans since 2011 trails Australia’s US$6.6 billion, figures compiled by the Australia-funded Lowy Institute show, but it is more than New Zealand’s US$1.2 billion.
Spending by China, criticised by many of its neighbours for island building in the South China Sea, is almost 9 per cent of total aid donations in the South Pacific.
If pledged aid is included, China’s promises total US$5.9 billion, or nearly a third of all aid pledged to the region’s 14 countries by 62 donors.
“There is definitely an element of briefcase diplomacy in the Pacific,” the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands programme director, Jonathan Pryke, one of the two lead researchers, said.
“They are engaged in buying support,” he said, adding that China’s sway was not “as overwhelming as you might get the sense from the narrative that is been played out this year and last”.