China names special envoy to Pacific Islands as rivalry with US heats up in region
- Qian Bo, the Chinese ambassador to Fiji, takes on title reserved for most pressing diplomatic issues, such as climate change and the Middle East
- Beijing and Washington are competing for influence over the island nations in trade, investment, security and diplomacy
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Unlike the previous role for the PIF, the new title is “special envoy of the Chinese government”.
This suggests Qian, as a representative of the entire government, will work as a coordinator across different ministries and departments of the State Council, enabling him to strengthen collaboration to address more complex and substantial issues, said Wang Yiwei, an international relations professor at Renmin University in Beijing.
“It reflects the increased importance that the Chinese government attaches to the affairs of this region,” he said.
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State Councillor Wang Yi, now China’s top diplomat, promised to elevate the role of Beijing’s envoy to the South Pacific during his visit to the region in May and June.
China has significantly increased its presence in Oceania over the past two decades. It has become a major trading partner and investor in the region while courting several island nations through engagements and frequent visits by senior officials.
In the past, the Pacific Islands’ importance to Beijing was mainly that it was an arena to compete for diplomatic recognition with Taipei, said Wang of Renmin University.
Beijing regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and makes the one-China principle, which says countries must not have official relations with Taiwan, a precondition of diplomacy.
There are only 14 countries that maintain formal diplomatic relationships with Taiwan, four of which are Pacific Island nations: the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and Tuvalu.
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The region is rising in geopolitical significance as two great powers on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean compete for influence.
Last year’s security deal between China and the Solomon Islands irritated the US, which had closed its embassy there in 1993 and had not sent a secretary of state to the region in 37 years. The pact also irked Australia, which views the South Pacific as its security sphere.
Washington reacted by immediately dispatching senior officials to the Solomon Islands and neighbouring countries.
Just after the summit, the Biden administration unveiled the first US Pacific Partnership Strategy, which warned that “pressure and economic coercion” by China risked undermining the peace, prosperity and security of the region and the US.
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To counter China and increase American diplomatic presence in the region, Biden announced Washington would open new embassies in the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Tonga, increasing the number of US embassies in the Pacific Islands from six to nine.
Biden also appointed the first US envoy to the PIF in September – three months after top diplomat Wang talked about establishing an upgraded special envoy post for the region.
China has diplomatic relations with 10 Pacific countries and embassies in eight of them, including the three where the US announced it would open embassies.
“The US mindset is that it can never let China make the rules and export influence and ideology,” Wang Yiwei said.
“These Pacific Islands are part of the US global strategic alliance system, and containing China in the region is also a request of its regional allies like Australia.”
