China is on track to overtake Japan as the third largest donor to Pacific Island nations. In some countries, Chinese aid amounts are already rivaling that of traditional partners, as analyst Philippa Brant tells DW. China has also held two main regional meetings (2006 and 2013) in which it announced a range of aid measures to strengthen economic development and diplomatic engagement with the region. Beijing also provides support to key regional organizations, particularly the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. In addition to its bilateral aid program and support for regional organizations, China also provides scholarships for Pacific Islands students and significant human resources training for government officials, according to the Sydney-based institute.See Lowy Institutes's A new tool to examine Chinese aid in the Pacific
But new data published by the Lowy Institute on March 2, reveal that since 2006 China has provided $1.4 billion in foreign aid to eight Pacific Island countries - the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Fiji, Niue, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu. China aid researcher Dr Philippa Brant put together data from over 500 sources, including budgets, tender documents and government statements to come up with an interactive map which gives a detailed picture of China's aid to eight Pacific Island countries.
In a DW interview, Dr Brant talks about China's aims in the region, the risks involved in these financial commitments and which countries have profited most from Chinese aid thus far. Dr Philippa Brant is a Research Associate working with the Research Director of the Australia-based Lowy Institute for International Policy.
Many countries in the Pacific Islands region have significant development challenges, ranging from healthcare to infrastructure to climate change. Although countries receive substantial assistance from traditional partners like Australia and New Zealand, there has been a need for further assistance, particularly in the infrastructure sector.
China, like all countries, provides aid for a number of reasons: economic, diplomatic, and political. In the Pacific Islands region, China is hoping that its assistance will help demonstrate that it is a responsible power that supports other developing countries.
Concessional loans have become a dominant feature of China's aid to the Pacific since 2006, accounting for almost 80 percent of the total aid provided. Many of these loans have been used to build infrastructure, such as roads and hospitals. At the second China-Pacific Island Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum, held in Guangzhou in 2013, China pledged $1 billion in concessional loans (plus another $1 billion in commercial loans from China Development Bank).
Papua New Guinea and Fiji have received the most aid from China since 2006. This makes sense, as they are the two largest economies in the region. However, China has also provided substantial support to smaller countries, like Vanuatu and Samoa.
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In the last decade, China's rapid growth has found it eager to spread its influence in a number of regions around the world, including the Pacific. There are economic and security reasons for this, but also, China says, because it wants to help smaller countries. China has recently announced a billion US dollar loan facility available to Pacific Island countries in the next few years.
A conference held this week at the National University of Samoa, 'China and the Pacific: The View from Oceania', sought to counter misperceptions about China's role in the region, particularly its aid programme.
Organised by Victoria University's Contemporary China Research Centre in conjunction with the Centre for Oceania Studies at China's Sun Yat-sen University and Samoa's University, the conference pulled together a wide range of scholars and policy makers including rarely-heard Chinese voices on the issue. China's Ambassador to Samoa, Madame Li Yanduan, says China takes its role as a leading member of the global community seriously.
MADAME LI YANDUAN: It is our belief that common development is good for the interests of China and also the rest of the developing countries, so that's why we think the Pacific Island countries are important and we would like to contribute something to the development of this region.
Pacific island governments are indicating that China is often more responsive to their needs. Paul D'Arcy, from the Australian National University's College of Asia and the Pacific, says at the same time, Island leaders have learnt how to seek out beneficial aid partnerships.
PAUL D'ARCY: What we are now seeing is the nature of Chinese aid, is that we get Chinese entrepreneurs or Chinese companies coming and saying what do you want? Because they have to go sell that then to Chinese state banks and so it's very much more so a partnership at a ground level getting these aid programmes going.
The director of the University of Hawaii's Centre for Pacific Studies, Terence Wesley-Smith, says China's foray into the Pacific is the biggest challenge yet to the influence in the region of the traditional external powers, Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
TERENCE WESLEY-SMITH: It's not a military challenge, it's a challenge to a sort of regime of aid and support that's been developed over many decades and it's a regime of support which comes with an agenda.
Professor Wesley-Smith says for instance Australia's aid to the islands is often tied to conditions around political and governance reform and neo-liberal economic opportunities.
TERENCE WESLEY-SMITH: To this point there's sort of been a monopoly of aid donors who are agreed that these are the conditions and that monopoly has now effectively been broken by the emergency of China as an alternative aid donor which offers support without political conditions and from the islands' perspective, I think most Pacific leaders, at least, welcome this because it offers them new opportunities that they didn't have before -- new trading partners, new possible sources of investment, and possibilities of working with powers other than traditional external powers.
Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi says China's aid in the region fills certain gaps.
TUILAEPA SAILELE MALIELEGAOI: The problem of course is that different countries, development partners of the region, have different priorities, and that's why I mention that China comes in as providing supplementary resources available to the region, covering those areas which are not covered in traditional aid donors' programmes.
Professor Liu Hongzhong of the Centre for Oceanian Studies at Peking University says some western countries are not used to seeing China's aid efforts in the region.
LIU HONGZHONG: Of course China has a big population and people will have doubts about the motives and whether they're going to take the lead or change the rules or whatever. So why don't we just take China as another traditional member of the donors. If New Zealand or Australia were going to donate, would anyone have doubts about their motives?
A number of delegates at the Samoa conference were at pains to point out that there is room for a wide range of partners in the Pacific region. Ambassador Li says China is not looking to usurp other donor countries, but to work together.
MADAME LI YANDUAN: We think the diplomatic corp, we think it's quite open and people just exchange the information about the assistance, development, land - something like that.
China is now showing that it is increasingly flexible and learning more about aid delivery by working with other donor countries in the Pacific, such as with Australia on malaria prevention in Papua New Guinea, and with New Zealand on a tripartite water project in the Cook Islands.
