US to host Pacific Island leaders amid US-China rivalry
US President Joe Biden is set to host Pacific Island leaders this week amid growing US-China rivalry in the Pacific. The White House describes it as the first such summit. The two-day summit begins Sept. 28 and includes dinner between Biden and summit attendees.
The meeting of pacific nation leaders was announced in June, shortly after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi embarked on a high-profile 10-day tour of the Pacific region that included eight countries.
“The purpose [of the summit] is not just to listen to Pacific leaders, but to put tremendous resources on the table,” says Kurt Campbell, Biden’s Indo-Pacific coordinator.
“We’ve never had Pacific Island leaders in the White House,” Campbell said. “It’s not just one or two meetings. This is a very sustained effort that will involve nearly all major US government players who have an interest in the Indo-Pacific,” she said.
The summit is the latest in a wave of US diplomatic activity in the region this year. Speaking at the Pacific Islands Forum, the leading regional group, Vice President Kamala Harris said in July that the United States is starting a “new chapter” of cooperation with the region, opening new embassies and increasing funding and development aid.
Anna Powles, a Pacific security expert at Massey University in New Zealand, told that the inaugural summit is about demonstrating “US commitment and commitment to the Pacific.” But she also noted that the Biden administration’s primary goal is “securing a regional strategy between Washington and the Pacific nations on shared interests” – is far from certain. “This is where the top can unfold,” she warned.
US to host Pacific Island leaders amid US-China rivalry
The summit comes at a delicate time for many Pacific countries, which are arguably among the hardest hit by the climate crisis in the world. In addition to China’s rapprochement, the controversial political decisions of the governments of the Solomon Islands and Kiribati and the widespread political violence in Papua New Guinea in the last months before the summit attracted regional and domestic attention. And while the White House reinforced the historical nature of the event, key Pacific voices were initially excluded from the invitation list, and some Pacific government leaders are unsure of attending.
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