China’s Blue Economic Passage

Beginning in mid-2019 Xi Jinping’s China is expanding its power in the South Pacific. There are many island states without any military defense. The Chinese use several tactics to dominate them.

They bribe the leaders to switch allegiance from Taiwan to Red China, as in the case of Bougainville, Kiribati, and the Solomons. Then they suppress press freedom and human rights.

They use the debt trap diplomacy: To the Solomons they gave a loan of $825 million. If the state cannot pay back the Chinese will get the Gold Mine Ridge as collateral.

They played another trick signing a contract of lease of the 10 square-kilometer island of Tulagi for 75 years on September 23, 2019. They secured port and airport development, rights on oil and gas, fisheries, forestry, and tourism. The population is not amused.

In Bougainville Sam Kaunda and his formidable wife Josi have accepted a master plan for developing the islands that are still part of Papua New Guinea. China offered it generously, the US and Australia did not. The problem is that Sam is not an official figure. After rebelling against Papua New Guinea in a war that lasted from 1984 to 1998, he won a referendum for independence on December 11, 2019. As long as it’s not confirmed and recognized by PNG, Bougainville is no nation yet. But the Chinese recognize the rebel general already for they want to operate the fabulously wealthy Panguna Gold Mine that is now a huge deserted pit.

In the Fiji Islands, the private Free Soul Real Estate Development Company, Ltd. established an office in the capital Suva. Chinese CEO Dixon Peng concluded a contract with the Authority of Natural Resources for an environment - compatible development of the paradisiac island of Malolo. But in short time the company had excavated a large and deep access channel through the coral reef and mangroves, cut down the virgin forest and used the extracted corals to build a circumferential street for a settlement with lots for villas and a casino.

The locals came to the fence to demonstrate with placards but were sent off violently. They filed a case at the Supreme Court, which sentenced the company to restore the original condition and expulsed them from Fiji for breach of contract.

In Vanuatu the Chinese built a strange structure. Some people guess it will be a dock for airplane carriers.

The island nation of Kiribati stretches almost 6000 km between the Federated States of Micronesia to French Polynesia. Since the Chinese took control no journalists dare to go there. An Australian team of reporters were placed under house arrest and threatened with imprisonment if they show up at the front door. The next day a government member and the opposition leader came to their hotel to apologize: A communist country is turning us round. We are embarrassed to be part of that. We will never forgive those guys for what they are doing to us, for putting Kiribati on the map for their imperialist aims. This is a sad day for Kirabati’s democracy. The two accompanied the journalists to the airport.

What are these imperialist aims of China’s Blue Economic Passage? These are the supposed minerals in the Antarctica. But what will the Chinese do once they arrive in the Antarctic? They have no stake there. Will they expulse New Zealand, Australia, France, UK, Norway, Russia or the US from their Antarctic territories?

Filipinos know how the Chinese proceed: First come fishing boats, then the swarming and ramming coast guard ships, then they build runways and navy ports. Then come fly-over and innocent passage bans for foreign ships and planes. What is now the life line of international trade will become its choke line.

The Australian journalists concluded: If we do not stand up together against Chinese expansionism, we will be ruled by them in another 25 to 30 years.

Erich Wannemacher

Lapu-Lapu City