PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

By Micheal Field

SUVA, Fiji (Islands Business, May 22) – Honiara’s Chinatown was a ramshackle kind of place in desperate need of urban renewal. But its destruction following the debacle of the Solomon Islands election serves as an ominous warning about the price to be paid for the battle of the two Chinas.

Both Beijing and Taipei have decided—like the Japanese and the Americans before them—that it’s okay to fight their battles in other people’s countries.

Last month, it was the small but visible Chinese community of the Solomon Islands who ran out of town; next month it could be the same group in Suva, Apia, Nuku’alofa, Port Vila or Majuro.

Every Pacific nation has its equivalent to a Sir Thomas Chan, the ethnic Chinese businessman who is a naturalized Solomon Islander.

They are the economic lifeblood of most Pacific nations and many of them have genuinely deep and long-standing ties with the islands.

Each one of them and their families, and the leaders of their host nations, will now be worried about their future.

China has developed its playing hand in the South Seas for nearly 30 years and last month Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao showed the cards in Fiji.

Taiwan’s President Chen Shiu Bian had made a similar Pacific tour last year.

In Rarotonga, Professor Emeritus Ron Crocombe charts the growth of Asia in the Pacific.

"It’s a paradigm shift of the kind that last occurred in the Pacific 200 years ago with the arrival of the Europeans. The overall influence package of trade, investment, political leverage, military involvement, is shifting from the west to the east."

Of the 14 islands states in the Pacific Islands Forum, six recognize Taiwan with several—like Vanuatu—wavering towards Taipei, and others like Papua New Guinea and Fiji are moderately successful at playing both sides.

The result across the Pacific is an increasing range of bizarrely built Chinese buildings, such as the new Ministry of Justice building in Rarotonga.

The toilet cubicles are designed for Chinese bodies—islanders don’t fit. It’s just as well as the toilets have no s-bends in their pipes.

A new police station is to follow as well as a "cyclone-proof highway’’.

China is finishing a huge and out of character looking sports stadium overlooking Samoa’s capital of Apia.

Taiwan provided Tuvalu with its largest building and the American Mormons stoically built the same looking churches no matter the landscape.

Ominously the two Chinas both meddle in the political scenes of Pacific countries; one side funding the political group promising recognition of Beijing, the other funding their rivals.

It was in the Solomon Islands last month where the real price of the China versus Taiwan struggle had been played out.

Just before the riots broke out, the Solomons, which recognizes Taipei, hosted two Taiwanese warships in Honiara. Just two weeks before, Wen made a high profile visit to the South Pacific, holding a summit in Fiji, where he highlighted China’s growing presence in the region.

"As far as China is concerned, to foster friendship and cooperation with the Pacific islands countries is not a diplomatic expediency,’’ said Wen.

"Rather, it is a strategic decision. China has proved and will continue to prove itself to be a sincere, trustworthy and reliable friend and partner of the Pacific islands countries forever.’’

The reality of it all could be seen in people like Solomons Islands citizen Jessica Yi who fled her homeland and arrived in New Zealand with only a handbag and clothes she had on—and no passport.

"We just ran for our lives,’’ she said, adding that around 1,000 Chinese in Honiara were in the same situation.

They’re hiding in a few houses in the battered town under Red Cross care, awaiting Beijing-organized airlifts out of the country.

Yi worked at the new Pacific Casino Hotel, owned by the Chan group.

She said the first rioters hit the hotel before dawn, throwing stones and breaking glass.

Regional Assistance Mission (RAMSI) police arrived and they thought they were safe.

"We started to clean up parts of the hotel and continue our business. But the next day they came back to our hotel and we had no way, we had to run."

She reckoned there were 700 people attacking.

"RAMSI had no way to help, they told us to run...We just ran for our lives. I lost my passport, I lost everything, I came out with just this bag.’’

She believed most Chinese people in Honiara were attacked: "In a few cases, they even attacked the people."

New Zealand businessman Terry Ashdown saw rioters attack Chan connections.

"You could see a couple of guys running around, one guy in particular with a big red bandana," he said.

"He was clearly directing people. He was saying ‘break in there, break in there’. From what we could hear, he was saying ‘this is Chan’s, that is Chan’s’. They were definitely targeting the Chan family."

Influential Solomon Islands’ academic Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka writing for the Pacific Islands Report website noted the riots exploded out of the election of Snyder Rini as prime minister, marking a continuation of the old government that had brought the Solomons to bankruptcy.

The Chinese, or ‘waku’ as they are known in the Solomons, are alleged to have paid large sums of money to Members of Parliament in order to ensure that any government that was formed served their interests.

"The protest against Rini’s election as prime minister was therefore a result of widespread public perceptions that Asian—especially Chinese—businessmen bribed members of parliament into supporting Rini and the ‘old guard’ who served their interests," Kabutaulaka wrote.

"The sad thing, however, is that the media tends to refer to Asians and Chinese in a very general and inclusive manner that does not do justice to the fact that many Solomon Islander Chinese have little to do with politics. Unfortunately, they too suffered in the rioting and looting and

"Many of the Chinese who owned shops at China Town are descendants of those who came to the Solomon Islands during the colonial days as laborers, cooks, laundry boys, etc, for the British administrators and plantation owners.

"Over the years they worked hard to build the retail stores and other businesses they owned. It is sad and shameful to see all that go up in flame.’’

In New Zealand, Chinese speaking Dr Anne-Marie Brady of Canterbury University’s School of Political Science and Communications, says Beijing’s ‘favor buying’ in the South Pacific was putting money in the pockets of politicians and causing corruption and governance problems in countries like Fiji, the Solomons and Vanuatu.

"New Zealand is incredibly sanguine about China. I think our Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT) people are dangerously sanguine about what is going on in the South Pacific,’’ she said.

"We want a stable and democratic South Pacific. Although there are good pragmatic reasons for working with China, there are so many things we don’t have in common with them and the most important is the political system and their world view.’’

Brady says China used "soft power" to press its influence across the region, with sponsored visits to China and the kind of ceremonials for visiting Pacific leaders they would get no-where else. They give aid without questions on governance in recipient nations.

"That is appreciated in little countries. They wouldn’t be asking anyone on how their governance is going because they have problems themselves.

"They don’t like being questioned about their human rights issues and corruption and so they are hardly asking South Pacific countries to follow certain standards."

While the ‘China card’ could be overplayed by Pacific leaders, Bradley says New Zealand’s foreign ministry quietly tells leaders the China battle was not absolute.

They’re told: "It’s better to recognize People’s Republic of China but then get what you can get out of the Republic of China. We can’t give you all you need, but there are other sources.’’

Chinese migrant behavior is a concern.

"The Chinese government says they cannot control these people and they may well be right," Brady says.

"Imagine if America had the same kind of numbers of people and there was a lot of criminal behavior associated with them, and then America says they couldn’t control them. That would be an international scandal."

She said she was not concerned about China striving for global dominance but rather its values.

"This is a country that suffers from severe corruption by the only important political party, it doesn’t share our views on human rights, they can’t control their citizens engaging in criminal behavior, they have different norms. They do not value human life. They are so different from us on so many different levels; I don’t think we want to have a country with that sort of society having a big influence in our part of the world."

Professor Crocombe said China had been working on the region in a well thought out way for 30 years. "The first thing was to get the politicians on side, which they found rather easy and cheaply,’’ he said.

"Then to get public support with the big impressive public buildings, such as parliaments, and then to get the security forces on side. So there have been donations to all the security forces.

"In a sense, it is exactly the same game Australia and New Zealand and everybody else does—it’s the diplomatic game. They played it late but they played it bold and straight.’

Australian National University based China specialist Anna Powles said the struggle between the two Chinas was, in part, over vote-buying in international resources "but with the added and ultimately far more significant reasons of resources (fish, timber, etc) and the "valve" that the Pacific presents for Chinese migration.

"China has always "pushed" its citizens out into Southeast Asia, and the border regions with Russia, as a means of releasing pressure within China," she says.

[PIR editor’s note: Micheal Field is a Pacific Islands journalist based out of New Zealand. He has written many articles as well as books on issues affecting the Pacific region.]

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