 | | TOKYO -- China has come to build roads and bridges in the South Pacific, not to establish military bases, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Papua New Guinea last Friday.
But so said President Xi Jinping about the South China Sea, when he visited the White House in September 2015. China's construction of runways and infrastructure since then have proved otherwise.
What spoke louder than Wang's words was perhaps his itinerary. Departing just days after U.S. President Joe Biden had made his first trip to Asia, Wang visited the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and East Timor.
The great power competition between the U.S. and China, which has intensified in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the Mekong region, has now spilled over the South Pacific, putting the small island nations on the frontline of the rivalry.
While Wang failed to conclude a regionwide economic and security deal with the Pacific nations, analysts say that Beijing will keep pressing for a pact. And thus the diplomatic courting continues. Read more.
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