Paris is directly concerned by the Sino-American confrontation in the South Pacific Islands, after the Safe Agreement between Beijing and the Solomon Islands
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Visits are linked as so many “first” for decades: multiplying high-level trips in the South Pacific, Australia, Fiji, Hawaii or Papua New Guinea, the US authorities are trying to to return to this strategic area to make the progress of China – the newest success of Beijing being the signature, announced on 19 April, of a safe agreement with the Solomon Islands, unpublished in the region, which aims for a police cooperation strengthened and authorizes the creation of a Chinese military base in the archipelago.
Member of the National Security Council of the US President, Joe Biden, the Indo-Pacific Coordinator, Kurt Campbell, is expected these days to Solomon, in the middle of the front line of the two world powers. The historical partner of Solomon, Australia, was surprised by the agreement negotiated secretly by the Honiara authorities with Beijing. Which did not fail to formalize his signature with the Solomon on the eve of the US trip, and a few months of the commemoration, in August, the 80 years of the battle of Guadalcanal between the United States and the Empire of the Japan.
“He settles the idea that the Pacific Islands are where a strategic surprise can arise”, Note Christian Lechervy, Current Ambassador of France in Burma after having been to the community of Pacific (SPC), which spoke “as an individual” as an expert on Tuesday, April 19, in a seminar of the Institute of International and Strategic Relations. “France must accompany the American re-engagement,” by being “engine in the five years to come in the definition of concrete actions for the benefit of the Islands of the Pacific”, considers this diplomat.
Economic Policy and Assistance
Paris is indeed directly concerned by the current Sino-American confrontation. His ultramarine territories have ocean borders with eight countries in the region – Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Tuval, Samoa, Pitcairn (United Kingdom), Cook, Kiribati. According to Christian Lechervy, Paris does not have to militarize his approach too much, but develop his economic and assistance policy, in an area that has already entered the climate emergency.
Natural disasters, resource predation and traffic: the French army, with its modest means, unfolds its action in the face of three main non-military threats, Tuesday said Admiral Jean-Mathieu Rey, commanding the French forces in the Peaceful. A humanitarian assistance exercise is organized every year – the next, “Marara”, from May 6 to 20, will be held around Tahiti. “We maintain contact, diplomatic and military, with China,” says Admiral.
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