Vanuatu hasn’t discussed security relationship with China, its foreign minister says*

Vanuatu and China haven’t discussed establishing a security relationship, the Pacific nation’s new foreign minister said, after a meeting with his Australian counterpart that reaffirmed close Vanuatu-Australia ties.
China has been a significant infrastructure investor in Vanuatu, building roads, sports arenas and its parliament buildings as part of its broader push for influence in the Pacific. Private Chinese investment in Vanuatu has also flourished. 
Beijing signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands in April this year, but its push for a wide-ranging pact with 10 Pacific island nations was rebuffed.
“We have not established any security agreement [with China]. We have not even discussed any matter in relation to security,” Vanuatu’s Foreign Minister Jotham Napat said at a press conference in Vanuatu’s capital Port Vila on Monday, according to a transcript released by the Australian government.
Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong and other officials are visiting Vanuatu, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia this week. 
The foreign affairs spokesman for Australia’s opposition is also traveling with Wong, signaling a bipartisan commitment to bolstering relations with Pacific island nations. Australia is the largest aid donor to Vanuatu.
Napat, who became foreign minister after Vanuatu’s elections in October, said the visit had taken the Vanuatu-Australia relationship to a “another level” and indicated he and other officials could visit Australia next year.
Wong attended the official handover ceremony Tuesday in Vanuatu for a new police wharf and the police boat RVS Mataweli, which Wong has characterized as “part of Australia"s enduring cooperation on shared regional security interests.” 
“I think it’s an example of cooperation around Vanuatu’s priorities,” she said at Monday’s press conference.
“We have an interest in a Pacific which is stronger economically, in which sovereign choices can be made, in which health and prosperity can be improved,” Wong said.
Vanuatu is one of several Pacific island nations that Beijing might see as a candidate for allowing a Chinese military presence, analysts have said. China may want greater capacity to evacuate its nationals in the region during political instability or natural disasters, but could also be seeking a counter to the Australia-U.S. alliance in the Pacific.
Vanuatu, home to about 300,000 people spread across dozens of islands, has been known for fractious politics and weak short-lived governments since independence from joint French and British rule in 1980.
Napat said the top security challenge for Vanuatu is climate change and its consequences such as rising sea levels and an increase in the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones.
Napat also said Vanuatu hopes to tap an Australian infrastructure financing facility “in the not-too-distant future.” 
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

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