we start tonight with a story that we're very happy to report a story of small island nations standing up to china tiny pacific countries rebuffing the dragon it's an incredible story and rare too you see smaller countries do not usually do this they're vulnerable they need money they end up as vassal states making a compromise becomes their survival tactic but not in this case china came knocking on their doors and they turned it away let me start from the beginning in fact
we've been telling you about this all of last week we told you how china was targeting the pacific how china wanted a security pact with 10 pacific islands in fact china was so confident of having its way that it went with a pre-drafted deal guess what it has been given a royal snub the deal is off and wongi the chinese foreign minister will return home empty-handed for this the pacific nations deserve a round of applause because saying no to china is never easy and even now the threat for them is not over because china will try through some other means to gain a foothold but why is china targeting these countries
what is its game plan and what happens next in this story on gravitas tonight we'll discuss all of it first let's tell you about what happened today wongi was in fiji he was hosting a virtual meeting with 10 pacific countries the solomon islands kiribati papua new guinea the cook islands nui and the federated states of micronesia all of these countries the leaders of all these 10 countries attended before next in this story on gravitas tonight
we'll discuss all of it first let's tell you about what happened today wongi was in fiji he was hosting a virtual meeting with 10 pacific countries the solomon islands kiribati papua new guinea the cook islands nui and the federated states of micronesia
all of these countries the leaders of all these 10 countries attended before today's meeting xi jinping had sent a message to all of them it said china would be a good brother to the region small problem china has been a bad brother to way too many countries for the pacific islands to trust it they saw through the motives
what was china asking for a confidential security pact here's what they wanted basically to train the local police and pacific countries to get involved in cyber security issues to expand political ties with these countries to conduct sensitive marine mapping and to gain access to natural resources on land and water china wanted all of it
this is what it meant by the controversial confidential. security deal it went on to become controversial so these were china's demands what wasb it offering in return china was offering money and a lot of it millions of dollars in financial assistance training for police officers in the pacific projects to map the ocean and increase law enforcement cooperation
what was in it for china strategic influence china wanted the pacific to be it's tough it wanted to replace the west to become become the net provider of security to the region unfortunately for beijing the draft of this confidential pact was leaked and it created quite a storm a tug of war began the west was alarmed australia launched a diplomatic mission less than a week after taking office australia's
new foreign secretary penny wong rushed
to fiji the united states too swung into action washington struck a deal with fiji it made fiji a part of the indo-pacific economic forum ipef the same one that was launched last week during the quad summit you might be remember that india's prime minister narendra modi was part of this launch ipef this forum is being seen as an alternative to china's regional
comprehensive economic partnership our sep so first the leak then the western charm offensive the deal began to fall apart and all of this happened even before wongi had arrived in the pacific once he did he did try to contain the damage my advice for those people is that don't be too anxious and don't be too nervous. because the common development and prosperity of china and all the other
development countries would only mean greater harmony greater justice and greater progress of the whole world don't be too anxious he said the appeal did not work though the pacific countries took a stand micronesia led the charge it warned pacific nations against signing the pact palau took a stand too last year its president surangal whips junior refused to take calls from beijing whips believes wide-ranging ties with china could be harmful fiji's leader prime minister frank baini marama told the press that there was no consensus.
china is a forum dialogue partner in the pacific islands forum and is also an important bilateral partner to the 10 pacific island countries that met today as always we put consensus first that's how china has packed
collapsed beijing thought it was a done deal but wongi's assurances failed to convince the pacific the world was watching today's meeting in fiji so a sizable number of journalists was old were also present to cover it soon after the talks were over they rushed to the chinese ambassador to fiji and they all had the same question why had the talks failed listen to china's response there has been general support from the countries of 10 countries which we have to promote relations but there are some you know of course there are some concerns on some specific issues and we have agreed that these two documents we will be discussedb in the afterwards and until we have reached an agreement well this is what total humiliation sounds like china's bid to influence the pacific has failed and how wongi did sign some smaller deals he still wants to chase that security pack but the writing is on the wall for china nobody wants their friend requests these pacific nations have shown some bigger powers
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