Has China brought the silence of Pacific leaders on climate change?

Green environment groups in Australia and worldwide have been targeting the destruction of rain forests and unprocessed exports for some time in both PNG and the Solomon Islands. All agree that over 80 per cent of the logs exported are going to China.

And it has been reported in a number of research papers that a not insignificant percentage end up as expensive timber furniture products exported to Australia, the United States and Europe.

The facts relating to legal and illegal logging just demonstrate the stranglehold China is securing over the economic future of both countries. To logging exports to China can be added a growing list of other products such as coffee, cocoa, and of course fisheries.

In the case of the Solomon Islands, which has only been aligned with China since 2018, more than fifty per cent of its total exports are now going to China. In the case of PNG, the share is rising as well.

That brings me to the key message I want to leave with On Line Opinion readers.

It is absolutely clear to me that China has skilfully brought the silence and even acquiescence, of just about every Pacific Island leader and nation on global warming, the Glasgow Summit, and on China's own appalling record.

It has done so through two very effective means.

First, China has stepped up its Belt and Road and other loan engagements with PNG, the Solomon Islands, and most Pacific Island nations, through deals that lack transparency and require the use of only Chinese contractors.

Recently the Lowy Institute's "Pacific Aid Map" reported that China had reduced aid to the Pacific. That is true but China has replaced aid with Belt and Road and other loan programs giving Chinese contractors a stranglehold over infrastructure, communications, and increasingly fisheries.

Hardly a week goes by when I don't see in PNG alone another project announced that looks tailor-made for Exim Bank and other PRC financial institution loans to fund the work which will have to be carried out by PRC contractors only.

The result already is that most Pacific Island nations have levels of indebtedness to China that are beyond their capacity to repay, at least over the short to medium term. That means they are effectively hostage to China. If China's economic and fiscal positions deteriorate, as appears to be happening, one has to wonder just how requests for loan deferral will be treated. (Of course PNG has already sought and received Australian Government approval for two loans in the last two years valued at around $500 million to have repayment deferred).

So apart from the Belt and Road and wider lending China has, and is, negotiating with Pacific Island leaders there is another, even more sinister, factor that I believe is effectively buying the silence of Pacific Island leaders.