Glasgow confirms Australia’s South Pacific influence has never been weaker, and China’s never stronger

While in Glasgow Scott Morrison and the Fiji prime minister signed an agreement under which Australia will provide millions of dollars to enable Fiji be the first participant in the Indo-Pacific Carbon Offsets Scheme. It has been reported that Fiji will gain up to $100 million from Australia as a result.

The Fiji prime minister expressed his "gratitude" by demanding Australia commit to emissions reductions not just by 2050, but by 2030!

And it is also apparent that Australia contributed to the travel and other costs of the Solomon Islands delegation. We know that thanks to a statement in Honiara by the Solomon Islands Opposition which unsurprisingly criticised it, given the growing domestic economic and other troubles the SI is facing. Of all the Pacific Island countries the Solomon Islands has become China's closest ally in our region, dominating trade, the construction of government projects under Belt and Road as well as China taking 90 per cent of the SI's legal and illegal log exports!

Does anyone seriously suggest that helping a group of SI ministers and officials travel to Glasgow will help "mitigate" China's influence in the SI or help rebuild ours?

Let me now look at just how effective China has been in marginalising our influence and building its own relentlessly and often ruthlessly.

Last week I wrote that the Chinese Foreign Minister held a phone hook-up with South Pacific countries that are locked in to "Belt and Road". The Fiji prime minister was a participant. Australia has never convened a similar meeting.

More recently, President XI Jinping held a phone conversation with the prime minister of Papua New Guinea, James Marape. As far as I can see it has not been reported in the PNG media and ignored by the Australian media.

But the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the discussion. Apart from the usual grovelling statement about building a "China-Pacific Island countries community with a shared future", the two issues the PNG Prime Minister has been talking about and in one case demanding an apology on, could not rate so much as a full sentence each!

Prime Minister Marape recently demanded that developed countries (including Australia) "apologise" for their emission levels! Climate change did not rate as much as a full sentence in the PRC statement!

And on the other issue, the Covid pandemic, which forced the PNG Prime Minister to abandon plans to travel to Glasgow, President Xi offered the usual platitudes about supporting PNG…..but in less than a full sentence!

And that brings me to the key point I want to use to illustrate our diminished influence and China's growing influence.

President Xi did not even attend Glasgow (when it appeared Scott Morrison might not attend Pacific leaders demanded that he do so) and China has made no cash commitments to help South Pacific nations mitigate climate change while Australia has now committed at least $700 million to the region as part of a $2 billion overall contribution.