The China Alternative

Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands

Graeme Smith, Terence Wesley-Smith

• Publisher: ANU Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781760464172
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Relaciones internacionales

In this collection, 17 leading scholars based in Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and China analyse key dimensions of the changing relationship between China and the Pacific Islands and explore the strategic, economic and diplomatic implications for regional actors.

The China Alternative includes chapters on growing great power competition in the region, as well as the response to China's rise by the US and its Western allies and the island countries themselves. Other chapters examine key dimensions of China's Pacific engagement, including Beijing's programs of aid and diplomacy, as well as the massive investments of the Belt and Road Initiative. The impact of China's rivalry for recognition with Taiwan is examined, and several chapters analyse Chinese communities in the Pacific, and their relationships with local societies. The China Alternative provides ample material for informed judgements about the ability of island leaders to maintain their agency in the changing regional order, as well as other issues of significance to the peoples of the region.

Table of contents

• Opening Remarks
• Introduction: The Return of Great Power Competition
• 1. Mapping the Blue Pacific in a Changing Regional Order
• 2. A New Cold War? Implications for the Pacific Islands
• 3. Australia’s Response to China in the Pacific: From Alert to Alarmed
• 4. China’s Impact on New Zealand Foreign Policy in the Pacific: The Pacific Reset
• 5. Associations Freely Chosen: New Geopolitics in the North Pacific
• 6. Stable, Democratic and Western: China and French Colonialism in the Pacific
• 7. A Reevaluation of China’s Engagement in the Pacific Islands
• 8. Domestic Political Reforms and China’s Diplomacy in the Pacific: The Case of Foreign Aid
• 9. A Search for Coherence: The Belt and Road Initiative in the Pacific Islands
• 10. Solomon Islands’ Foreign Policy Dilemma and the Switch from Taiwan to China
• 11. ‘We’re Not Indigenous. We’re Just, We’re Us’: Pacific Perspectives on Taiwan’s Austronesian Diplomacy
• 12. Building a Strategic Partnership: Fiji–China Relations Since 2008
• 13. Bridging the Belt and Road Initiative in Papua New Guinea
• 14. The Shifting Fate of China’s Pacific Diaspora
• 15. On-the-Ground Tensions with Chinese Traders in Papua New Guinea
• 16. Overseas Chinese, Soft Power and China’s People-to-People Diplomacy in Timor-Leste
• Contributors