Pacific Island leaders endorsed a landmark regional policing plan at a summit in Tonga on Wednesday (August 28, 2024), a contentious move seen as trying to limit China’s security role in the region.
The plan seeks to create up to four regional police training centres and a multinational crisis reaction force, backed by $271 million in initial funding from Australia. Under the plan, a corps of about 200 officers drawn from different Pacific Island nations could be dispatched to regional hot spots and disaster zones when needed and invited.
“This demonstrates how Pacific leaders are working together to shape the future that we want to see,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The Australian leader made the announcement while flanked by leaders of Fiji, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Tonga — a symbolic show of unity in a region riven by competition between China and the U.S.
Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni, the summit host, said the initiative would tackle emerging threats like organised crime. “Tonga, like many other countries, is facing a number of transnational security challenges within the Pacific in recent years” he said.
According to Mihai Sora of the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank, Wednesday’s announcement was a diplomatic victory for Australia and for the Pacific Islands Forum, a regional bloc which had appeared deeply divided on the topic. China’s Pacific allies — most notably Vanuatu and Solomon Islands — had voiced concern that the policing plan represented a “geo-strategic denial security doctrine”, designed to box out Beijing.
Asked about the deal on Wednesday (August 28, 2024), Beijing said it welcomed “all parties’ efforts for Pacific Island countries’ development and prosperity”.
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