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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent visits to Pacific island countries, especially the results obtained by China, continue to attract the attention of Le Monde. The newspaper’s reporter Nathalie Guibert interviewed Canadian researcher Cleo Paskal for this.
In an interview with Le Monde, Canadian researcher Cleo Pascal said China’s agreement with several island nations during its foreign minister’s visit to the South Pacific would give China control of the ocean in the event of a war in the Taiwan Strait.
Canadian researcher Cleo Pascal, an expert on Indo-Pacific affairs, joined the Washington-based In cooperation with the think tank “Foundation for the Defense of Democracy”. She analyzed the unusual visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to eight Pacific island nations from May 26 to June 4 to reach a number of bilateral security and economic agreements.
Why is China working so hard to establish cooperative relations with Pacific island countries? What is China’s overall goal?
In this regard, Cleo Pascal said, it all starts with geography: if you stand on the coast of China and look out to sea, the first thing you see is a string of islands, from Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines. The space may seem expansive, but if you want to deploy submarines and aircraft, or go out into the open sea, that’s not the case. To reach the Indo-Pacific and the Arctic, China needs to break the chain, it needs to seize Taiwan. In this way, China will be able to project power away from Taiwan, creating a control area that includes Pacific islands.
To this end, China has made great efforts to build a world-leading navy. Under the cover of its “military and civilian family” theory, China can also deploy fishing fleets to serve its naval forces.
Cleo Pascal also said China’s goal was to win a “political war”. Therefore, the second decisive map is the map of so-called “civilian” infrastructure, including ports or airports, obtained by China on the islands. Good Chinese strategists have studied history, many of which were used by the United States and Japan during World War II.
During this trip to the Pacific island countries, Wang Yi wanted to sign relevant regional agreements in the two areas of security and economy, but he seems to have failed in the multilateral field…
In this regard, Canadian researcher Cleo Pascal says there has never been a real multilateral agreement. Four Pacific island nations, including Tuvalu, Marshall, Palau and Nauru, recognize Taiwan and Beijing does not engage with them. China is testing some ideas. China has made many proposals, but few results. But it cannot be said that China has failed. China has excellent intelligence, they are likely to wiretap the phones of leaders in the region, and China knows exactly who to negotiate with. It is important for China to identify who they are fighting, for example, Federated States of Micronesia President Panuelo, who bravely warned China of a threat to regional peace, turned out to be a very violent political attack The goal.
Cleo Pascal went on to say that if we look at China’s strategic discourse on “protracted war”, we must not stop at the appearance of failure. She said that, in fact, China has gained a lot from Wang Yi’s trip to the Pacific island countries. From the public part of the signed document, it can be seen that China has made great progress. The signed agricultural agreement gives China direct access to land. According to the signed humanitarian aid and disaster relief agreement, Beijing will be able to deploy ships in anywhere it wants.
Cleo Pascal also said that many bilateral agreements signed by China and the Pacific island countries have been kept secret, which is a victory for China: China encourages the island countries to share China’s practices, which not only brings the governments of these island countries closer to Beijing ties together and pits these nations against each other. China has also created disputes between the people and politicians of these island countries, in order to push the politicians of these island countries to seek stronger security support from China, thereby fostering more authoritarian leaders who are inclined to seek Chinese support. This is the case in the Solomon Islands.