China holds talks on policing with Pacific island officials

China said it held a video meeting to discuss police cooperation with a group of Pacific island nations on Tuesday, however at least two nations told Reuters their ministers and police commissioners had been unavailable to attend. China’s attempt to strike a security and trade deal with 10 Pacific island nations in May fuelled concern in Washington and Canberra about Beijing’s military ambitions in the region, and prompted a boost in western aid. Those concerns were first sparked when Solomon Islands struck a security pact with China in April. Chinese…

Pacific faces ‘strategic surprise’, says US official, alluding to China

The Pacific may be the part of the world most likely to see “strategic surprise”, the US Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell has said, in comments apparently referring to possible Chinese ambitions to establish Pacific island bases. Campbell told Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies that the United States has “enormous moral, strategic, historical interests” in the Pacific but had not done enough to assist the region, unlike countries such as Australia and New Zealand. “If you look and if you ask me, where are the places where we are…