‘Get used to China’s checkbook diplomacy’

Live with China’s “checkbook diplomacy” because that is now a fact of life,” Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said on August 28, referring to the efforts of China to cull support from the Pacific region amid a seeming contest with Taiwan for diplomatic influence. Citing some US$600 million in pledged “soft loans” with long interest-free periods to nations such as Tonga, Samoa and the Cook Islands since 2005, Carr urged the Pacific region to learn to live with Beijing “developing all the accoutrements of a major power” because defense modernization also means a big aid budget. “My message really is that Australia and New Zealand have got to live with the fact that China will want to deliver aid in this part of the world (and) there is nothing we can do to stop it. It’s a fact of life.” The China-Taiwan rivalry saw some Pacific nations constantly change allegiance between Taipei and Beijing in return for increased aid, until Taiwan elected the China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou in 2008. Carr’s was attending the Pacific Islands Forum, a grouping of mainly small island states, along with resource-rich Papua New Guinea and the dominant regional powers Australia and New Zealand, both US allies.

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