US to resume Peace Corps program in Palau

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The United States will resume a long-suspended Peace Corps program in the North Pacific island of Palau as President Joe Biden’s administration continues moves to counter growing Chinese influence in the region.

The Peace Corps said on Friday it would start sending volunteers back to the island in 2025 following an agreement reached between the agency’s director and Palau’s President Surangel Whipps, whose country is one of the few in the world to have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.

“Volunteers will live and work side-by-side with community partners to improve childhood literacy and math and science skills, along with teaching English as a foreign language,” Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn said in a statement.

Whipps said the corps’ return reflected the strong relationship between his nation and the US. Prior Peace Corps members had become “an integral part of our national family,” he added, and extended his gratitude to them and to a program he said “has enriched our country in countless ways.”

“To those Peace Corps members preparing to come and contribute to Palau,” the leader said, “welcome home.”

The Peace Corps programs in Palau and in the Federated States of Micronesia began in 1966, but were shut down in 2014 after more than 4,400 volunteers had served there.

Since then, as China has made successful inroads in the Pacific, successive US administrations have sought to improve relations with the island nations. This includes opening or reopening several embassies and renegotiating cooperation agreements, known as compacts of free association, last year with Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.

Palau is among the 12 countries that still recognize Taiwan’s statehood and do not have diplomatic relations with Beijing, which considers Taiwan to be part of Chinese territory. The US has encouraged these countries to maintain formal ties with the self-governed, democratic island.

Peace Corps officials said they hope that with congressional funding, the Palau reopening would be the first of several new programs it will restart in the Pacific.

The Peace Corps, a creation of the John F. Kennedy administration, currently has Pacific island programs in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu.