US may lose influence to China in Pacific

DEFENCE officials have warned the US may lose ground to China if it does not grant funding to vital island nations used by the military in the Pacific.

It comes after the leaders of Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) said that without $2.3billion (£1.8billion) held up in Congress, they are coming under pressure to turn to China for financial assistance. The blocked funding coincides with a concerted drive by Beijing to shift the balance of power in the Indo-pacific region, including over the sensitive issue of Taiwan’s sovereignty.

The funding package in Congress faces the same issue as money for Ukraine and Israel: Republicans are withholding legislation in exchange for immigration reform.

In a joint letter in February, the island nations’ three leaders warned the delay had “generated uncertainty” among their populations and “resulted in undesirable opportunities for economic exploitation by competitive political actors active in the Pacific”.

Their countries are closely linked to the United States through treaties known as Compacts of Free Association (Cofa) that grant the Pentagon virtually unrestricted military access in exchange for a security guarantee and benefits for their citizens.

Jedidiah Royal, the Pentagon’s deputy for Indo-pacific policy, told the Defence News website: “We’re already late in getting this done.”

Although small in land mass and with a combined population of about 100,000 people, the Cofa states are crucial to the US remaining a Pacific power.

Between them they offer strategic access to an area of the Pacific that is bigger than continental US, forming part of the “second island chain” that the US military views as a critical line of defence against Chinese advances across the Pacific. Kathryn Paik, who until last year led the National Security Council’s portfolio for the region, told Defence News: “Every contingency you can imagine in the Pacific – Korea, Taiwan – everything depends on [those] assumptions of defence access.”

The US is already building a radar installation on Palau.

Surangel Whipps, the Palau president, told NBC the funding block makes China look like a more credible partner to some on the island of 18,000, which is still suffering the economic fallout from the pandemic.

“It creates the opportunity for [China] to erode Palauan confidence in our relationship with the United States,” President Whipps said.

The security compacts were successfully renewed for another 20 years in May 2023 and were supposed to be implemented in October but the final funding sign-off has since become entangled in party political disputes.