The World Briefly
February 28, 2024Getting Too Close
Kiribati
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Chinese police are working in Kiribati, the country’s police confirmed this month, prompting concerns that China is trying to further expand its influence into the remote atoll located more than 1,300 miles from the US state of Hawaii, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Kiribati’s acting police commissioner Eeri Aritiera said last week that authorities in the Pacific island are working with uniformed Chinese officers in community policing and on a crime database program.
He explained that Kiribati had requested policing assistance from Beijing in 2022, but denied the presence of a Chinese police station. He added that up to a dozen Chinese officers arrived last year on a six-month rotation.
China has not commented on the presence of officers in the island nation, but a source in the Chinese embassy in Kiribati confirmed the cooperation, while also denying Beijing had set up a police station.
Kiribati, a country with a population of 115,000 people, is considered to have strategic value because of its proximity to Hawaii and by possessing one of the world’s largest exclusive economic zones, covering more than 1.35 million square miles of the Pacific.
It also hosts a Japanese satellite tracking station and a World War Two US military airstrip on Kanton Island.
Beijing has offered to rebuild the airstrip, prompting the US to counter with a pledge to upgrade Kanton Island’s wharf and open an embassy in Kiribati.
Currently, the US does not have any consular or diplomatic facilities there.
The presence of Chinese police officers in Kiribati comes as Beijing renews its push to expand security ties with many Pacific nations amid an ongoing rivalry with the United States.
Since 2022, China has been deploying officers in the Solomon Islands following a controversial security pact criticized by the US and Australia as destabilizing for the region.
Even so, China’s attempts to secure a broad security and trade agreement in the region were rebuffed by the Pacific Islands Forum in 2022.
Recently, Papua New Guinea rejected Chinese police assistance and surveillance technology after news it was negotiating a policing deal with China prompted criticism from Washington and Canberra.
On Monday, US officials cautioned Pacific countries against assistance from Chinese security forces and warned that Washington did not tolerate China’s “transnational repression efforts.”
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