The US and China are intensifying their struggle for control over lesser-known Pacific islands

According to analysts speaking to the Daily Caller News Foundation, the US and China are vying for influence over a group of small, obscure, but strategically significant islands in the Pacific.

A set of small, unnoticed, but strategically important islands in the Pacific are the subject of a power struggle between the US and China. (Photo: BizPac Review)

Competition between the US and China is forming throughout a region of little-known islands

In a report from Daily Caller, a deal reached in August with Palau enables the U.S. To stop malicious Chinese naval activities in Palauan waters, deploy the Coast Guard.

According to Alexander Gray, who served in the first National Security Council position to ever be primarily focused on Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, these are essentially the same locations that the Japanese had in World War Two because their strategic importance has remained constant for 80 years. Gray made this statement to the DCNF.

According to experts speaking to the Daily Caller News Foundation, competition between the US and China is forming throughout a region of little-known islands with disproportionate strategic value for the United States.

A recent agreement enlarging U.S. The most recent in a string of agreements meant to give the U.S. unrestricted access to the Pacific is the Coast Guard’s capacity to fend off disruptive Chinese actions near Palau, an archipelago of atolls and islands in the western Pacific Ocean and a former U.S. colony. The need for America to court Palau and nations like it is stronger than it has ever been, analysts told the DCNF, as China increases its own nefarious kind of policing authority and offers white elephant economic projects to developing Pacific allies.

These isles act as “gas stations” for the United States. According to Kelley Currie, a former U.S. Navy officer, the Pacific Fleet provides the American military with the logistics and prepositioning facilities it needs to operate thousands of miles from home. The Vandenberg Coalition member and representative to the UN Economic and Social Council stated to the DCNF.

Several other Oceanic governments, like Palau, are among the few countries that still have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, she said.

The United States said on Wednesday that Coast Guard vessels would be empowered to independently enforce maritime laws on ships passing through Palau’s exclusive economic zone without the presence of a Palauan officer.

Despite the fact that China was not specifically mentioned in the agreement, The Associated Press reports that Palauan President Surangel S. Whipps Jr. emphasized the necessity of heightened U.S. military presence in June in order to thwart Beijing’s “unwanted activities” in its coastal seas. Whipps claimed that since he took office in 2021, three Chinese warships have entered the country “uninvited” and pretended to be doing surveys.

These pacts “meet regional partners at their level and help them help themselves,” Patrick Cronin, chair of Asia-Pacific security at Hudson Institute, told the DCNF.

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China is also attempting to establish military bases abroad

In order to compete with China for influence in the Indo-Pacific, authorities in the Federated States of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea agreed to relevant agreements with the US in 2022.

According to CNN, China seems to be winning over the Solomon Islands after the Pacific country rescinded its recognition of Taiwan in 2019 under a new prime minister and agreed to allow Chinese law enforcement to operate there in July. On opposition to China, the prime minister has taken stern action. It is believed that Beijing is constructing military facilities on the Solomon Islands.

These include resource extraction, bribery, and “white elephant” projects intended to maximize benefits for the Chinese Communist Party at the expense of local residents, according to Currie. They also include unlawful and environmentally harmful fishing.

Through Compacts of Free Association, the United States has established particular ties with Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. In return for granting visa-free entry and taking “full authority and responsibility for security and defense matters,” as the accords’ text puts it, the U.S. is given the right to establish military bases on the islands while barring other nations from enjoying the same luxury.

According to the Department of the Interior, which oversees the agreements, those treaties expire in 2023 and 2024. According to The Washington Post, the Biden administration has paid millions of dollars to the islands to secure renegotiated treaties and persuade them to turn down China’s economic and diplomatic advances.

FROM Shore News Network, America’s lengthy relationship with the islands has taken a toll, one that the parties are still resolving, according to Currie. Years of nuclear testing, building dry docks, and refueling severely harmed the ecosystem on the islands and fueled resentment.

The DCNF requested response from the National Security Council, but they did not react right away.

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