Pacific destabilised by China, Wikileaks cables show



New Zealand defence officials warned the US the Chinese army was fuelling political instability in the Pacific, diplomatic cables show. Defence ministry staff told visiting East Asia Pacific/Asia North Pacific (EAP/ANP) director Howard Krawitz that Chinese military activities in the Pacific posed "real security problems'' for New Zealand.

A cable from 2008 notes that New Zealand was concerned for the future of the Pacific islands, ''which are increasingly turning away from Australia and New Zealand to seek ties with Taiwan, China, Cuba and others''.

A US briefing from February 2006, says New Zealand officials were concerned that competition between Taiwan and China for resources and diplomatic leaks "contributes to political instability in Pacific Island nations".

In a cable from September 2006, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) Americas and Pacific Island director Heather Riddell was reported as saying the the ministry had spoken to Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei during the minister's trip to Wellington earlier in the year about activities in the Pacific.

NZ Aid officials had also traveled to Taiwan to deliver "a stern message" to Taiwanese officials.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) was providing aid defence forces in the region, especially Tonga and Fiji, International Policy Division Director Paul Sinclair is reported as saying.

The PLA were outspending New Zealand in ``wide margins'' in Papua New Guinea, he was reported as saying.
The cable, outlining discussions from Krawitz's visit to New Zealand between February 8-11 2006, says there are reports that PNG may transfer its Wellington Defence Attache position to Beijing.

"Equally troublesome are reported PLA links to paramilitary forces in Vanuatu.''

Defence Ministry deputy secretary Chris Seed is reported as saying PLA activities pose security problems and that New Zealand's forces have ``no direct dialogue'' with the PLA on this.

Military visits to China were tightly controlled and had declined from five or six to three a year.

Riddell said China's ``rapacious quest'' for natural resources undermined ``good governance, sustainable development and environmental'' in Pacific Island states.

John McKinnon, then MFAT's deputy secretary, told the Americans that Australia, India and New Zealand's presence in the East Asia Summit countered Chinese efforts to control the forum.

New Zealand was also concerned about commercial fishing by China and Togo, who were not signed up to the Antarctic Treaty.

China was being encouraged to sign up but New Zealand ``considers it important to voice displeasure to flag-issuing states if `their' vessels are caught fishing illegally.''

In the cable, Riddell is also reported as describing Papua New Guinea as ``deeply dysfunctional.''

She believed Australia's institution building was ``failing'' and that AIDS was reaching crisis proportions there.

The cable says ``one bright spot'' is Bougainville which was finally coming out of a decades long conflict which was ``promising if fragile.''

The year 2006 was a tumultuous time in the region. In December Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama lead a military coup in Fiji, and a month earlier riots started in the Tongan capital of Nuku'alofa.

The East Timorese crisis prompted a military intervention in May.

It was reported in a September 2006 briefing that Niels Holm, MFAT Deputy Director for Pacific Regional
Affairs, said that although the PRC says the right things regarding responsible development in the region, it ''practises the opposite when it comes, as it almost always does, to competing with Taiwan.''

The Chinese government had ''real potential to exacerbate poverty'' in the Pacific Island countries, he noted.

The New Zealand government was drafting a strategy paper on countering negative Chinese influence in the region.

It was also trying to work with the Chinese government through think tanks.

However, New Zealand's Beijing embassy had advised this would not be effective as the Chinese central government tended to control the think tanks' work.

At a meeting in Wellington on September 12, new EAP/ANP Director Steven McGann told MFAT that it was not ethnic Fijians who introduced methamphetamine to Fiji, but organised crime based in mainland China.

New Zealand's relations with China have improved markedly in recent years. China signed its first Free Trade Agreement with an OECD country in 2008.

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