Anthony Blinken is the most significant American official to visit Papua New Guinea since General Douglas MacArthur
America is now making amends. It opened an embassy in the Solomon Islands and Tonga, and has plans to do so in Kiribati and Vanuatu. While in Port Moresby,s capital, Mr Blinken also signed renewed “compacts of free association” with Micronesia and Palau, island states betweenand America’s dependency of Guam. A renewed compact with the Marshall Islands will follow. These states hand over their defence exclusively to America in return for aid guarantees and other benefits.
Untrammelled competition between the two big powers is met by some islanders with foreboding . The Pacific islands’ history as hapless victims is seared into the collective memory; they were objects of colonial exploitation, then bloody battlefields and finally post-war sites for nuclear tests. But for those minded to see the upside for the Pacific states, as well as the risks, in their renewed geopolitical relevance, there are many opportunities to point to.
The island states are no longer victims. It has been years, says John Blaxland of the Australian National University in Canberra, since they enjoyed such favours from outside powers, in terms of high-level visits, offers of investment and other commitments .deal underscores a level of comfort among Pacific states with outsiders that have English, Christianity and history in common with them. Last year they flatly rejected China’s attempts to create a new geopolitical bloc.
Other Pacific states are, too. Seen from a local perspective, the island countries are increasingly binding America and China into a web of Pacific obligations. It could make the region stronger—and, by restraining the adventurism of both powers, perhaps even safer.
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