{"id":6677,"date":"2024-08-07T15:08:04","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T09:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=6677"},"modified":"2024-08-07T15:08:04","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T09:23:04","slug":"australia-urges-china-to-be-more-transparent-with-pacific-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/australia-urges-china-to-be-more-transparent-with-pacific-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia urges China to be &#8216;more transparent&#8217; with Pacific aid"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>Australia urged China to avoid &#8220;coercion&#8221; in the Pacific Islands and to be &#8220;more transparent in the aid&#8221; it provides Wednesday, acknowledging a &#8220;state of permanent contest&#8221; between Beijing and the West.<\/p>\n<p>Australia&#8217;s Pacific minister Pat Conroy said new economic opportunities for Pacific Island nations should not be &#8220;accompanied by coercion and interference&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We want to see a region where states can exercise sovereignty, free from coercion, and in accordance with international law,&#8221; he said in a speech to a public policy think tank in Australia.<br \/>\n&#8220;We want a region that is peaceful and stable,&#8221; he said ahead of a Pacific Island summit in Tonga later this month.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;China should be more transparent in the aid it is giving, and should treat infrastructure projects as opportunities for the Pacific to grow local employment, skills and procurement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the South Pacific, Canberra and Washington have been jolted into strengthening their ties with island nations since Beijing signed a secretive security deal with Solomon Islands in 2022.<br \/>\nBeijing has in more recent months embarked on its own flurry of influence-building endeavours, including injecting $20 million into Solomon Islands&#8217;s budget.<\/p>\n<p>The leaders of both Solomon Islands and Vanuatu were hosted in Beijing earlier this month for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n<p>The United States last year re-opened its long defunct embassy in Solomon Islands, followed by the establishment of an embassy in the Kingdom of Tonga.<\/p>\n<p>Several important maritime routes run through the vast but sparsely populated South Pacific, a potentially crucial gateway should flashpoints in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea one day spiral into conflict.<\/p>\n<p>The Philippines launched on Wednesday two days of joint sea and air exercises with the United States, Canada and Australia in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australia urged China to avoid &#8220;coercion&#8221; in the Pacific Islands and to be &#8220;more transparent in the aid&#8221; it provides Wednesday, acknowledging a &#8220;state of permanent contest&#8221; between Beijing and the West. Australia&#8217;s Pacific minister Pat Conroy said new economic opportunities for Pacific Island nations should not be &#8220;accompanied by coercion and interference&#8221;. &#8220;We want [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6679,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677\/revisions\/6679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}