Pacific Island leaders endorse regional policing plan

Pacific Island leaders agreed to a regional policing plan Wednesday, said Australia. The plan was agreed upon during a meeting of Pacific Islands leaders in Tonga.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said leaders had agreed to the Pacific Policing Initiative, a controversial move seen as trying to limit China's role in the region. Member states will maintain the freedom to determine their level of participation.

"The first task of an international leader is to look after the security and safety of our residents, and that is what this is about. Making sure that by working together, the security of the entire region will be much stronger and will be looked after by ourselves," Albanese told reporters.

The plan proposes creating up to four training centers and establishing a crisis reaction force of about 200 officers to be dispatched across the region as needed. 

Albanese announced the agreement in Tonga, alongside his counterparts from Tonga, Fiji, Palau and Papua New Guinea. 

Two other Pacific Island countries, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, voiced concern about the plan and said it was designed to box out China.

All Pacific Island countries have endorsed the deal in principle, but participation is voluntary — so it will be up to them whether they join up and to what extent.

"The entire Pacific is the biggest unpoliced space in planet Earth," Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape told the media.

Australia is a close ally of the US and other Western countries and also a member of the Quad group, which also includes the US, India and Japan.

Australia has been the leader in terms of regional security so far and has also led peacekeeping missions in the Solomon Islands and training in Nauru, Fiji and Papua New Guinea. 

China's influence in the region

However, some Pacific nations such as Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands have close ties to China and expressed concerns that the regional policing plan represents a "geo-strategic denial security doctrine" designed to box out China.

"We are basically reviewing our national security strategy and everything, so it will be part of the conversation. The matter is still going on. The forum is not yet done," Solomon Islands' top diplomatic official Colin Beck told the AFP news agency.

Apart from infrastructure, China is trying to grow its presence in military and policing in the region.

Australian officials have earlier said China should have "no role" in policing the Pacific Islands.

Beijing has a small police force in the Solomon Islands and trains locals in shooting and riot tactics. It has also provided other nations with training and fleets of Chinese vehicles. It also has a police presence in Kiribati.

Beijing hosted the leaders of Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands in the weeks before the Pacific Islands forum.

The presence of a Pacific police force could hamper China's influence and security agreements in the region. 

tg/sms (AFP, Reuters)