The Full Return of United States to Pacific Island Nations

On 12th of July, US Vice President Kamala Harris joined the “Pacific Islands Forum” which is held in Fiji via video. She addressed that the United States will establish new embassies in Tonga and Kiribati. She also pledged that the U.S. will provide 60 million each year to the Forum’s Bureau of Fisheries in economic assistance for the next ten years. The U.S. will also send peace teams back to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu.

Economic assistance of 60 million dollars plus, the pertinent funding injections for the global infrastructure construction plan mentioned by Biden earlier. This shows that the United States is preparing a budget, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to carry out foreign aid and to resist the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) use of economic leverage to win over other countries in this region.

The South Pacific must be the CCP’s strategic priority if it wishes to break through the first island chain and project its military power throughout Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world, particularly to undertake close-range nuclear deterrence against the United States. Nuclear submarines can operate freely in the South China Sea since it has been transformed into the CCP’s fortress.

The United States is fully aware of CCP’s ambition in the South Pacific. Hence the competition between the two parties will be very fierce in the future. This time, the United States’ return to the South Pacific can close the opening that would otherwise allow the CCP to overcome the island chain blockade. As early as in World War II, the South Pacific was the focus of the United States and Japan. A series of battles happened here such as the famous Battle of the Coral Sea and the Guadalcanal Campaign broke out. Today, 80 years later, it seems history is about to repeat.