Pacific ports join Australian network amid growing Chinese presence in region

Pacific ports join Australian network amid growing Chinese presence in region
22/10/2019

Five major Pacific ports have joined an Australian alliance to boost industry investment and trade amid growing international concerns over Beijing’s presence and influence in the region.

The ports, which include Fiji Ports Corporation, Samoa Ports Authority and the Solomon Islands Ports Authority, have signed up as external associate members of peak industry group Ports Australia to formalise maritime sector ties across the region.

Lyttleton Port Company, the largest port in the South Island of New Zealand, and the Port of Napier in the North Island have also signed on in what Ports Australia chief executive Mike Gallacher labelled “a massive step forward” in connecting the sector across the region.

Australia, along with the United States, Britain, New Zealand and Japan, is actively expanding its diplomacy with its “Step Up” program in the Pacific, as Beijing-funded infrastructure projects on many of the tiny island nations threaten to destabilise relations in the Indo-Pacific.

The move by the Solomon Islands Ports Authority, a state-owned enterprise, to join the Australian network follows recent alarm in Canberra at attempts by a Chinese company with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party to lease an island in the nation.

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