U.S. warns of China threat in first Pacific islands strategy
Biden administration plans to open 3 embassies in region to bolster influence.
NEW YORK -- The White House released its first strategy dedicated to the Pacific islands on Thursday as it looks to strengthen its broader Indo-Pacific strategy and counter China's growing influence in the region.
The strategy focuses on climate change, maritime issues like unregulated fishing, and expanding the U.S. diplomatic presence in the region, which the strategy says has become increasingly affected by the broader geopolitical competition playing out in the Pacific.
"Increasingly, those impacts include pressure and economic coercion by the People's Republic of China, which risks undermining the peace, prosperity, and security of the region, and by extension, of the United States," the document says.
The White House also announced $810 million in additional aid including $600 million dedicated to economic development and climate resilience for the region, which is home to island nations that are vulnerable to rising seas.
The U.S. will reopen an embassy in the Solomon Islands that had closed in 1993 and develop plans to open two others in Kiribati and Tonga -- all of which have diplomatic relations with Beijing. Washington will also recognize the Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign states.
The strategy also includes plans to expand training by the U.S. Coast Guard on maritime security.
The announcement comes during the second and final day of the Pacific Islands Country Summit in Washington, where U.S. President Joe Biden and his team are working to reassert the U.S. in a region where China has been making diplomatic inroads.
Biden is set to address the summit on Thursday.
The summit includes leaders from Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, French Polynesia and New Caledonia.
Last week the Marshall Islands -- a longtime American ally -- withdrew from negotiations with the U.S. over its Compact of Free Association security agreement, which expires next year.
This year the Solomon Islands signed a security pact with China and ahead of the summit declined to sign a declaration on U.S. partnership with the region.
A senior Biden administration official this week downplayed any differences with the island nation, saying "the Solomons have been actively engage in all the efforts that we've been involved with."
Non paywall source;