People perform traditional dance at the opening ceremony of the China-Pacific Island Countries Year of Tourism at Apia, Samoa on April 1, 2019. Photo: VCG

China's cooperation with Pacific island countries centers on development and mutual benefit rather than geopolitical strategic ambition or competition with the US, said Chinese experts on Monday. Some from the West have been questioning the sustainability of the cooperation and China's intention, as China and the island nations held an economic development forum.

The 3rd China-Pacific Island Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum was launched on Monday in Samoa's capital city of Apia. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the event. Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua, who attended the forum's opening ceremony on Monday, read the letter at the forum, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xi stressed that holding the 3rd forum is an important consensus reached between him and leaders of the Pacific island countries, saying he hopes the two sides make full use of this important platform to strengthen dialogue, exchanges and cooperation for greater progress in bilateral cooperation.

In his trip to Samoa, Hu also met officials of 10 Pacific island countries with diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China, and they discussed the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), trade, investment, infrastructure, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, tourism and climate change, and also signed relevant cooperation documents.

China signed as many as seven new agreements with Samoa ahead of the event, covering education, e-commerce, investment, infrastructure and agriculture. ABC reported Monday. Delegates from some 200  companies attended Samoa event, including e-commerce giant Alibaba, the Samoa News reported.

Groundless concern

While cooperation between China and Pacific island countries improves, Western media and institutions raised their concerns. 

"Countries that establish closer ties to China primarily out of the hope or expectation that such a step will stimulate economic growth and infrastructure development often find themselves worse off in the long run," US Vice President Mike Pence said, Reuters reported in September.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times that this kind of "concern" is truly strange, because it is totally based on mind-set of geopolitical competition and the US Indo-Pacific strategy, but never asks what the Pacific island countries really want and need. 

 Yu Lei, chief research fellow at the research center for Pacific island countries of Liaocheng University, said that "Even now, the economic and energy lifeblood of the Solomon Islands is still in the hands of Western countries such as Australia, New Zealand, France and the UK"

"China, on the other hand, will cooperate with the Solomon Islands to develop local resources in a protective and sustainable way which will benefit local people and generate taxes for their country," Yu said.

More importantly, this could reduce the island country's reliance on the West, Li noted. 

"The US has showed the world how untrustworthy it could be on the climate change issue, but Pacific states are the ones who worry about global warming the most," Li said.

Debt and development

The Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, released a report  on Monday which said that the BRI has exposed the issue of unsustainable debt risk for less-developed countries, in particular for small and fragile economies in the Pacific. 

Li said small countries in the region are less developed. But if everyone treats them as a risk then these countries will never have a chance to develop, even they have the potential in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism. 

When China cooperated with African countries, similar voices also emerged, but China has the experience and ability to fulfill its plan and benefit its partners, so we are confident, Li noted.


Newspaper headline: Relations with Pacific island nations hailed