The Chinese have politely told the Kiwis to back off.  Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters that China and the Cook Islands have had diplomatic relations since 1997 which “should not be disrupted or restrained by any third party”.

“New Zealand is rightly furious about it,” a TVNZ Pacific affairs writer editorialised to the nation. The deal and the lack of prior consultation was described by various journalists as “damaging”, “of significant concern”, “trouble in paradise”, an act by a “renegade government”.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters, not without cause, railed at what he saw as the Cook Islands government going against long-standing agreements to consult over defence and security issues.

‘Clearly about secession’
Matthew Hooton, who penned the article in The Herald, is a major commentator on various platforms.

“Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown’s dealings with China are clearly about secession from the realm of New Zealand,” Hooton said without substantiation but with considerable colonial hauteur.

“His illegal moves cannot stand. It would be a relatively straightforward military operation for our SAS to secure all key government buildings in the Cook Islands’ capital, Avarua.”

This could be written off as the hyperventilating screeching of someone trying to drum up readers but he was given a major platform to do so and New Zealanders live in an oxygen-starved media environment where alternative analysis is hard to find.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The President of the Federated States of Micronesia has made a series of disturbing claims against China, including alleging spying, threats to his personal safety and bribery.

President David Panuelo made the claims to his Congress, governors and the leadership of the country’s state legislatures in a letter which has been leaked to 1News.

Panuelo said the point of his letter was to warn of the threat of warfare.

The president, who has just two months left in office, has publicly attacked China in the past.

“We can play an essential role in preventing a war in our region; we can save the lives of our own Micronesian citizens; we can strengthen our sovereignty and independence,” he said in his latest letter.

President Panuelo said he believed that by informing the leaders of his views he was creating risks to his personal safety along with that of his family and staff.

Outlined in the letter are a series of startling allegations.

Chinese activity within EEZ
The president said there had been activity by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) within his country’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

The “purpose includes communicating with other PRC assets so as to help ensure that, in the event a missile — or group of missiles — ever needed to land a strike on the US Territory of Guam that they would be successful in doing so”.

President Panuelo said he had stopped China research vessels in FSM waters after patrol boats were sent to check “but the PRC sent a warning for us to stay away”.

He also claimed that at the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva in July last year he was followed by two Chinese men, one of them an intelligence officer.

“To be clear: I have had direct threats against my personal safety from PRC officials acting in an official capacity,” he said.

In another claim, Panuelo said that after the first China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers Meeting, the joint communique was published with statements and references that had not been agreed to “which were false”.

He said he and other leaders such as Niue Premier Dalton Tagelagi and Fiji’s now former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama had requested more time to review the joint communique before it went out but their requests were ignored.

Trying to strongarm officials
President Panuelo also claimed China had been trying to strongarm officials when it came to bilateral agreements such as a proposed memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the “Deepening Blue Economy” which had “serious red flags”.

One of those was that the FSM “would open the door to the PRC to begin acquiring control over the island nation’s fibre optic cables and ports”.

President Panuelo said in his latest letter that while he advised cabinet to reject the MOU in June last year, in December he learned that it was back in “just mere hours from its signing”.

He said that when Foreign Minister Khandhi Elieisar raised this with Chinese Ambassador Huang Zheng, he suggested “that he ought to sign the MOU anyway and that my knowing about it — in my capacity as Head of State and Head of Government — was not necessary”.

President Panuelo said he found out Ambassador Huang’s replacement, Wu Wei, had been given a mission to shift the FSM away from its allies the US, Japan and Australia. He therefore denied the Ambassador designate his position.

“I know that one element of my duty as President is to protect our country, and so knowing that: our ultimate aim is, if possible, to prevent war; and, if impossible, to mitigate its impacts on our own country and on our own people.”

There are also allegations of bribery. President Panuelo claimed that shortly after Vice-President Aren Palik took office in his former capacity as a Senator, he was asked by a Chinese official to accept an envelope filled with money.

‘Never offer bribe again’
“Vice-President Pakik refused, telling the [official] to never offer him a bribe again,” President Panuelo said.

In October last year, Panuelo said that when Palik visited the island of Kosrae he was received by a Chinese company, which has a private plane.

“Our friends told the Vice-President that they can provide him private and personal transportation to anywhere he likes at any time, even Hawai’i, for example; he need only ask,” President Panuelo claimed.

He said senior officials and elected officials across the whole of the national and state governments had received offers of gifts as a means to curry favour.

The President concluded the letter by saying he wanted to inform his fellow leaders, regardless of the risk to himself, because the nation’s sovereignty, prosperity and peace and stability were more important.

The Chinese embassy in the Federated States of Micronesia and in Wellington have been asked to comment on the allegations by 1News.

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

French Polynesia’s pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru has accused the environment minister of defamation over seabed mining.

Last week, Environment Minister Heremoana Maamaatuaiahutapu claimed Temaru’s party Tavini Huiraatira did not support an assembly vote on a seabed mining moratorium because Temaru had signed a mining contract with China when he was president.

Temaru denied this, saying it had never been a policy of Tavini Huiraatira party to “sell off the country or its soul”.

The moratorium called for a block on any activity until more is known as there had to be evaluations to understand the risks seabed mining posed to the environment.

Temaru said his party did not support the assembly’s moratorium text because it did not tie mining rights to decolonisation.

The Tavini wants the moratorium linked to a 2016 UN resolution which urges the administering power to guarantee the permanent sovereignty of the people of French Polynesia over its natural resources, including marine resources and submarine minerals.

While Temaru’s party wants to formalise recognition of the property rights of French Polynesia, France considers the exclusive economic zone of French Polynesia to be a French national asset.

Huge economic zone
French Polynesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is more than 4.7 million sq km and accounts for almost half of the water surface under French jurisdiction.

Temaru said the UN process called on France to respect the territory’s right to sovereignty over all resources, including those at sea.

He said under French law, the state could claim French Polynesia’s resources if they were declared of strategic value.

Paris believes it has the rights to the territory’s seabed and continental shelves, which are thought to be rich in rare earths.

Three years ago, France submitted a claim to extend the continental shelves in French Polynesia by almost a quarter of a million sq km.

The submission had been made in New York at the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in the presence of Maamaatuaiahutapu.

Obligations to indigenous
In 2019, a lawyer of the group Blue Ocean Law Julian Aguon said that while France had designs to exploit seabed resources it also had fiduciary obligations as by law the indigenous people had permanent sovereignty over natural resources.

He said France was a party to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which were binding treaties.

Aguon said a precedent was set by the International Court of Justice when it ruled in favour of Nauru which challenged Australia for breaching trusteeship obligations over phosphate mining.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz