In News: China wants 10 Pacific nations to endorse sweeping agreement
China’s move comes as its Foreign Minister and a 20-strong delegation begin a visit to the region (Pacific islands) this week.
Common Development Vision
It is a draft agreement
China wants 10 small Pacific nations to endorse a sweeping agreement covering everything from security to fisheries
A draft of the agreement shows that China wants to train Pacific police officers, team up on “traditional and non-traditional security” and expand law enforcement cooperation.
China also wants to jointly develop a marine plan for fisheries – which would include the Pacific’s lucrative tuna catch – increase cooperation on running the region’s internet networks, and set up cultural Confucius Institutes and classrooms.
The agreement would also see the nations “expand exchanges between governments, legislatures and political parties.”
The agreement says that China and the Pacific countries would jointly formulate a marine spatial plan “to optimize the layout of the marine economy, and develop and utilize marine resources rationally, so as to promote a sustainable development of blue economy.”
It also outlines – immediate incentives that China is offering to the Pacific nations – China says it will fully implement 2,500 government scholarships through 2025; it will build criminal investigation laboratories as needed by the Pacific nations that can be used for fingerprint testing, forensic autopsies, and electronic forensics etc
The draft agreement also stipulates that the Pacific countries “firmly abide” by the one-China principle, under which Taiwan, a self-ruled island democracy, is considered by Beijing to be part of China.
It would also uphold the “non-interference” principle that China often cites as a deterrent to other nations speaking out about its human rights record.
The countries China hopes will endorse the “Common Development Vision” – the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, Niue and the Federated States of Micronesia
Micronesia has opposed the agreement citing it as the single most game-changing proposed agreement in the Pacific region, it “threatens to bring a new Cold War era at best, and a World War at worst.”
Previous Year Questions (PYQs)
Q.1) ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ is sometimes mentioned in the news in the context of the affairs of (2016)
