Beijing’s corruption and influence operations are not limited to Fiji, and similar operations likely exist in other Pacific island countries, experts on the region told Radio Free Asia.
The analysis came shortly after Washington accused Fijian national Zhao Fugang of corruption as head of the Overseas Chinese Service Centre in Suva.
“Zhao abused his public position by paying bribes to Fijian citizens to advance China-based government, business, and criminal interests,” U.S State Department spokesman Thomas Pigott said in a statement.
“His actions constituted significant corruption and adversely affected U.S interests in Fiji.”
Though Zhao is now barred from entering the United States, there are probably more people involved in the type of corruption he is accused of – not just in Fiji, but across the entire Pacific region, Gregory Brown, executive director of the Washington-based Alliance Futures Initiative think tank, told RFA.
“I seriously doubt that Beijing set up a corruption and influence operation in Fiji and then decided not to replicate it anywhere else in a region where it’s spending billions on infrastructure, signing security agreements, and competing every day for political influence,” said Brown.
“That defies logic and everything we know about the CCP’s overseas influence campaigns. There is no reason similar operations wouldn’t work in Honiara, Port Moresby, Nuku’alofa, or Port Vila.”
Illicit activities that advance Chinese interests occur elsewhere in the Pacific, Kathryn Paik, deputy director of the Australia Chair at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told RFA.
“There have been many documented cases of Chinese actors in other Pacific countries and territories conducting illegal activities such as drug trafficking, illegal fishing, money laundering, and more,” said Paik.