Dual ports, runways and communication lines in 10 Pacific countries could help PLA jump over US defense and threaten shipping between Hawaii and Australia.
A brief emergency radio broadcast picked up on a commercial flight was the first warning that China was about to begin live-action training under the flight path between Australia and New Zealand.
Within hours, after being notified to Australian authorities, the air transport controller Rerouting 49 commercial flights between Australia and New Zealand will not cause any harm.
According to Chinese watchers and recent analysis, the incident that rattled Canberra and Wellington officials on February 21 gives us just a glimpse into Beijing’s extensive plans in the Pacific.
An April report from Prague-based research group Synopsis warns that Beijing’s Communist Party of China (CCP) is quietly raising funds for “dual-use” ports, runways and a dense web of telecom networks. 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.
Double use assets built to provide development assistance can be made available for military use “quickly” and “quickly” and the author warns, giving the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) a ready-made logistics chain thousands of miles from their home. Experts say that report mapping will sharpen vigilance in Washington, Canberra and Tokyo. And then force the island government to weight sovereignty, then cut the next ribbon.
The US commander measures power in the Pacific, based on who controls the three defensive arcs currently controlled by the US and its allies. The first island chain (from Japan to Taiwan and the Philippines) places Chinese troops near the coast in boxes. The second island chain, fixed in Guam, stores US ammunition and reinforcements. The third thin, populous chain that runs from south of Hawaii to Samoa and Fiji in the United States is Shield Sea Lane, which links Asia and North America.
Ports, airfields, communications networks
Exhibition A is Luganville Har Waves in Vanuatu, a South Pacific Island nation located along the third chain, just over 1,000 miles northeast of Australia, which was a US naval base during World War II.
A $97 million Chinese loan in 2014 extended the jetty to 361 meters (0.22 miles). This is large enough for not only cruise liners but also destroyers or supply vessels.
According to Sinopsis, in December 2023, locals spotted a man in a PLA naval-style uniform that cleaned up the land behind the airport in Luganville. The Chinese front post base there warns that PLA can destroy air and sea traffic between the US and Australia, while monitoring joint military exercises in nearby waters.
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“Beijing is laying the foundations for overseas bases and logistics hubs under the guise of development assistance,” Shen Min-si, a fellow at the Institute of Defense at the Taiwan Institute of Defense, told the Epoch Times. “The wicked mind during peacetime will become a supply site for crisis.”
Shen says that most such Chinese projects sit in places where commercial transactions are negligible but strategic value, proving geopolitics rather than commerce and driving loans.
China’s preference for “fishing parks” follows the same script.
“The fish base there doesn’t make any commercial meaning,” Shen said. “Their value is military. They are great for interfering with Australian surveillance and shipping in the Torres Strait.”
The report groups Luganville, Vanuatu, and several ports in Fiji and Tonga as the top intelligence collection sites for PLA Planners.
Airfields in the area have similar stories.
Chinese companies have upgraded or built 17 Pacific runways, and now have access to a large amount of transportation. One sits on Kiliberty’s Canton Island, about 1,600 miles southwest of Hawaii. The other is located in Fiji’s remote Bua state, which is extended far beyond local needs.
China’s aviation investment is hardly in line with economic involvement, the report said it is calling for CCPs to propel it into the third island chain.
“They may look like civilians at ports, airports, and even submarine cables, but they could be militarized overnight,” Shen said. “It changes the balance in the East of Guam and complicates the US plans.”
Telecom Network concludes Beijing’s double use toolkit.
Huawei and other Chinese telecom giants have built submarine communication cables, mobile phone towers, installed satellite ground stations, and built a national ID database from Papua New Guinea to Tonga. Contracts often recognize the data sharing rights of Chinese state entities, embedding soft power, impacting state support through media and technology, and enabling espionage within the essential services of the Pacific nations.
“Digital infrastructure is definitely part of a new and great game,” Sun Kuo -Hsiang, professor of international affairs at Nanhua University in Taiwan, told the Epoch Times. “If China manages its network, it can harvest data, shake up politics and ensure its own military communication without firing shots.”
The debt and politics of the island nation. We and our allies are catching up
The island leaders will quickly arrive Beijing’s money and accept Beijing’s money to create projects that incumbents can promote during elections. Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu currently owe more to China’s owned export banks (eximbank) than other creditors, the report says. Eximbank is also a major investor in CCP’s widely criticized Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
When Tonga sought relief from China for balloon debt, observers warned of the looming “debt tracking” that could force CCPs to trade land in Tonga or allow strategic concessions such as long-term leases to repay.
Sun says Beijing’s leverage extends to ballot boxes in the Pacific Ocean.
“Big Checks will help with incumbent campaigns on new roads and ports,” he noted. “After that, there are friendly elites in Beijing who will protect the project.”
The western capital, long accused of ignoring the Pacific, is now competing to offer alternatives.
Shen says that Synopsis’ findings warn and “encourage” allies to provide faster and cleaner transactions to ensure cooperation in the Pacific Islands countries. The study encourages five Eyes partners to share satellite images and rehearse scenarios where PLA will stimulate Pacific assets during the Taiwan crisis.
But those resistances have limitations. “Most islands still need infrastructure,” Sun said. “If Western offers food stalls with paperwork, Beijing’s money wins by default.”
A short closure of airspace in the Tasman Sea in February showed how easily Chinese military movements could destroy thousands of miles of civilian traffic from mainland China. If Beijing sews its Pacific project into a seamless logistics chain, it will be tense if it allows it to surge in the power of the US Navy, or simply keeps trade routes open.
“Managing the Southwest Pacific is threatening the lifeline between the United States and its allies,” Shen said. “China learned that from World War II. We are now applying lessons at ports and runways instead of airlines and artificial islands.”
Whether Washington and its partners are comparable to Beijing’s pace, and whether Pacific countries can secure development funds without giving up autonomy, will determine how alliances will move freely when the next crisis erupts.
