US passes legislation to fund Pacific Island nations

The US Congress has passed landmark legislation to fund agreements with Pacific Island nations, sighing relief to the Indo-Pacific after delays increased China’s efforts to dominate the region.

On Friday, the US Senate passed legislation providing $7.1 billion in funding for the Compacts of Free Association (Cofa) over 20 years. Cofa allows the US exclusive military access to Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated Republic of Micronesia in exchange for economic support to these regions.

The funding is part of a $460 billion spending package passed by the Senate to avoid a government shutdown.

How will the funding help US?

The three island nations, with a combined span of 4,000 km across the Pacific, will help the US gain critical access to operate in the Indo-Pacific region and help solve the “tyranny of distance,” as the Pentagon calls it.

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The island nations provide a vital base to station missiles and early warning radars as well as can act as a site to test intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM).

“Our network of partners and allies — including these three island nations in the Pacific — are among our county’s greatest comparative strengths relative to the dictatorships in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran,” Senator Dan Sullivan told Financial Times.

“The investment serves our mutual interests in pushing back on the Chinese Communist party’s aggressive regional designs,” he added.

Before the funding was processed, leaders from the three island nations had warned that a delay in passing legislation would create “undesirable opportunities for economic exploitation by competitive political actors in the Pacific”.

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US warns Pacific Island nations against ties with China

Last month, US cautioned Pacific Islands nations against assistance from Chinese security forces after Reuters reported that Chinese police are working in the remote atoll nation of Kiribati, a neighbor of Hawaii.

Kiribati’s acting police commissioner Eeri Aritiera told Reuters last week uniformed Chinese officers were working with police in community policing and a crime database program.

Kiribati is a nation of 115,000 people whose closest island is 2,160 km (1,340 miles) south of Honolulu, and the news comes as Beijing renews a push to expand security ties in the Pacific Islands in an intensifying rivalry with the United States.

“We are concerned about the potential implications security agreements and security-related cyber cooperation with the PRC may have for any Pacific Island nation’s autonomy,” a US State Department spokesperson said.

With inputs from Reuters