October 20, 2021 | House Foreign Affairs Committee
The Strategic Importance of the Pacific Islands
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation
October 20, 2021 | House Foreign Affairs Committee
The Strategic Importance of the Pacific Islands
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation
Excerpt
Of full written testimony
Introduction
Chairman Bera, Ranking Member Chabot, and other members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify today, and more so for taking on this crucially important and timely topic.
China has a habit of telegraphing its punches. So, we have a pretty good idea why Beijing wants influence — and where possible, control — in the Pacific Islands.
In his 2011 book The Pacific Islands in China’s Grand Strategy: Small States, Big Games, Professor Jian Yang writes:
China’s growing involvement in the South Pacific is part of China’s growing involvement worldwide… The discussion of Chinese involvement in and policy towards the South Pacific should be placed within this bigger picture. An isolated study without understanding China’s grand strategy and overall foreign policy goals can be misguided.[1]
Yang is well-placed to know. He is from China, and he worked with Chinese military intelligence for around 15 years before immigrating to New Zealand, where he became a university professor and then a member of the New Zealand Parliament. During his time in New Zealand politics, Yang traveled to China with then-Prime Minister John Key and also facilitated high-level meetings with Chinese officials for New Zealand politicians, including one with Guo Shengkun, a current Politburo member and one-time minister of public security.[2]
So what then, according to Yang, is China’s grand strategy? He explains it is based on “China’s concept of ‘comprehensive national power’ (zonghe guoli, CNP), which was adopted in the 1990s and has constituted the foundation of China’s foreign policy.”[3]
READ THE FULL WRITTEN TESTIMONY HERE.
[1] Jian Yang, The Pacific Islands in China’s Grand Strategy: Small States, Big Games (NYC: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), page 127.
[2] Collette Devlin, “Jian Yang, the National MP Who Admitted to Training Chinese Spies, Retiring,” Stuff New Zealand (New Zealand), July 10, 2020. (Archived version available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20200709235930/https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/122094310/jian-yang-the-national-mp-who-admitted-to-training-chinese-spies-retiring)
[3] Jian Yang, The Pacific Islands in China’s Grand Strategy: Small States, Big Games (NYC: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), page 47.
