China To Increase Influence in Fiji?
At the time of the last Fijian coup, I speculated that China may turn out to be its only beneficiary.
Coup leader Bainimarama was trained in China. His coup has benefited elements of the Fijian left and has also been supported by the Communist Party of Australia.
Certainly China seems set to use Fiji's current political isolation to expand its influence in the country.
From the Fiji Times Online
The interim government has agreed to borrow money from China to fund priority projects.
Interim Prime Minister Commander Voreqe Bainimarama told a Cabinet meeting yesterday the loans would be obtained at a low interest rate.
''Such loans would be at very low interest rate of around 2 per cent and terms of up to 20 years, with a grace period initially with possibilities that loans extended could later be turned into grants on application and on case by case basis,'' Commander Bainimarama said.
Some of the priority areas the loan would cover includes upgrading of rural roads, maritime transportation, provision of low cost housing for squatters, repairing of water supply problems and construction of slipways and ship repair facilities.
Other sectors will be considered based on submissions from relevant ministries.
Commander Bainimarama said China had set aside about US$600million for Pacific island countries in the form of soft loans.
posted by Trevor Loudon at
7/10/2007 05:26:00 AM
4 Comments:
The question now comes, is Fiji being setup as another "Cuba" or "Grenada" with the likes of the Fijian Left being openly backed by the Communist Party of Australia and its leadership receive support from their comrades in Beijing, one can certainly sure point to a definite yes.
He also trained in Australia, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Chile and the US, hmm.
I suspect its just a cash deal in return for reaffirming support for a One-China policy. Corrupt and unpleasant but hardly as sinister as you're making it out to be.
Firstly, there will always be ideological hangers on Mah, people who mistakenly identify a cause as the same as their own or who simply see a lesser of two evils dilemma, I don't put a huge amount of weight in such tacit and usually unilateral sympathy or support.
Secondly, the chances of finding a small, anachronistic or mad splinter political party somewhere in the world with the word communist, socialist, marxist etc in the name and which is willing to support any particular issue is quite high.
Make no mistake I think Bambam is wrong in his actions and I think Choudry is hypocritical for supporting the government but again I'm failing to see the role of shadowy international leftism in what is a complex mix of ego clashes, law and order issues, political strife, constitutional conflict and racial tension.
"Let's pretend this isn't the Post-Cold War, but let's say World War II and the likes of a Fijian Fascist Party came to power.
It then receives greetings from the likes of the leadership of Imperial Japan (and a certain extent Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy).
Would you be quite concern if this were WWII and a Fijian Fascist Party came to power in a coup as how the Fijian Left came into such a being, and being backed by the Communist Party of Australia and also Communist China's leadership?"
So I take in doubt Fergus, that if this were not the Fijian Left and not the post-Cold War and instead during WWII, you wouldn't mind allowing the Fijians to come under control of a totalitarian Fascist government like you don't seem to care that another equally totalitarian group these days are backing the Fijian Left?
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