Vanuatu's new presidential palace was officially inaugurated by Vanuatu's Prime Minister Charlot Salwai on Monday (July 1) at a handover ceremony in front of a huge "China Aid" billboard, according to Agence France-Presse and the Vanuatu Daily Post.
Vanuatu is actually an island nation, right next to the Solomon Islands and a bit far from Australia.
The construction of the Presidential Palace, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vanuatu undertaken by China Energy Gezhouba Group officially started in March 2022.
After two years of hard work, the project has been successfully implemented, and the government will start a new day here. For the local government staff, it is also very exciting.
For the country, the next step is to vigorously develop economic development, which is also their dream.
It feels like a Hope Project, and it's a big benefit for the local community
According to a press release from Gezhouba Three Gorges Construction Company, the project is located in the downtown area of Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, with a construction area of about 6,849 square meters. The construction content includes office buildings, auxiliary rooms, fences, roads, landscapes, greening and other outdoor ancillary projects, which passed the completion acceptance on June 23 as scheduled.
Being able to get China to build a presidential palace is also a high degree of trust in us, but the West has begun to be yin and yang again.
The Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, estimates that China has spent more than US$21 million (S$28.5 million) on the construction project, which is a lot of money for an aid project in a developing country with a population of less than 300,000.
Agence France-Presse said that China's funding of major technologies for some island nations in the South Pacific is also an important part of the competition for influence in the Pacific.
For this kind of unwarranted accusation from the West, China responded very early!
After Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister Tkachenko in Port Moresby, he said that PICs are the homeland of the people of PICs and are not the "backyard" of any major country.
This kind of AUKUS is also involved in the "trilateral security partnership" cobbled together by the United States, Britain and Australia, which insists on introducing nuclear submarine development in this region, which violates the purpose of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty and raises serious nuclear proliferation risks. Recently, they have also tried to attract more countries to join the island countries under the pretext of creating bloc confrontation and sowing division and confrontation, which is completely inconsistent with the urgent needs of island countries and runs counter to the development of the world.
The United States has paid great attention to the South Pacific island countries in recent years, and it still involves one point, that is, China! If you want to trap China between the first and second island chains, the geographical location of these island countries is very important.
Geographical location is very important, and the United States is looking at China vigorously
Over the years, the United States has been staring at China vigorously, which is nothing more than trying to undermine China's economic development and China's international status.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also emphasized the leadership of the United States in the world, but unfortunately Germany is not worthy of the position.
In the past, their allies and these South Pacific island countries did not value it at all, and these countries have benefited from it with the help of cooperation with China.
Seeing this building made me suddenly remember that Nauru had built a building in Australia before.
For the future, if the country is flooded by sea level, they can go to that building and live there. At present, the building has been taken by the Australian government due to the debt owed to pay off the foreign debt.
Nauru's economy has not been able to develop until the resumption of diplomatic relations with China, which slowly drove the country's economy.
These countries are not stupid, they know in their hearts who they can cooperate with to bring benefits to their own countries, which is the main reason why people are willing to establish diplomatic relations with China.
No matter how dissatisfied the United States and Australia may be, they will always do so.
Australia's diplomacy is beginning to become independent and not being led away by the United States
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese decided not to attend the NATO summit, but to send Defense Minister Richard Marsde.
Albanese was originally scheduled to meet with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, members of the so-called Indo-Pacific Group of Four, at a summit to mark NATO's 75th anniversary next Tuesday. However, with only a week left before the summit, the Australian side announced that Richard Marles would attend the summit in his place.
Because they couldn't be sure if they could meet with Biden, they chose to abandon the summit and send the secretary of defense instead.
The defense minister has also clamored for a meeting with China's defense minister, and has repeatedly called on China to exercise restraint in the South China Sea.
Although the shouting is fierce, it is certainly not a good thing for the United States to attend the NATO summit at his level.
This time they are all at the presidential level, so what is a Minister of Defense for?
Albanese has attended two NATO summits – Madrid 2022 and Vilnius 2023 – which have been criticized not only by China, but also by former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and former Foreign Minister Bob Carr. They believe that the United States and European countries should not meddle in the problems of countries in the Indo-Pacific region.
For Australia, many people of insight believe that Australia should maintain a certain distance from NATO, after all, they are countries in Oceania, not in Europe, nor in North America, and should try to be independent, and not interfere much in the affairs of the Indo-Pacific region.
I don't know if I was beaten, but I woke up a little. Australia has rarely maintained a degree of sobriety at recent international conferences.
Didn't the previous Russia-Ukraine peace summit be held in Switzerland, and they actually sent a person in charge of disability affairs to attend.
It is really speechless to be able to shirk the responsibility and dare to put the responsibility on us, saying that it is to welcome the Chinese premier's foreign visit.
It may be that Australia wants to show a certain level of goodwill to China, that is, they do not want to be hostile to China.
brief summary
For these island countries in the Pacific, in fact, they do not want to be involved in the competition between major powers, but more just want to develop their own economies, and China has given them this opportunity, which is also to make them feel the benefits of cooperation with China, which is the main reason why they are willing to make friends with China.
The United States and Australia should reflect on what they have done in the past, rather than obsessing over China
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