Pacific Nation Plans to Expel Australian, NZ Advisors Amid Ongoing Beijing Influence
Udumbara
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Cross-border efforts to stem the inflow of drugs and tackle other organised crime activity in the Pacific may be just one casualty of a surprise decision by the Vanuatu government to expel all foreign advisers and police officers from government buildings, citing the need to protect its own sovereignty.
There is also uncertainty about what effect this will have on the as-yet-unsigned Nakamal Agreement, which Australia is pursuing partly to act as a bulwark against Beijing’s increasing influence in the region.
Only weeks earlier, it had refused to sign the $500 million Nakamal Agreement, saying it would block other countries providing infrastructure funding, with Napuat telling reporters that Vanuatu would not give in to “bullying” from larger countries.
Government to Change Security Laws
The latest attempt to distance the country from its traditional allies in the Pacific came after Vanuatu’s parliament last week introduced several significant changes to its national security laws.One clause says foreign advisers working on national security “must be stationed at neutral venues or at his or her respective embassy,” barring them from accessing government premises without authorisation by the minister, and “subject to appropriate security clearances and oversight.”
While the new rules apply to any foreign power, they will disproportionately affect Australia and New Zealand, both of which have numerous police and defence personnel working in Vanuatu, some currently working directly out of that country’s police headquarters and other government institutions.
Prime Minister Jotham Napat assured MPs that Chinese police officers providing training programmes in Vanuatu and working in government buildings would have to follow the same rules.
He said Vanuatu was “seeing outside influence coming in” and the government had “issued an advisory to remove police officers from the main police headquarters, [both] Chinese police officers and Australian [officers] because we don’t want them to come in to influence our decisions.”
“We have to make it neutral as much as possible,” he said.
However, the decision has stoked concerns that it will damage efforts to combat transnational crime in the region.
Earlier this year, the U.S. State Department put Vanuatu—along with Fiji and the Solomon Islands—on the Tier 2 watchlist in its Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, alongside countries that include Algeria, Barbados, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Rwanda, South Africa, Turkmenistan, and Zimbabwe.
New Zealand and Australia Say They Will Negotiate
A spokesperson for New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade told The Epoch Times that it has “a number of police and Defence Force staff working in close collaboration with Vanuatu agencies, at the request of the Government of Vanuatu. We will work to understand the impacts of the new bill, which are not yet known.“Should we need to raise concerns, we will do so privately in respect of our longstanding and deep partnership.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said he had nothing to add to that statement, but his Australian counterpart Penny Wong told the ABC’s Insiders programme that Australia would “work through this with Vanuatu.”
“Obviously, they will continue to seek a partnership and us working with them, we'll do that in a way that works for them,” she said.
She refused to write off the Nakamal agreement, saying Nakamal was a place “where leaders come together to talk, to resolve issues, to work out the way forward ... we will take all the time that is required for that agreement to be finalised.
“We will work through that with Vanuatu because we want to make sure that whatever agreement is finalised and we enter into, that has the support of both countries’ leaders [and] the parliaments of both countries.”
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