Australia lashes out at China’s useless Pacific projects

Canberra accuses Beijing of building roads to nowhere in developing nations 
By Mark Wembridge

Chinese labourers work on a project in East Timor 

Australia has launched a scathing attack on China’s efforts to build influence in the Pacific, accusing Beijing of currying favour with the region’s smaller nations by funnelling cash into little-used infrastructure projects. 
 “You’ve got the Pacific full of these useless buildings which nobody maintains, which are basically white elephants,” Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Australia’s minister for international development and the Pacific, said on Wednesday.
 “We just don’t want to build a road that doesn’t go anywhere,” she told reporters.
“We want to ensure that the infrastructure that you do build is actually productive and is actually going to give some economic benefit or some sort of health benefit.”
 The comments threaten further strains in relations between the two countries, which deteriorated last month after Canberra proposed new laws designed to tackle growing espionage threats and Chinese interference in domestic politics.
 The laws — prompted by allegations of Chinese influence over MPs and fears of spying — would ban foreign political donations and force lobbyists to reveal when they are working for overseas entities.

 Ms Fierravanti-Wells, a Liberal party senator, on Wednesday also accused Beijing of providing loans to smaller Pacific countries on unfavourable terms. 
 “We encourage China to utilise its development assistance in a productive and effective manner. In other words, we just don’t want to build something for the heck of building it,” she said.
 China transferred $1.8bn in aid and loans to South Pacific nations between 2006 and 2016, according to research by the Lowy Institute, a think-tank.
Papua New Guinea, which has seen its relations with Australia strained over the problem of asylum seeker camps on Manus Island, is one of the region’s countries that has been drawn into the Chinese sphere of influence.
 In November the Pacific nation signed a series of infrastructure deals with China as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, covering agriculture, transport and the delivery of utilities to the mountainous country’s remote areas.
 Fears of Chinese spying have also prompted Canberra to consider axing a deal under which China’s Huawei was to run a seabed cable 4,000km from Sydney to the Solomon Islands, instead proposing to bankroll the A$100m (US$78m) project itself.
 Concerns over Chinese political meddling have been raised by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who noted “disturbing reports about Chinese influence” in domestic politics.
 Such fears prompted the resignation of Sam Dastyari, an opposition Labor senator who received Chinese cash and then called for Australia to respect Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea — a position contrary to that of his party.