Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says the rivalry between the United States and China is “intensifying”.
Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has expressed alarm over the “intensifying” rivalry between the United States and China and risk to global peace, warning that the Pacific doesn’t want to be forced to choose between the two superpowers.
“Like the rest of humanity, and like you in Australia, the people of our ocean are aware the planet might be on the edge of something terrible,” Mr Rabuka told a Lowy Institute event at Old Parliament House on Tuesday night. Mr Rabuka said US and China rivalry was very evident in the Pacific “but it does not have that raw edge visible elsewhere”.
“Fiji’s position is clear. We are friendly with China and the US and do not want to be caught in the struggle between the superpowers.”increased engagement by the US with the Pacific“There was a feeling though that Washington, to a certain extent, was leaving it to Australia to represent the democracies in Fiji and the other island states,” he said.
Mr Rabuka said he would introduce a motion at next month’s Pacific Islands Forum meeting in the Cook Islands, which Mr Albanese will attend, seeking endorsement for his Ocean of Peace initiative.He flagged it could mean Fijian peacekeepers were deployed to Papua New Guinea to manage tribal conflicts, or try to reach common ground with Indonesia over West Papua.
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