As China’s sway over Pacific islands grows, will Japan counter by coming to Palau’s aid?

By Julian Ryall

Palau is appealing to Japan for help monitoring Chinese maritime activity within its exclusive economic zone. Analysts say Tokyo has assisted other nations with similar challenges in the past and may be willing to do so again to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the region.

The Pacific island nation’s national security coordinator, Jennifer Anson, described the “challenges” it has faced in recent years in an interview with Japanese national broadcaster NHK on Monday.

Chinese research vessels have repeatedly been spotted operating not only within Palau’s EEZ, but also “hovering” dangerously close to the crucial underwater fibre optic cables that connect the remote territory to the rest of the world, she said.

Anson’s concerns don’t end there. She also noted that Chinese ships have been sighted conducting research activities in Palau’s extended continental shelf area – a development that has analysts worried.

“There are a whole host of non-threatening and legitimate activities that Chinese vessels could be carrying out in those waters, but the Quad countries are very worried that any research could have dual purposes,” said Ben Ascione, an assistant professor of international relations at Tokyo’s Waseda University, referring to the strategic security alliance between Japan, India, Australia and the United States.
“China could very well be testing the water to see how the Quad nations react and their commitment to the Pacific states,” he told This Week in Asia.

“There is no reason to panic, but these nations need to be alert so that Pacific island countries do not turn to China, as we have already seen happen.”

Quad governments have been alarmed at the close ties that China has forged with the Solomon Islands, for example, which include the signing of a security pact in 2022, the details of which remain secret.

After a recent meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping, the Pacific nation’s new Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele announced on Tuesday that Beijing would inject US$20 million into its economy as well as fund extensions to the country’s only international airport.

Palau’s 600,000 sq km EEZ is “quite vast for our small island,” national security coordinator Anson said. “That is, with our limited resources, to be able to monitor [it], to be able to provide the surveillance that we need to know what is going on.”

Anso, who is in Japan to take part in the 10th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting in Tokyo that began on Tuesday, said her government is particularly interested in receiving information from Tokyo about the ships operating off Palau, as that data is not currently available to the island nation.

She emphasised the importance of the two-day conference, which is regularly hosted by Japan for 18 Pacific nations and territories, given China’s growing influence in the region.

Palau, with a population of around 18,000 people, is one of only 11 countries to maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own. Most countries do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but the US and its allies are opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force.

Palau has resisted pressure to drop its diplomatic support for Taiwan and switch its allegiance to Beijing, as many other small nations have already done, and Anson suggested that many of the other Pacific nations attending the Tokyo conference do not want to “say anything bad about China” because they are close partners of Beijing.
Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor of politics and international relations at Waseda University, said a relatively straightforward first step for Japan to assist in monitoring the Chinese vessels would be for Tokyo “to provide satellite data of all vessels in Palau’s waters and to monitor their movements.”

“It may be a little more difficult to soon provide patrol craft or other equipment, but the government here is certainly thinking about it,” he said.

“Japan is well aware that many of the small island states of the Pacific are quite afraid of China, that they will lose their sea areas and even possibly their land to China, which is why they are seeking any kind of cooperation they can obtain from Japan.”

Analysts say Japan has set precedents for this type of assistance, having previously provided coastal patrol ships, radar and communications equipment to nations in Southeast Asia like Vietnam and the Philippines as they seek to counter Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Waseda University’s Professor Ascione believes there is significant potential for Tokyo to expand similar capacity-building efforts to Pacific island states like Palau as China’s regional ambitions grow.

“And the more China becomes active in and around the Pacific islands, then there is even greater need for this kind of capacity building from Japan,” he told This Week in Asia.

While the assumption is that the Chinese research vessels are surveying for fish stocks and minerals, Shigemura warned they could also be mapping the ocean floor for potential militar