AusPol / 26 May 2022
Wong embarks on a Pacific trip, too
As China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi starts his Solomon Islands visit with PM Manasseh Sogavare today, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong will launch her own Pacific program. Wong is heading to Fiji to meet PM Frank Bainimarama and start her prep for the Pacific Islands Forum meeting there in July. “This visit, in my first week as foreign minister, demonstrates the importance we place on our relationship with Fiji and on our Pacific engagement,” Wong said. FM Wong’s visit comes before Wang Yi travels to Fiji next week for a foreign ministers meeting where it’s emerged he’ll be seeking a region-wide deal covering policing, security and data communications cooperation. A draft communique of the meeting has prompted pushback from the Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo, who said the proposal should be rejected over fears it could spark a new ‘Cold War’ between China and the West. In Solomon Islands, Wang will only take questions from the Chinese state-owned broadcaster CCTV, which has really got local journalists’ goat.
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