SYDNEY - A Pacific atoll 3,200km west of Hawaii appears set for a construction boom, with the United States and Australia on Thursday pledging a wharf for remote Kanton Island as China considers plans to revive a World War II airfield.
Kiribati’s population of 115,000 is scattered among 33 atolls over 3.5 million sq km of ocean, and it has been a base for both US and Chinese space tracking stations at different times.
One atoll in particular has recently become a focus for Washington and Beijing, after China resumed diplomatic ties with Kiribati, pronounced “kiribass”, in 2019.
Kanton Island is a strip of land, just 50m wide in some places, whose 43km length encloses a parallelogram-shaped lagoon.
During World War II, it was a US military base with a wharf big enough for large ships and a refuelling stop for flights between the US and Australia.
Kiribati says it wants to build a hotel there to attract tourists.
In a joint statement on Thursday, US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said they would co-finance maritime infrastructure in Kiribati and rebuild Kanton Wharf.
The US had already committed US$29 million (S$39.76 million) to help Kiribati youth employment at a White House summit for the Pacific Islands in September.
China, for its part, sent experts to the atoll in March to conduct a feasibility study to build a Kanton Island airport, with Chinese visitors able to travel to Kiribati visa-free from October.
A Chinese diplomat in Kiribati told Reuters in a statement on Thursday that the proposal was still being studied.
However, a China Daily editorial in September said the US had tried to block the Chinese plan.
The Chinese diplomat said Kiribati had pulled out of China’s Belt and Road Forum in Beijing in October, citing its need to prepare to host a Pacific Islands fisheries meeting.
Kiribati’s government did not respond to a request for comment.
A Pacific expert at the Australian National University, Associate Professor Graeme Smith, said that amid strategic competition in the Pacific Islands, Kiribati was seen as a “country up for grabs – whether it sits in the China or US camp”.
“It is western Pacific, which is really America’s backyard. It is very close to Hawaii,” he said.
Washington pledged billions in economic support to nearby Palau, Federated States of Micronesia and Marshall Islands, under the Compacts of Free Association struck in the 1980s that saw the US retain responsibility for their defence.
Kiribati, just as important geographically, got no such deal, Assoc Prof Smith said. REUTERS
