Australia launches scathing attack on China’s ‘useless’ Pacific projects

CANBERRA — Australia has sharply criticised China’s efforts to build influence in the Pacific, accusing Beijing of “duchessing” politicians and pumping money into useless 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, told The Australian newspaper.

“I’ve gone to islands and you’ll be driving along on some back road and all of a sudden you see this Chinese road crew building a road to nowhere and you think ‘hmm, what’s all that about’,” she added.

“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 to further strain Sino-Australia ties, which soured last month after Canberra introduced new legislation to counter espionage threats and perceived Chinese interference in domestic politics.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull singled out China as he said foreign powers were making “unprecedented and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence the political process” in Australia as he outlined new laws to laws to ban foreign political donations and toughen up definitions of treason and espionage.

He singled out opposition Senator Sam Dastyari as a prime example of Chinese influence in Australian politics. The Labor senator 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. He later resigned.

China’s Foreign Ministry said Mr Turnbull’s allegations were baseless and full of prejudice against China, and it summoned Australia’s ambassador in Beijing to lodge a complaint

China’s embassy in Canberra has previously stated that it had “no intention to interfere in Australia’s internal affairs or exert influence on its political process through political donations”.

Ms Fierravanti-Wells, a Liberal party senator, on Wednesday also accused Beijing of granting loans to smaller Pacific countries on less than favourable terms, the impact of which was increasingly being exposed in loan applications to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank — two institutions scaling up lending to the region.

She said that while the terms of loans from the World Bank and the ADB were clearly set out, “we don’t know what the consequences are when (nations) have to pay back some of these Chinese loans”.

“We work cooperatively with China, we encourage China to utilise its development assistance in a productive and effective manner,” she said.

“In other words, we just don’t want to build something for the heck of building it.”

She added that Pacific countries were struggling to maintain ¬donated facilities and some nations were concerned about the use of foreign workers in aid projects.

“Over my visits, I have come across a number of nonproductive infrastructure where no provision is made for maintenance and therefore the buildings are not used to full ¬capacity,” she said.

Research by Australian think tank Lowy Institute shows that China transferred US$1.8 billion (S$1.88 billion) in aid and loans to South Pacific nations between 2006 and 2016, with Papua New Guinea one of the key beneficiaries.

The Pacific country signed numerous infrastructure deals with China in November as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, covering agriculture, transport and the delivery of utilities to the mountainous country’s remote areas.

Lowy Institute’s Pacific islands programme director Jonathan Pryke said there was “some legitimacy” to the minister’s point on China’s funding of instructure projects in the Pacific.

“Any of these projects (and there are quite a few) that have ‘sport’ or ‘conference’ in the description, you can guarantee are not going to get you a return on investment, especially if they are built with a loan,” he said. “The same goes for mammoth government buildings.”

But he cautioned against dismissing Chinese aid as wasted as it could “minimise our ability to effectively engage with China in the future” to improve aid projects.

“It’s a bit dangerous to say they’re all bad or they’re all good. It’s much more complicated than that,” he told AAP.

“I’m not sure how productive it would be for our ongoing relationship with China in the Pacific to be so negative and black and white.”

Ms Penny Wong, the Labor opposition’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, slammed Ms Fierravanti-Wells’ remarks, saying it showed the Turnbull administration’s “clumsiness” in dealing with China.

“Simply lashing out at China every time the Government is in trouble isn’t a good way to deal with a relationship that is of very great economic importance to Australia,” Senator Wong said on ABC radio.

She added that Canberra’s cuts to regional aid budget had been felt and China was stepping into the void.

“China has played an increasing role in the Pacific while the Coalition under Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull have increasingly abandoned the region,” Senator Wong said, referring to Mr Turnbull’s predecessor.

“They have relentlessly hacked at our aid funding, seeing an A$11 billion cut to the development budget since they won government.” AGENCIES