(Bloomberg) -- Australia has joined with Pacific leaders to announce a major policing initiative in order to boost coordination on domestic security, in a potential blow to China’s efforts to deepen its links in the contested region.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday that Australia would spend about A$400 million ($272 million) over five years to create the Pacific Policing Initiative. It’s designed to ensure that “the security of the entire region will be much stronger and will be looked after by ourselves,” he said in a statement.
“This will improve capability, cooperation and importantly, interoperability between Pacific police forces,” Albanese said, adding that “sovereign nation states will determine how they participate in this.”
Albanese announced the initiative at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga, alongside the leaders of Fiji, Palau and Papua new Guinea. Under the agreement, Australia will fund four regional police training centers in the Pacific, as well as a “development and coordination hub” based in Brisbane.
Pacific nations will also work to create a multicountry pool of trained police officers who can be deployed in the event of a domestic crisis or a major event.
Tonga’s Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku said both his country and the broader region were experiencing growing security challenges that crossed borders.
“The central tenet of this initiative is that forum members would have the discretion to choose how they would contribute to and benefit from the three pillars identified in respect of national sovereignty and in line with national priorities,” he said.
The announcement will be a blow to China’s ambitions to boost its presence in the Pacific, where Beijing has in the past offered both policing or domestic security partnerships to nations.
Beijing has previously struck arrangements with countries including Kiribati, Fiji and the Solomon Islands.
In 2022, Foreign Minister Wang Yi attempted to seal a broad security agreement among several Pacific nations but failed to reach a consensus.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
