China’s efforts to win over the South Pacific island nations are a warning

 China’s efforts to win over the South Pacific island nations are a warning to Australia and the West, which have neglected the region and bred resentment among its leaders, according to one of east Asia’s elder statesmen.

Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace prize winner who is president of the small nation of East Timor, will receive Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, at the end of his eight-nation tour of the South Pacific and southeast Asia.

On his first stop in the Solomon Islands this week Wang finalised a deal that will permit Chinese security forces to operate there, arousing anxiety in the US and especially in Australia, which regards the Pacific as its back yard.

Ramos- Horta