Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown. File
| Photo Credit: AP

The Cook Islands said on Saturday (February 15, 2025) that it signed a comprehensive strategic partnership deal with China, a move expected to raise concerns in New Zealand with which it has constitutional ties.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and Chinese Premier Li Qiang signed the deal in Harbin, the capital of northeast China’s Heilongjiang province, Mr. Brown’s office said in a statement.

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“This provides opportunities for our government, our private sector and our people to benefit from enhanced partnership opportunities with China in areas aligned with our national interests and long-term development goals,” Mr. Brown said.

The partnership established a framework for engagement on “priority areas” like trade and investment, tourism, ocean science, aquaculture, agriculture, infrastructure climate resilience and disaster preparedness, according to the statement.

Pacific influence

Mr. Brown said this month he was heading to China seeking the partnership — drawing ire from New Zealand, which is increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific region.

The office of New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said in a statement on Saturday that “once available, New Zealand will consider the agreements closely, in light of our interests and our mutual constitutional responsibilities”.

The Cook Islands, a self-governing Pacific country halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, can interact with the international community as an independent state. But New Zealand provides budget support and commits to defend the island nation, whose people are New Zealand citizens.

New Zealand has said its concerns about Mr. Brown’s visit to China stem from not having seen the agreements that he plans to sign ahead of the trip, even though it asked to review them.

In China, Mr. Brown has held talks with institutions on marine science, climate resilience and economic cooperation, he said in a Facebook post on Thursday.

New Zealand, a U.S. ally, has expressed wariness about Beijing’s growing presence in the South Pacific amid fears it could destabilise Western influence.

Pacific Island nation leaders pose for a group photograph with U.S. President Joe Biden during a summit at the White House in Washington, U.S., September 25, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Pacific island nations at the centre of a strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China that brought infrastructure and funding hope President-elect Donald Trump stays engaged in the region but are wary of competition spilling into confrontation, diplomats say.

A 2023 defence deal giving the U.S. military access to ports and airfields across Papua New Guinea came with a pledge of $3.5 billion in infrastructure, equipment and training, according to PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko, publicly disclosing an investment figure for the U.S. defence deal for the first time.

Papua New Guinea will continue to trade with China, even as U.S. military ties increase, he also told a resources conference in Sydney this week, highlighting a key worry among Pacific leaders about Trump’s tougher approach towards Beijing.

“The main concern is the Pacific doesn’t want to be forced into a position where it has to choose,” Meg Taylor, the secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum regional bloc during the first Trump Administration, told Reuters.

Washington was in “acute strategic competition” with China in the Pacific Ocean, where Beijing hopes to establish a military base, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said last month.

He urged the incoming Trump Administration to not withdraw from the region, where Biden has opened embassies and increased coast guard patrols and aid.

While the U.S. has long held close defence ties with northern Pacific islands near its military base on Guam, Biden had sought to catch up to China’s influence-building in the South Pacific.

U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin visited Fiji last month, opening negotiations for a military agreement. The defence deal with PNG, the most populous Pacific Island country, was signed last year in response to a Chinese security pact with Solomon Islands.

‘Wait and see’

It was “wait and see” on Trump, PNG’s Tkatchenko said on Monday, while noting that work on the defence agreement had already started with runways, wharfs and fuel storage facilities under construction.

“That agreement is over $3.5 billion in investment in infrastructure development, training, equipment for the benefit of security in our region,” he said.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said the agreement “aims to address shared defense and security challenges in Papua New Guinea”, and “does not have a dollar amount associated with it”.

Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is a China hawk who previously pressed the need to block Beijing from building the subsea cables that connect Pacific Islands, and is likely to maintain a focus on the region, Pacific analysts and diplomats said.

“During his past presidency Trump demonstrated he understood the strategic importance of the Pacific, given its close proximity to the U.S., shared ocean borders, and critical military and telecommunication assets in the North Pacific,” said Meg Keen, senior fellow for the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program.

U.S. diplomacy with island states on the front line of sea level rise could be complicated by Trump’s threats to withdraw from the Paris Agreement climate pact, however.

“The climate issues are the most important issues for the region, that is the fundamental security issue for the Pacific and we know that President Trump doesn’t believe in climate change,” said Taylor, the former regional bloc leader.

Other diplomats said U.S. funding for climate adaptation projects vital to small Pacific states was likely to continue, even if rebadged.

Pacific leaders balancing ties with Beijing and Washington were also bracing for Rubio’s tough talk on China.

“More confrontation in the Pacific will not be welcome and could work against the U.S.,” said Keen.

“A Trump administration might take a harder line, but the art of the deal is not to alienate leaders important to regional security.”