Chinese push into Pacific paradise

Fiji remains the holiday destination of choice for many Australians. Flying into the international airport at Nadi, they are whisked away to their chosen resort for a week or fortnight luxuriating by hotel pools, scuba diving, surfing and enjoying the carefully managed display of local culture.

But all is not what it seems in paradise.

By following this well-worn tourist route, holidaymakers avoid the noise and bustle of the capital, Suva, where military dictator Frank Bainimarama is gradually tightening his grip on the leavers of power.

After deposing the democratically-elected Government in a 2006 coup, Bainimarama, who takes the title of Interim Prime Minister, has steadfastly refused to return Fiji to democratic rule in the near future, naming 2014 as a possible date, but leaving enough doubt about detail to suggest he will probably stay in power indefinitely.

He has turned Fiji into a pariah state in the eyes of the West, with suspension from the Commonwealth and the Pacific Island Forum - Bainimarama does not care, he has a powerful new friend.

Since the coup China has poured money into the country, stepping in o more than fill the gap left by its previous beneficiaries, Australia and New Zealand. Loans, grants and straight-out aid are virtually there for the asking - and China does not ask questions about the legitimacy of the people it is dealing with.

What does Australia make of this? It can be summed up in a barrage of weasel words from the former Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, Duncan Kerr, during a seminar in Canberra last year.

"We welcome China's increased presence in the Pacific," Kerr said in answer to a question. "It is inevitable that China is a growing economic presence in the region and will have a growing economic footprint in the Pacific."

On China's increasingly cosy relationship with the Bainimarama regime: "I think it is very important for me not to respond in any way which might even be privately thought that we take a view of China is, in a sense, fermenting a difference between our position and the rest of the international community on Fiji.

"I do not fall into the cast of those who are warning against the dangers of China's presence in the region. We see broadly China's investment footprint as positive. We expect that an expanding economic power will expand also into the Pacific."

In other words, Kerr, on behalf of the Rudd Government, was playing the three wise monkeys rolled into one.

Australia has urged China to assist in efforts to return democracy to Fiji - talk about putting the vampire in charge of the blood bank. China's attitude to democracy can be summed up in a passage from the book of historian Yuan Wu chronicling the country's recent involvement in Africa.

"[Western Nations] in their customary deceitful fashion made democratic progress a condition of financial aid...Fortunately the scurrilous machinations of the West, which have caused so much tension within African nations, have been foiled, and the waves of democratisation on the continent have started to weaken since 1995."

China claims that its aid has no strings attached - a complete misrepresentation by a nation that measures every action by the advantage to its own interests. Beijing wants a blue-water navy with global reach and Fiji will prove a useful platform for an extension of that reach into the South Pacific.

And while Australia can still shovel its mineral wealth out of the ground and ship it north, there will only be more weasel words from Canberra.