Antony Blinken, who is in Tonga to dedicate a new embassy, is the first US Secretary of State to visit the Pacific nation.
Antony Blinken, the United States secretary of state, has pledged to step up support for Pacific nations and reiterated a warning about the perils of “predatory” Chinese investment as he dedicated a new embassy in the island nation of Tonga.
Blinken’s visit to Nuku’alofa on Wednesday makes him the first US Secretary of State to pay an official visit to Tonga and comes as Washington ramps up efforts to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
“We’re a Pacific nation,” Blinken told his hosts while pledging support for projects important to them. “We very much see the future in the Indo-Pacific region.”
“We really understand what is a priority for the people here,” he said, citing issues like climate change, development and illegal fishing. “There are a long list of things that we’re working on together, but it’s all driven by focusing on what’s concrete, what can really make a difference in people’s lives.”
But Blinken also had a barbed warning about aid from Beijing, saying it often comes with strings attached.
“As China’s engagement in the region has grown, there has been some – from our perspective – increasingly problematic behaviour,” Blinken said.
He claimed China had been behind “some predatory economic activities and also investments that are done in a way that can actually undermine good governance and promote corruption”.
Tonga, a Polynesian archipelago of about 100,000 people, is the latest in a string of Pacific island states being targeted in a renewed US diplomatic push.
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