Washington has announced plans to open an embassy in Kiribati to compete with China.
Sydney:
The U.S. Coast Guard and Kiribati police boarded two Chinese fishing vessels this month while patrolling the Pacific island nation’s vast exclusive economic zone to crack down on illegal fishing, but found no problems on board, a Coast Guard official said.
The United States is seeking to give its Coast Guard a greater role in helping remote Pacific island nations monitor millions of kilometers of ocean – a rich tuna fishery – as competition with China intensifies over security ties in the region , this move also strengthened surveillance.
Reuters reported on Friday that Chinese police are working in Kiribati, with uniformed officers involved in community policing and crime database projects.
Kiribati, a country of 115,000 inhabitants, is considered strategic despite its small size because it is relatively close to Hawaii and controls an exclusive economic zone of 3.5 million square kilometers (1.35 million square miles). It is also home to a Japanese satellite tracking station.
Washington has floated plans to build an embassy in Kiribati to compete with China, but has not yet done so.
A spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard in Guam said that from February 11 to 16, Kiribati police officers patrolled with the U.S. Coast Guard as “boat riders” for the first time in nearly a decade.
“Two fishing vessels flying the flag of the People’s Republic of China were boarded as part of routine maritime law enforcement activities to ensure compliance with regulations within Kiribati’s exclusive economic zone,” the spokesperson said in an emailed comment.
No issues were reported during boarding, she said.
“Both Kiribati officers from the Kiribati Police Maritime Unit and US Coast Guard officers were involved in the boarding operation. This collaboration underscores the partnership between the two countries in upholding maritime law and good governance,” she added.
The Kiribati president’s office and the Chinese embassy did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Kiribati’s acting police chief Eeri Aritiera told Reuters last week that Chinese police on the island cooperated with local police.
After Kiribati severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 2019, China established a large embassy on the main island of Tarawa.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
