美国对太平洋岛国投入大量关注
https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/05/25/america-is-lavishing-attention-on-pacific-island-states?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=user%2FTheEconomist
安东尼·布林肯是自道格拉斯·麦克阿瑟将军以来访问巴布亚新几内亚的最重要的美国官员
2023 年 5 月 25 日
有两种方式看待美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯 (Antony Blinken) 于 5 月 22 日与巴布亚新几内亚 (png) 总理詹姆斯·马拉佩 (James Marape) 签署的安全协议。 最明显的一个是美国和中国之间的大国竞争的进一步证据，这种竞争正在太平洋上不断扩大的涟漪中展开。 在这场竞争中，美国根据自己的估计，之前忽视了太平洋岛国的作用，而拥有 1000 万人口的多元化国家巴布亚新几内亚是迄今为止最大的。
美国现在正在做出弥补。 它在所罗门群岛和汤加设立了大使馆，并计划在基里巴斯和瓦努阿图设立大使馆。 在巴布亚新几内亚首都莫尔兹比港期间，布林肯还与密克罗尼西亚和帕劳这两个位于巴布亚新几内亚和美国属地关岛之间的岛国签署了新的“自由联合协定”。 随后将与马绍尔群岛签订新的协议。 这些国家将国防完全交给美国，以换取援助保证和其他好处。
然而，与巴布亚新几内亚签署的协议是美国重新参与该地区事务的最显着证据，也为其岛国带来了重大的新机遇。 总统乔·拜登原定前往巴布亚新几内亚签署该协议。 美国充满争议的内部债务上限谈判否定了这一点。 即便如此，布林肯现在无疑是自道格拉斯·麦克阿瑟将军以来访问巴布亚新几内亚最有影响力的美国官员。
其战略思路是这样的：如果美国要阻止中国入侵台湾（或者如果美国要在中国入侵时保卫台湾），关岛将是美国至关重要的军事基地。 它超出了许多中国导弹的射程。 但关岛的恢复力有赖于其周围安全的海洋和天空。 因此，这些其他岛国也很重要。 此外，如果中国控制了巴布亚新几内亚周围的水域，美国的重要盟友澳大利亚可能会陷入困境。 第二次世界大战中一些最惨烈的战斗发生在巴布亚新几内亚，麦克阿瑟在那里担任盟军最高指挥官，正是因为它的战略重要性。
美国对一场规模宏大的超级大国竞争的看法遭到了中国的正式谴责，但也得到了中国的认同。 中国驻太平洋特使钱波指责美国抱有“冷战思维”，试图破坏中国关系，并被“意识形态偏见”蒙蔽了双眼。 也许。 但中国也有冷战思维。 它不屈不挠地与台湾争夺对太平洋小国的影响力。 2019年，其金融诱惑（其中一些是秘密的）说服所罗门群岛和基里巴斯改变了外交忠诚。 中国去年与所罗门群岛签署的一项安全协议让惊慌失措的美国意识到自己在该地区失去了多少领土。
一些岛民对两个大国之间不受限制的竞争感到不祥（莫尔兹比港出现了针对新协议的抗议活动）。 太平洋岛屿作为不幸受害者的历史已深深烙印在集体记忆中。 它们是殖民剥削的对象，然后是血腥的战场，最后是战后的核试验场所。 但对于那些希望看到太平洋国家在其新的地缘政治相关性中的好处和风险的人来说，有很多机会可以指出。
岛国不再是受害者。 堪培拉澳大利亚国立大学的约翰·布拉克斯兰 (John Blaxland) 表示，他们已经有很多年没有享受过来自外部势力的如此优惠了，包括高层访问、提供投资和其他承诺（布林肯先生承诺的 4500 万美元将帮助贫困的巴布亚新几内亚）。 它打击跨国犯罪和气候变化）。
大国竞争意味着更多的选择。 巴布亚新几内亚协议强调了太平洋国家与与他们有共同点的英语、基督教和历史的外来者之间的舒适度。 去年，他们断然拒绝了中国建立新地缘政治集团的企图。 但他们很乐意接受中国投资。 马拉佩先生表示巴布亚新几内亚不会停止与中国的合作； 事实上，它正在与之谈判一项自由贸易协定。 悉尼智库洛伊研究所的米哈伊·索拉（Mihai Sora）表示，他“非常擅长划分关系”——与美国的安全和发展，与中国的贸易和投资。
其他太平洋国家也是如此。 从当地角度来看，岛国正日益将美国和中国纳入太平洋义务之网。 它可以使该地区变得更加强大——而且，通过抑制两国的冒险主义，也许会变得更加安全。 ■
America is lavishing attention on Pacific island states
Anthony Blinken is the most significant American official to visit Papua New Guinea since General Douglas MacArthur
There are two ways of looking at the security pact that Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, signed with the prime minister of Papua New Guinea (png), James Marape, on May 22nd. The obvious one is as further evidence of the great-power contest between America and China that is playing out in ever-expanding ripples across the Pacific Ocean. In that contest, America had, by its own reckoning, previously neglected the role of Pacific island states, of which png, a diverse land with 10m people, is by far the biggest.
America is now making amends. It opened an embassy in the Solomon Islands and Tonga, and has plans to do so in Kiribati and Vanuatu. While in Port Moresby, png’s capital, Mr Blinken also signed renewed “compacts of free association” with Micronesia and Palau, island states between png and America’s dependency of Guam. A renewed compact with the Marshall Islands will follow. These states hand over their defence exclusively to America in return for aid guarantees and other benefits.
Yet the pact with png, the most striking evidence of renewed American engagement with the region, also represents a significant new opportunity for its island states. President Joe Biden had been due to travel to png to sign the pact. America’s fraught internal debt-ceiling negotiations nixed that. Even so, Mr Blinken is surely now the most influential American official to have visited png since General Douglas MacArthur.
The strategic thinking is this: if America is to deter China from invading Taiwan (or if it is to defend Taiwan if China invades), Guam will be a crucial American military base. It is outside the range of many Chinese missiles. But Guam’s resilience rests on safe seas and skies around it. Hence the importance of these other island states. In addition, were China to control the waters around png, Australia, an important American ally, could be bottled up. Some of the bitterest fighting of the second world war took place in png, where MacArthur was supreme allied commander, precisely because of its strategic importance.
America’s view of a titanic, superpower contest is officially deplored by China—but shared by it. Its envoy to the Pacific, Qian Bo, accuses America of possessing a “cold-war mentality”, of trying to sabotage China’s relationships, and of being blinded by “ideological prejudice”. Perhaps. But China has a cold-war mentality, too. It vies unbendingly with Taiwan for influence with the Pacific’s smaller states. In 2019 its financial inducements, some of them underhand, persuaded the Solomon Islands and Kiribati to switch diplomatic allegiance. A security pact that China signed with the Solomons last year led a panicked America to realise how much ground in the region it had lost.
Untrammelled competition between the two big powers is met by some islanders with foreboding (Port Moresby saw protests against the new pact). The Pacific islands’ history as hapless victims is seared into the collective memory; they were objects of colonial exploitation, then bloody battlefields and finally post-war sites for nuclear tests. But for those minded to see the upside for the Pacific states, as well as the risks, in their renewed geopolitical relevance, there are many opportunities to point to.
The island states are no longer victims. It has been years, says John Blaxland of the Australian National University in Canberra, since they enjoyed such favours from outside powers, in terms of high-level visits, offers of investment and other commitments (the $45m Mr Blinken promised impoverished png will help it fight transnational crime and climate change).
Great-power competition can mean growing options. The png deal underscores a level of comfort among Pacific states with outsiders that have English, Christianity and history in common with them. Last year they flatly rejected China’s attempts to create a new geopolitical bloc. Yet they are happy to take Chinese investment. Mr Marape says png will not stop working with China; indeed it is negotiating a free-trade deal with it. png, says Mihai Sora of the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think-tank, is “very deft at compartmentalising relationships”—security and development with America, trade and investment with China.
Other Pacific states are, too. Seen from a local perspective, the island countries are increasingly binding America and China into a web of Pacific obligations. It could make the region stronger—and, by restraining the adventurism of both powers, perhaps even safer. ■
Read more from Banyan, our columnist on Asia:
Myanmar’s conflict is dividing South-East Asia (May 18th)
A winner has emerged in the old rivalry between Singapore and Hong Kong (May 11th)
America’s closest Indo-Pacific allies are cosying up (May 4th)
Also: How the Banyan column got its name
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Islands in the storm"
