Pacific Islands back Australian-funded regional policing plan

By Kirsty Needham and Lewis Jackson

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Leaders of several Pacific Islands said on Wednesday they have endorsed an Australian-funded A$400 million ($271 million) plan to improve police training and create a mobile regional policing unit, as Canberra looks to reduce China's security footprint in the area.

The leaders of Tonga, Fiji, Palau and Papua New Guinea said the programme would assist island states to tackle drug trafficking, illegal fishing and economic crimes across a region that spans millions of kilometres of ocean.

"The entire Pacific is the biggest unpoliced space in planet earth," Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape told reporters in Tonga.

Papua New Guinea, with assistance from Australia, will host the first of four police training centres to be built across the region under the Pacific Policing Initiative, he said.

The initiative will create a multi-country policing force that can be deployed to countries in the region in the event of major events or crises.

A coordination hub will be hosted in Brisbane, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said after the plan was agreed by consensus during the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga.

AUSTRALIAN BACKING

Australia and New Zealand have historically provided policing support to the region in crises, but the new model will boost the ability for Pacific Islands to play a greater role.

"Sovereign nation states will determine how they participate in this, but this is an ongoing process led by the Pacific police and police chiefs for the Pacific, with backing, substantial financial backing, from Australia," Albanese said.

"By working together, the security of the entire region will be much stronger and will be looked after by ourselves," he added.

Palau's President Surangel Whipps Jr said his nation, among three Pacific nations that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, was hit by three major cybersecurity incidents last year, and the initiative was "an effort for all of us to work together to solve the security challenges that we have".

Tonga's Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said members of the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum had discretion to decide how they participate, after diplomats from Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, both with close ties to Beijing, earlier expressed reservations. Solomon Islands spoke in support of it at Wednesday's meeting, Albanese later told reporters.

China has been a major infrastructure lender in the region and is now seeking a greater role in policing.

Australia has previously said there should be "no role" for China in policing the Pacific Islands. Wednesday's initiative seeks to reduce the need for countries in the region to turn for help to China, which already has police operating in Solomon Islands and Kiribati.

Taiwan-ally Tuvalu and Australia also on Wednesday said a security and climate migration treaty between the two nations was activated, with a special pathway for 280 Tuvalu citizens a year to move to Australia starting in 2025.

($1 = 1.4738 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Lewis Jackson and Kirsty Needham; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)