Originally Posted by
Kickstarter
heard a rumour that China is quietly offering very cheap loans in the Pacific. As many billions as these island nations want (that they'll never ever be able to repay).
We better all start learning mandarin.
As others have said, this is old news. Look up China Vanuatu or China Fiji and perhaps more worryingly China PNG. Last month, Papua New Guinea signed a memorandum of understanding to build a $200 million "comprehensive multi-functional fishery industrial park" on Daru Island. Google Daru. There isn't much there, including fish.
As Jeff Wall, a long time adviser to the PNG Government, wrote in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's publication The Strategist this week, "the town of Daru is the closest PNG community to Australia. Even though it is around 200 kilometres from the Australian mainland, it is very close to the islands of the Torres Strait that are within our northern border."
so, in reality, they will build a massive wharf complex, big enough to take very large warships.. and perhaps a few fishing boats which will hover around sensitive Australian military facilities and have lots of strange aerials on them. They may even build an airport, you know to fly those non existent fish out back to China .