New Zealand’s announced review of its development aid to Kiribati after a diplomatic rift between the two countries should sound alarm bells in Washington. By highlighting Kiribati’s turn away from the West, Wellington has both exposed the problem and introduced new opportunities for China to deepen its economic and political influence. U.S. policy should better reflect the strategic importance of Kiribati and specter of Chinese influence.
Behind Australia, New Zealand is Kiribati’s second biggest donor, having provided $57 million from 2021-2024. Losing New Zealand’s funding would devastate the budget of an aid-reliant island state like Kiribati; overseas development aid accounts for approximately 18 percent of the country’s national income, which the government uses for transportation, education, healthcare, and other vital programs. The provision of foreign aid is also a useful tool for Wellington’s foreign policy, as it helps foster diplomatic influence, maintain regional stability, and strengthen relationships with Pacific Island countries.
In mid-January, Kiribati informed New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters that he would only meet with Kiribati’s vice president instead of President Taneti Maamau during a proposed upcoming visit. Peters decided to cancel the meeting and review aid to the country. The rift continued as both sides lobbed accusations at each other for failing to follow diplomatic protocol. Kiribati was frustrated that it first learned of the review through the media, rather than diplomatic channels. Peter’s complaints evidenced equal frustration, claiming it did not make sense for Maamau to have pre-booked a church event on the same date he had scheduled to meet with Peters.
Beyond a lack of decorum, Maamau’s avoidance of Peters demonstrates the extent of his nation’s turn toward China. Maamau must have known that avoiding the meeting would threaten relations with Aotearoa New Zealand. Further, while an invitation wasn’t extended to Peters, the Chinese ambassador to Kiribati was in attendance at the aforementioned church event. The entire ordeal represents Maamau’s efforts to turn his country away from the West and toward China.
New Zealand’s reaction is a symptom of the long-term frustration that many Western democracies have had in dealing with Kiribati, especially since Mammau changed diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019. New Zealand, in particular, has complained about the lack of access at the leader level: Peters’ was to be the first meeting with the Kiribati president in five years.
A constitutional crisis regarding the eventual expulsion of an Australian-born judge, David Lambourne, that raised questions over judicial independence has also generated tensions with Kiribati’s Western partners. In 2021, the same year his wife was made leader of the opposition, Kiribati sought to prevent Australian-born Lambourne from entering the country and to retrospectively impose a term limit on him. When the Canadian-born Chief Justice Hastings ruled in favor of Lambourne, the government moved to expel him as well. Eventually all judges on the Court of Appeals were suspended in 2022. The crisis continues, with the Parliament having removed Lambourne from the bench in April 2024.
In August of last year, Kiribati banned all foreign officials from entering the country until 2025, citing concerns over foreign influence in its upcoming election. Many international observers viewed this policy as a way to avoid scrutiny by Western countries interested in ensuring free and fair elections.
Wellington’s concern regarding the use of its aid in support of New Zealand’s national interests are many. Establishing and verifying accountability systems for the use of Kiwi taxpayers require leader-level and working level meetings. Nonetheless, New Zealand’s response, while motivated by genuine concerns, will only push Kiribati further into China’s arms. Worry over a more influential China, however, should reinvigorate efforts to work with the country, instead of motivating a sense of fatalism, particularly in Washington, that Kiribati is already lost.
China’s agnostic approach to foreign regime types may further facilitate Kiribati’s backsliding. In the Pacific, Chinese internal security aid isn’t tied to law enforcement best practices but is typically a tool of extraterritorial control as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) seeks to manage its overseas populations. Chinese police also bring authoritarian policing style and surveillance with them. Although there has not been direct confirmation of these practices in Kiribati, it is an established pattern in other countries that could threaten Kiribati too. Furthermore, China also uses its influence to corrupt government officials and processes across the region, due to unaccountable money flows into the system.
Beyond risks to Kiribati itself, China’s ambitions in the country are likely to drive instability in the region. Kiribati has vacillated between recognizing Taiwan and China, flipping on two prior occasions. From 1997 to 2003, the PRC operated a space tracking station in the country at an effectively militarized base operated by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that may have spied on U.S. missile testing in the nearby Marshall Islands. The base caused local outcry as i-Kiribati were denied access near the zone and locals spotted weapons moving in and out of the base.
With China’s multi-use, versatile Yuan Wang-class surveillance ships, it likely does not need a new bespoke space tracking station in Kiribati. However, China has begun work on a potential military facility in the country. Beijing has announced plans to renovate a World War II-era airstrip on Canton Island, a remote atoll approximately 3,050 kilometers south of Hawaii. Although China has claimed it will not serve the military, its strategic location and potential use by the PLA could threaten the United States.
The United States’ policy on Kiribati is not commensurate with its strategic importance. In part this is due to the general malaise in U.S. relations with the Pacific Islands since the end of the Cold War. However, with U.S.-China competition ramping up, the U.S. has reinvigorated its activity in the region. This was especially bolstered after the shock of the Solomon Islands and Kiribati recognizing China in 2019. Nonetheless, the renewed focus has largely written off Kiribati as a country that is already in China’s sphere of influence.
Occupying a vast ocean space across three primary island chains, Kiribati could be a gap in the United States’ Pacific frontlines. Through various arrangements of territorial control and partnerships, Washington enjoys security access in a large swath of the Northern Pacific sub-region of Micronesia. The extent of U.S. control has been dubbed the “Corridor of Freedom” as it offers a vital lifeline for the operating ability of the U.S. Navy between Hawaii and East Asia. Situated beyond this corridor and south of Hawaii, a Chinese military presence in Kiribati would leapfrog the U.S.’ Micronesian front lines, bringing the PLA next door to Honolulu.
As the United States paired down its regional investments since the end of the Cold War, it was assumed that Canberra and Wellington had the South Pacific locked down, but China’s influence has only deepened. Although it is too soon to tell what impact New Zealand’s aid review will have for China in Kiribati, it still highlights the imperative for Washington to build a stronger presence itself to block China’s malign influence.
While the United States has limited resources and foreign aid must be carefully allocated to ensure that it makes the U.S. stronger, safer, and more prosperous, Washington can do more to mitigate China’s influence. For example, the United States still does not have an embassy in Kiribati. As an atoll nation, Kiribati’s capital does not meet the physical security requirements necessary for an embassy to be built. However, the secretary of state can grant waivers and should in Kiribati. The U.S. could also lean on New Zealand and Kiribati to get past the current impasse, which would help Washington establish deeper ministerial level connections in Tarawa as well.