Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09SUVA82
2009-03-05 03:49:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Suva
Cable title:  

PRC VICE PRESIDENT XI'S VISIT TO FIJI

Tags:  PREL EAID FJ CH 
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RUEHKN/AMEMBASSY KOLONIA 0312
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RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON 0246
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RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SUVA 000082 

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/ANP

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/05/2019
TAGS: PREL EAID FJ CH
SUBJECT: PRC VICE PRESIDENT XI'S VISIT TO FIJI

Classified By: Richard K. Pruett, Deputy Chief of Mission. Reasons:
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SUVA 000082

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/ANP

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/05/2019
TAGS: PREL EAID FJ CH
SUBJECT: PRC VICE PRESIDENT XI'S VISIT TO FIJI

Classified By: Richard K. Pruett, Deputy Chief of Mission. Reasons: 1.
4(b) and (d).



1. (SBU) Summary. The recent stop-over in Fiji of China's
Vice President Xi Jinping enroute to his Latin America visits
provided Beijing an opportunity to strengthen incrementally
its growing economic, security, and political relationship
with Suva. For Fiji's interim government (IG),the timing of
the visit was optimal. Coming so soon after Fiji's censure
at the Forum Special Leaders meeting in Port Moresby, the
visit provided an opportune reminder that Fiji still has
supportive friends, while Fiji's recently flood-stricken west
provided a sympathetic backdrop to Fiji's requests for
assistance. At the same time, Vice President Xi privately
urged the IG to announce elections at an early date. China
has shown through its ambassador to Fiji increased
willingness to press for elections and criticize unnecessary
diplomatic expulsions. End summary.


2. (SBU) With a delegation of 80 Chinese officials and
businessmen, Vice President Xi Jinping of the People's
Republic of China (PRC) transited Fiji February 8 and 9 on
the first leg of a journey scheduled to take him to Brazil,
Colombia, Jamaica, Mexico and Venezuela. An official
traveling with the vice president's party told a journalist
off the record that Xi is slated to become president in 2012.


3. (U) Josaia Voreqe Bainimarama, Fiji's interim Prime
Minister who led the December 2006 military coup that
overthrew Fiji's elected government, and Fiji's President
Josefa Iloilo met separately with the Chinese leader during
Xi's stopover in Nadi. Nadi Town, Fiji's leading tourism
spot, is located on the west side of Fiji's principal island
of Viti Levu and is the site of Nadi International Airport.
Nadi suffered the worst flooding in memory in the second week
of January as the result of torrential rains and insufficient
dredging of silted rivers. The PRC had acted early to donate
50,000 Fijian dollars (approximately USD 30,000) for the
relief of flood victims.


4. (SBU) Security for Xi's visit was tight, and the IG
severely restricted reporters in their coverage of events.
The meeting between Xi and reclusive President Iloilo was not

carried in the press beyond a photo spray, but Embassy
understands from various sources that President Iloilo
requested Chinese assistance in replacing the fence around
his residence. (Begin comment. Presumably the fence in
question is the extensive fence surrounding his official
residence at Government House in Suva. End comment.)


5. (SBU) The meeting between Xi and Bainimarama was also
private, although the interim Prime Minister's office later
released what it said was a full text of Bainimarama's
speaking notes for the meeting. Bainimarama began by saying
that Xi's visit is "symbolic of the close and growing
relationship which Fiji and China enjoy," and noting that the
date was the fifteenth day of the Chinese lunar year,
"Lantern Festival," when Chinese visit relatives and special
friends. Bainimarama noted that Fiji established diplomatic
relations with the PRC in 1975, soon after its independence
from Great Britain. Bainimarama gave Xi his take on Fiji's
political situation "as there is much hype and misinformation
about the political developments here." He claimed steady
progress on all fronts in restoring Fiji to "true and
genuine" parliamentary democracy, "the timing of which will
be determined by the people of Fiji alone." (Begin comment.
Bainimarama has eschewed all opportunities for genuine
consultation with the people. His clear intent now is that
his military leadership alone determine the timing of
elections. "End comment.)


6. (SBU) Fiji's interim prime minister then raised a litany
of trade and development issues for which he wished to thank
Beijing for cooperation and/or to seek more. He noted that
China always had a positive trade balance with Fiji but is
committed to import more from Fiji and to encourage more
direct Chinese investment in Fiji. He said his government
would positively consider an Investment Protection Agreement
proposed by Beijing, and he thanked the Chinese for granting
Fiji approved destination status for Chinese tourism, adding
that his government had relaxed entry requirements for

SUVA 00000082 002 OF 003


Chinese traveling to Fiji. He also thanked Beijing for
giving Air Pacific landing rights in Hong Kong, which
according to local press should commence June 18, and
advocated a review and updating of Fiji's Air Services
Agreement with the PRC. Bainimarama gave thanks for China's
increasing levels of developmental and grant-in-aid
assistance, "especially in respect of the reconstruction and
rehabilitation works so necessary after the recent floods."


7. (SBU) Near the conclusion of his prepared remarks,
Bainimarama notified Xi that Fiji is in the "final stages" of
accessing funding under the USD 600 million soft loan
facility for Pacific island countries announced by Premier
Wen Jiabao when he visited Fiji in April 2006. He said that
"huge potential for further collaboration" exists between
Fiji and the PRC, and "we are keen to explore possibilities
through discussions that would take our current level of
bilateral cooperation to new heights in the form of more
intensive partnerships covering economic, trade, aid,
education, social and cultural issues and other related
areas." Bainimarama obliged Beijing with a statement of
Fiji's commitment to "the one-China policy" and added the
Fiji is "open for discussions on new possibilities for
collaboration." Moments later, Bainimarama noted that Fiji
had had visits from five Chinese satellite tracking vessels
last year, leaving Fiji lots of foreign exchange, and hoped
for at least 10 such visits this year.


8. (SBU) Xi's remarks were not published. He reportedly
reciprocated with words of sympathy for Fiji's recent
flooding and noted that Fiji was the first Pacific island
country to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1975,
which ushered in a new era in Fiji-PRC bilateral relations.
He said that developing China-Fiji relations is "not only in
the common interests of our two countries and two peoples,
but also conducive to stability and development in the
Asia-Pacific region." He reportedly pressed Bainimarama for
early elections. Xi and Bainimarama then signed a series of
agreements that reportedly included 20 million RMB in
assistance for roadway and other construction.


9. (U) Shortly after Xi's visit, a six-person Chinese
technical team visited Fiji to survey its garment
manufacturing plants with a view to assess possible future
Chinese assistance to Fiji's textile, clothing and footwear
industries. On March 3, Fiji press announced that China
Railway First Company Ltd. had signed a 70 million Fiji
dollars (approximately USD 37 million) contract with Fiji's
Housing Authority and Public Rental Board to construct low
cost housing units in three Suva suburbs. The funding for
the project is a soft loan from China's EXIM Bank at two
percent interest rate over 20 years.


10. (C) Comment. Xi Jinping's visit to Fiji, which was not
a state visit but a transit, allowed Beijing the opportunity
to show a modicum of solidarity with Fiji following
Bainimarama's no-show in Port Moresby. The goals of access
to extractive resources, trade channels, new markets and
political support (especially vis-a-vis Taiwan),are all
drivers in China's policy toward Fiji, but its interests in
each are eclipsed by its need to maintain productive
relations with Canberra and Wellington. Premier Wen had
offered China's soft loan to the Pacific island countries
before the December 2006 coup that brought Bainimarama to
power, but Beijing may be frustrated at the slow pace at
which the IG has availed itself of the offer, especially as
its assistance to Fiji under the facility would be "cloaked"
by the fact that it had been offered before the coup to the
entire region, not just to Fiji. Fiji's "one-China policy"
appears to follow Beijing's formula that Taiwan is a province
of China, of which the PRC is the sole legal government,
rather than the more nuanced U.S. formula, which states that
Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is
but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. In fact,
Taiwan has maintained technical assistance teams in Fiji
since 1978 to help Fiji in its local agricultural and
industrial development. There are recurring rumors that
Beijing is seeking a seabase or satellite tracking station in
Fiji, especially to replace the satellite tracking station it
removed from Tarawa and returned to China for "upgrading"
when Kiribati recognized Taipei in November 2003. Ambassador
McGann has met with his Chinese counterpart, Ambassador Han

SUVA 00000082 003 OF 003


Zhiqiang, several times to urge China to take a more
proactive approach toward encouraging the IG to hold
elections. The Chinese embassy privately criticized the IG
for its December 2008 expulsion of New Zealand Acting High
Commissioner Caroline McDonald and in a show of solidarity
attended the short-notice farewell reception Ambassador
McGann hosted at the Residence. Embassy will continue to
nudge Chinese counterparts to support the efforts of the PIF
and other partners in urging Fiji to return to democracy.
MCGANN