In a leaked letter addressing his country’s Congress and state governors, Micronesia’s outgoing president describes in engrossing detail Chinese efforts to bully and bribe politicians into toeing a pro-China line
China’s shameless methods for holding sway among small Pacific island states are no secret. Yet the level of detail Mr Panuelo provides is remarkable—and surely deeply embarrassing for China. “We are bribed to be complicit, and bribed to be silent,” he writes. He describes Chinese envelopes of cash and offers of trips by private plane to curry favour among politicians and administrators who “advance their personal interest in lieu of the national interest”.
China, prickly over perceived slights, even from a nation of just 113,000, called the letter “smears and accusations”. But it will struggle to dismiss it. Mr Panuelo has consistently warned of the risks when engaging with China. He published another letter to Pacific island leaders last May, urging them to resist China’s pressure to join a “common development vision” that would amount to a new geopolitical bloc. They duly rejected it.
That would imply a dramatic loss of sovereignty. Indeed, a loss of agency is the predicted fate for tiny Pacific states in the face of a great-power struggle between America and China. Yet Mr Panuelo’s response suggests that is far from inevitable.
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