China’s rise in the Pacific isn’t just about aid or diplomacy — it’s about survival and power.
As domestic demand slows and Western tariffs squeeze exports, Beijing has been forced to turn its industrial surplus outward.
Behind the roads, mines and ports it is building across the Pacific lies a deeper urgency: China has more factories than it has buyers.
Growth targets remain tied to state-owned enterprises and central planning bodies, even as the population ages and global demand weakens.
To keep its economic engine running, Beijing has found a new frontier — the Pacific.
A region rich in resources, politically fragmented and open to quick results, it offers both economic relief and geopolitical opportunity.
What looks like generosity is, in effect, a strategy to transform China’s domestic weakness into global leverage.
Industrial overcapacity at home becomes infrastructure diplomacy abroad.
A system built on control becomes an advantage where bureaucracy slows progress.
And decades of experience in poverty reduction — and propaganda — have made Beijing an effective storyteller in the developing world.
Behind the headlines stands Gold Ridge Mining Limited, a Chinese-backed firm emblematic of Beijing’s Pacific approach: build big, move fast, and stay visible. (ABC News: Bang Xiao )
Beijing’s new model
In August, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele hailed the Gold Ridge Mine expansion as “the beginning of a new chapter” — a SBD $6 billion ($1.1 billion) investment that will triple the mine’s capacity and, by his account, transform the nation’s economy.
The projection is bold: around SBD $7.5 billion ($1.4 billion) in annual revenue, SBD $2 billion ($370 million) to government coffers, and more than 4,000 direct and indirect jobs.
It’s a national milestone — and a diplomatic one.
Behind the headlines stands Gold Ridge Mining Limited, a Chinese-backed firm emblematic of Beijing’s Pacific approach: build big, move fast, and stay visible.
Director Gao Mingfeng had taken local village representatives to China to tour what he described as “one of the world’s best gold-processing operations” before the mine was purchased.
They returned persuaded — for now — that China can deliver where others stalled.
That visibility isn’t limited to gold mines and asphalt.
Last week, a 340-tonne Chinese-built tunnelling machine, nicknamed the “steel dragon”, set sail across the Pacific to join the Tina Hydropower Project near Honiara.
Manufactured by PowerChina’s Hydropower No 9 Bureau, the 86-metre-long “Double Jing No. 1” will carve the underground tunnels for Solomon Islands’ largest hydropower station — a project expected to supply 68 per cent of the capital’s electricity needs.
The export of such heavy machinery is more than a construction story.
It’s an example of how China’s industrial overcapacity finds purpose abroad — keeping production lines at home alive while symbolising Beijing’s promise of partnership.
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Why China is winning
Beijing’s influence is visible not because it gives more, but because it moves faster, demands less — aside from continuously isolating Taiwan — and ensures its presence is seen.
Chinese state-owned enterprises are extensions of the party-state — able to mobilise finance, labour and approvals without years of parliamentary wrangling.
They’re comfortable working where governance is uneven and where relationships matter as much as rules.
China’s state-owned enterprises are no strangers to corruption — they’ve learned to dance with it.
For local leaders, that flexibility is appealing.
Unlike Australia or the United States, which link support to transparency or human rights benchmarks, China focuses on deliverables — ports, roads, stadiums, mines.
The work gets done. The ribbon-cuttings follow. The influence sticks.
Beijing has also been reinforcing security ties, hosting the fourth Ministerial Dialogue on Law-Enforcement and Police Cooperation with Pacific Island countries last week.
Ministers from Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Samoa, Nauru and Papua New Guinea gathered in Jiangsu province to discuss closer policing links and “professional, efficient, friendly” cooperation.
The meeting reflected how China now frames its Pacific ties not only in economic but also in security terms.
And while Western capitals focus on defence alignments, Beijing’s messaging leans on “shared development”.
At the celebration of six years of diplomatic relations in the Solomon Islands, China’s ambassador Cai Weiming praised the “deepening friendship” between the two nations and reiterated Beijing’s role as a “responsible major power” — one that builds infrastructure, not divides alliances.
However, every kilometre of road and each mining deal carries a political purpose — the long game is UN votes and the steady isolation of Taiwan.
The Pacific may look small on a map, but with around a dozen UN member states scattered across its islands, it carries a collective diplomatic weight that Beijing values.
That strategy was reinforced again this week, when Vice-President Han Zheng met PNG Deputy Prime Minister John Rosso in Beijing.
Han pledged to “elevate” a comprehensive strategic partnership and expand cooperation in trade, infrastructure and climate adaptation — and Rosso reaffirmed Papua New Guinea’s “one-China” position.
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Prosperity and unease
China’s speed also has a cost.
In Solomon Islands, community elder Stanley Vatiande warned that the Gold Ridge tailings dam “could break at any time if a disaster strikes” — a real concern in a country prone to floods and earthquakes.
That tension runs through many Chinese-backed projects: jobs and infrastructure on one side, environmental risk and social unease on the other.
Prosperity today, uncertainty tomorrow.
For Australia and the US, the Pacific is no longer a comfortable backyard — it’s a battleground of credibility.
Canberra promotes “Pacific family” values and governance reform; Washington adds defence cooperation.
Beijing counters with visible transformation.
In places where development has been slow and uneven, a new road can weigh more politically than a promise of reform.
At the same time, Beijing is repositioning itself as a climate leader — a message designed to resonate across the islands.
In late September, China announced new emissions targets: a 7–10 per cent cut from peak levels by 2035, non-fossil energy to exceed 30 per cent, and wind and solar capacity to rise to six times the 2020 level.
The signal to Pacific partners was clear — China is not just a builder, but also a global climate problem-solver.
Whether and how Beijing can achieve that goal remains an open question.
China’s Pacific playbook works because it turns necessity into advantage — yet the same visibility that builds trust could also undo it.
If projects like Gold Ridge and the Tina Hydropower Station deliver growth while managing environmental risk and community consent, Beijing’s model will embed.
If they don’t, the very visibility that fuels its influence could erode it.
For Pacific nations and for China, that responsibility now lies not in grand ceremonies, but in how the roads hold, how the revenues are shared, and how communities are heard.
