- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
- cross-posted to:
- world@quokk.au
Something interesting is happening in how Australians think about their own country’s influence in the Pacific. According to the Lowy Institute’s 2025 poll, 39 per cent of Australians now see Australia as the most influential power in the Pacific Islands, a notable increase from last year’s result of 31 per cent.
Australia has overtaken China, previously seen by Australians as the dominant player, which holds steady at 34 per cent.
These figures suggest a shifting perception domestically, perhaps reflecting Canberra’s energetic “listening” diplomacy, through which Australia has ramped up diplomatic effort and significantly increased financial assistance to the Pacific over the past three years. Canberra’s approach of marrying generous aid packages with not-so-subtle diplomatic leverage on security matters appears to have resonated at home.
[…]
While Australia is undeniably the largest aid donor in the region, and uniquely maintains a diplomatic presence in every PIF member state, Beijing’s bare-faced influence-building is plain as day.
The China-Pacific Island countries Foreign Ministers’ meeting last month foreshadowed increased Chinese presence in security and policing, development, and stronger economic ties with those Pacific countries that recognise China over Taiwan. Beijing’s blend of visa-waivers, economic incentives, infrastructure financing, and diplomatic duchessing, ensures its presence is both felt and appreciated across island capitals.
In 2024, China registered 26 Coastguard vessels with the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, signalling a more assertive regional maritime presence. It is not clear how China intends to deploy its more than two-dozen vessels, but if the dynamics in the South China Sea are any indication, it will likely result in Chinese vessels harassing other countries, while protecting its own fishing fleet – widely understood as often responsible for illegal fishing in the Pacific Ocean.
[…]
To Canberra’s chagrin, plenty of Pacific countries are evidently happy to buy what China is selling, even while some countries including PNG and Fiji are aligning more closely to Australia’s worldview.
Therein lies the rub: while perceptions do matter, it is Pacific countries’ own strategic choices that will ultimately be the deciding factor in who has influence and how the regional balance of power is shaped for decades to come.
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As an Australian, I don’t have a lot of faith in Australian’s understanding of global politics generally.
Especially when it is published by the this “disgraceful propaganda campaign”.
How is a simple poll a “disgraceful propaganda campaign”? (And how gives your link proof of that?)
If not Australians, which people do you have more faith in?
I was just quoting Jim Green, as per the Wikipedia entry for the Lowy Institute.
Some of their “polls” have been very biased, especially the recent one saying that Australians trust the NZ PM, even though no Australian has ever heard of him.
Criticism of the Chinese government is sometimes warranted but the volume of posts from Hotznplotzn on the topic across the lemmyverse is massive and on a small instance with very low traffic the posts tend to overwhelm the discourse. I think it gives a very unbalanced view of Australian-Chinese relations and I wish it could be rate limited to fit the community as this sort of in your face proselytizing is a large part of the reason I don’t use other social media.
Criticism of the Chinese government is sometimes warranted …
How is it “criticism of the Chinese government” if Australians view their own country as the most influential power in the Pacific Islands?
Australians also think they are more influential than the U.S. according to the poll. Is it also criticism of the U.S. then? Should we rate limit such posts because they don’t reflect Australian-U.S. relations, especially as there is much more criticism of the U.S. since the Florida man is at the helm?
The account posts a large volume of articles critical of China in some way and the angle doesnt have to be as obvious as Uyghur genocide or conflicts in the South China sea. It could be criticism.of deepseek or surveys of regional influence or whatever else comes up on their media filters as China related. You have to be aware of the volume of posts over time and not look at a single post.
I don’t have a problem with criticism of China or the USA or any other government including Australia’s. It is really a question of balance and volume of posts. It’s either one hell of an obsession or an organised campaign to shape opinion.
It’s either one hell of an obsession or an organised campaign to shape opinion.
I personally think that this organised campaign is somewhere else here on Lemmy, it’s more about these .ml communities, no?
But that’s just the opinion by some random guy on the web.
@shirro@aussie.zone
Someone else already wonders that there are many other accounts in the Lemmyverse that post much more articles critical of Australia, the EU, U.S., Big Tech, and many other things, let alone the pure propaganda comms where everything that is only slightly critical of China gets immediately deleted. No one complains about that. Why?
There are a lot of non-Chinese people in the Lemmyverse who defend China by parroting the government’s narratives, although most of these people know China as tourists at best.
This ‘tankie propaganda’ talk is one major reason why Lemmy is still barely used and doesn’t take off imo. Too many accounts, Lemmy is seen what it supposedly was in the very beginning: A dumping ground for cheap autocratic propaganda.
[Edit typo.]
