Amid tensions with China as he seeks to scale back Chinese influence on his country, Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka on Thursday said he did not discuss Beijing with external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, maintaining that it is bad manners to discuss someone who is not in the building.
Rabuka, who became Prime Minister in December, was responding to a question on whether he had discussed China with Jaishankar.
While his scrapping of a police training and exchange agreement with China in late January has given rise to speculation of tensions with China, Rakuba on Thursday said: “We will continue our relationship.”
Fielding the question on China at the joint media conference, Rabuka said: “We thought it was bad manners to discuss someone who is not in the building. We spoke about our own cooperation. We are very fortunate to have such a great power and economy talking to us…. We have great old friends… no need to look for new friends. There are no real new friends in this region. We have been friends with India, we have been friends with China. We’ll continue our relationship.”
Ahead of becoming Prime Minister, Rabuka was quoted by SBS News as saying that it was time his country returned to its “comfortable niche” with Australia in what was seen as an effort to contain China’s influence on Fiji. Addressing the media along with Rabuka in Suva, Jaishankar said the Indian approach to development partnership was “demand-driven”, in what could be an oblique reference to the China model which nudges countries into making mega infra projects with cheap loans that they then find difficult to pay — the Hambantota port deal in Sri Lanka being a case in point.
Jaishankar, who was in Fiji to attend the World Hindi Conference, oversaw a visa waiver agreement that would permit diplomatic and official passport holders of the two countries to travel and stay in each other’s country without holding a visa for 90 days.