Face of Nation : Mr Morrison is working to smooth tensions with Mr Bainimarama, who remains a vocal champion for greater climate action despite Australia’s insistence it’s doing enough. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is buckling up for his second trip to Fiji this year, with hopes of using rugby league to score a diplomatic point.
After touching down in the nation’s capital of Suva on Friday, he will meet with local leader Frank Bainimarama ahead of a working lunch with the foreign and Pacific ministers in tow.
China’s presence in Suva will also be unavoidable for the Australian leader, who will drive over the Fiji-China friendship bridge on his way to Friday’s meeting, with a 30-storey tower being built by Beijing looming close by. It’s set to be the tallest building in the Pacific islands.
It’s also a stone’s throw away from where Mr Morrison’s PM’s XIII rugby league women’s and men’s team will play their Fijian counterparts on Friday night, in a first for the two nations. While rugby union remains the more popular sport – locals have been glued to Fiji’s efforts at the World Cup in Japan – it’s expected to draw an excited crowd.
“I look forward to meeting Prime Minister Bainimarama again and building on our friendship and the warm relationship between our two countries,” Mr Morrison said ahead of his visit. Despite climate action road bumps – which erupted after the Pacific Islands Forum – the leaders last month signed the Fiji-Australia Vuvale Partnership while Mr Bainimarama visited Canberra.
Vuvale is the Fijian word for “family”, which Mr Morrison has stressed as a key part of his Pacific Step Up program, to build closer ties between Australia and the Pacific.
Pacific politics expert Graeme Smith from the Australian National University doesn’t expect the two leaders to directly broach the topic of China, but says it’s likely Australian officials will highlight debt risks in lower-level discussions.
He said it must be frustrating for Australia to know China is opening new coal mines and funding similar projects in other countries. “What’s happening in China is happening a long, long way away, whereas what is happening in Australia is something Fiji has visibility of,” Dr Smith told AAP.
“And when an election is fought around opening a coal mine, that is something they know about.” They see China as taking more action to reduce domestic emissions, Dr Smith says.
