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Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, torpedoed American plans to set up a multinational policing initiative with strategic Pacific island nations, an initiative meant to blunt growing Beijing security influence in the region.
The ambassador’s opposition was disclosed in a leaked conversation between Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who announced an Australia-led version of the police program on Aug. 27 in Tonga.
Mr. Campbell is overheard on a leaked video telling Mr. Albanese that the initiative is “fantastic.”
“I talked with Kevin [Rudd] about it and so you know, we were going to do something like that and he asked us not to, so we did not,” Mr. Campbell said.
Critics said the ambassador’s opposition is a sign that Mr. Rudd, who has a reputation for favoring conciliatory policies toward China, continues to promote policies that seek to avoid offending Beijing.
The Australian Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A day after the leaked conversation was posted on X by New Zealand reporter Lydia Lewis, leaders of several Pacific Island nations endorsed the $271 million Australian police initiative that will seek to improve police training and create a mobile regional police team as part of effort to block China for expanding its security role in the region.
The leaders from Tonga, Fiji, Palau and Papua New Guinea said the program would help island states tackle drug trafficking, illegal fishing and economic crimes across a region spanning millions of square miles, Reuters reported from Sydney.
“The entire Pacific is the biggest unpoliced space in planet earth,” Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape told reporters in Tonga.
Australia and New Zealand have provided police support to the region in the past during crises, and Australia’s government has said China should have no role for policing there.
China has sought to introduce its police system into the Pacific islands along with efforts to develop infrastructure.
China’s Foreign Ministry has said its police efforts in the region are normal, aligned with international law and not targeting any third countries.
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