Politico.com |Biden's Pacific Island summit tests U.S. regional credibility , 22 Sep
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Those initiatives include greater military cooperation between the U.S. and Pacific Island countries. The U.S. will conclude an 11-day military exercise tomorrow/Friday in Fiji that included personnel from Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

PIC (1971 Pacific Islands Forum): AU, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Vanuatu; IN*, ID*, TH*, MY*, PH*, CN*, JP*, KR*; EU-CO*, TR*, UK*, US*, CA*, FR*, DE*, IT*  ES*; CU*

Long time, no see. Campbell's challenge is a widespread perception among Pacific Island countries that the U.S. is unreliable.

"America premised their whole efforts in the Pacific on [Cold War] geostrategic competition, and once that [Soviet] threat was gone, America didn't see the reason to be in the Pacific anymore," said PATRICIA O'BRIEN, professor of history in the Asian Studies Program at Georgetown University. "[That] provided huge openings for China once they were ready to expand into the Pacific in the 2000s."

For many Pacific Islanders, the most visible symbols of U.S. engagement are the remains of former World War II battlefields < wipes tears > such as Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. That influence vacuum has lubricated China's steady diplomatic outreach in the absence of a competitive U.S. alternative.

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