China has been trying for a while to make inroads in the pacific, and mainly through trade and aid investment. But it's now really stepping up those efforts, particularly in this visit by china's foreign minister,. wange s going to eight nations of over ten days. He's been trying not just to get individual nations to sign up too by lateral agreements, some of which do have a sort of security component. And he's also been trying to get ten countries across the region to sign up to a broader pact. A draft of that agreement suggests it would cover pretty wide range of issues, including trade, financing, tourism, public health. It would also cover some more sensitive
The country has just one foreign military base, but there are fears it wants to dot the Pacific region
with more—and that is, so far, proving tricky. With ties between Western and Russian scientists severed, decades of research in the Arctic, particularly on climate change, are
at risk. And a new series further unpicks the
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