By Rashneel Kumar, Cook Islands News
Photo: AFP/LIU BIN
The comprehensive agreement the Cook Islands has signed with China "deliberately" contains few details because the government has not yet committed to any specific projects, says Prime Minister Mark Brown.
On Monday, the government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, published the Action Plan 2025-2030 for the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the Cook Islands and China, which sets out a structured framework for future engagement in areas of priority interests.
The agreement has been criticised for being vague and lacking details regarding the priority areas in which the two countries will partner, including economic cooperation, infrastructure, maritime cooperation, regional and multilateral cooperation, among others.
In a press conference on Wednesday, PM Brown said the agreement has only opened doors for further engagement.
"The one thing I'd like to point out is there is no projects or no actual engagements that have been signed up to.
"This agreement opens the door, it then provides the agreement of the two countries for our agencies, whether it's the infrastructure ministry, health ministry, education ministry, the private sector, civil society groups, to be able to engage with like-minded agencies or groups in China, and to work out then what are potential projects that we can actually get on to," Brown said.
"Some people have said there's been very little detail, and that's deliberately so, because the detail will be in any negotiations that will take place for any potential future projects that may take place, whether they are in the area of agriculture, infrastructure development and so forth."
Cook Islands also signed three memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with China last week, and Brown said these documents will guide local agencies in further engagement with their counterpart agencies in China.
"There were MOUs signed, one with our seabed minerals sector for research and scientific development, the other one was in the area of infrastructure support, and the third one was in the area of economic development, trade facilitation, people-to-people exchanges," he said.
"Those were the additional three MOUs that were signed up, and those are really documents that the relevant agencies will now use to further engage with their counterpart institutes or counterpart agencies in China.
"I'll be very happy to discuss any of these matters with anyone who'd like to know them a bit further, but a lot more of the detail can be adequately answered by our line agency heads of ministries and others who are looking to engage through this framework with the People's Republic of China."
Brown reiterated the agreement with China was "not about dependency, this is about us being more independent".
He said it would help the Cook Islands' ability to meet its development priorities, which are outlined in Te Kaveinga Nui/Cook Islands National Development Plan.
"What we've done is use our National Sustainable Development Plan as the foundation for our engagement, not just with China, but also with any other country that we deal with in the world."
The development plan has been developed over a period of years through extensive consultation, said Brown, adding "every constituency group that you can think of had an input into the National Sustainable Development Plan for the next few years".
"This plan of ours is being put down into yearly work plans that government agencies engage in and our budget appropriation finances through a yearly process. It also laid out in five yearly cycles as well, what the plans are for five years, over 25 years, and our 100-year plan that we have set out in our National Sustainable Development Goals.
"This forms the priority areas for discussion, negotiations with other countries on priority areas."
Brown said the agreements Cook Islands had signed with New Zealand, Australia and China all focused on these priority areas "and I think if people look through these three documents, they will see there are some commonalities in the areas we're looking at".
"There is one area that I'd like to point out that is not in all of these documents.
"Both with Australia and New Zealand there is a component that talks about security, national security but also regional security. And these are long-standing provisions that we've had in our dealings with Australia, through our patrol boat programme, and also traditionally with New Zealand, under the terms of our realm relationship, New Zealand is responsible for our defence.
"These aspects are not contained anywhere in the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China, and deliberately so because of our long-standing arrangements on security with Australia and New Zealand.
"But the other areas we can see is areas that are common, in fact the language is very similar in all three of these documents in terms of collaboration, sharing of ideas, areas of common interest, areas of our own national priority that are contained in these areas, infrastructure investment, infrastructure development and so forth."
-This article was first published by Cook Islands News.
