US, Australia, Japan, NZ, UK Establish PBP

The US, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the UK established a new group for deepening the economic and diplomatic ties with the rest of the Pacific nations, the White House announced on Friday.

The countries said in a statement: "As our countries -- Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States -- continue to support prosperity, resilience, and security in the Pacific, we too must harness our collective strength through closer cooperation,"

In the same context, the Biden administration pledged to support the Indo-Pacific financially to balance the presence of powers in the region, especially in the light of China's increasing control in the region.

Named as Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP), the group will seek to strengthen economic relations between the members and other regions.

The White House said: “We are united in our shared determination to support a region that benefits the peoples of the Pacific. We are also united in how we realise this vision ― according to principles of Pacific regionalism, sovereignty, transparency, accountability, and most of all, led and guided by the Pacific Islands."

Last March, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that the real goal of the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy is to try to create a new version of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the region in the near future.

The Chinese minister said at the annual press conference of his ministry held today, Monday, that the US strategy aims to maintain the hegemonic system of Washington.

He noted that the American hegemonic system undermines the structure of regional cooperation, which is based on cooperation within the framework of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Commenting on the situation in Ukraine, the Chinese Foreign Minister said that the issues of Ukraine and Taiwan are completely different and cannot be compared.

The minister considered that the main difference is that the Taiwan issue is an internal matter exclusively for China, as the island is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and the Ukrainian issue is a dispute between countries.