ABSTRACT
This chapter turns to our final case study: China. Most analyses of China's statecraft in the Pacific Islands region have focused primarily on whether China's expenditure of material resources – whether they be aid, loans, scholarships, investment, and the activities of state-owned corporations – can reshape regional order in its favour. This chapter shifts its focus to exploring China's efforts to use ideational resources by examining the strategic narratives that China has deployed in the Pacific Islands region. Based on an extensive analysis of Chinese official discourse, this chapter identifies the three relatively consistent strategic narratives in the Pacific Islands over the last decade. It argues that China has built on its narrative of shared historical and colonial experience to support its narrative of the value of South–South cooperation, which it has used, in turn, to justify its narrative of the opportunities offered under its Belt and Road Initiative.
