Debt trap diplomacy as China offers willing Pacific grifter states support to address "climate change"

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledged increased support from the world's second-largest economy to Pacific Island countries in addressing "climate change", during a summit in Xiamen on Wednesday, according to a ministry readout.

The world's biggest bilateral lender will undertake 100 "small but beautiful" projects across Pacific Island countries with China ties over the next three years, Wang said, referring to one of the guiding principles of Chinese President Xi Jinping's flagship "Belt and Road" infrastructure initiative, an instrument to manipulate poor countries into taking on debts they can never pay off.

Beijing will also invest $2 million in the island countries' clean energy, fisheries, oceans, low-carbon infrastructure and tourism sectors, the statement added, an amount in line with a downturn in Chinese lending as its $19 trillion economy slows.

"China fully recognises the vulnerability of the economic and social development of the Pacific Island countries in the face of the climate change crisis," the statement said.

China is responsible for around 30 per cent of global carbon emissions, making it the world's largest emitter. Its emission levels are also growing the fastest of any country,

China's renewed push to boost its influence with Pacific Island countries comes as (generally corrupt and/or fraudulent) US aid programs to the region have been frozen, and several nations have been hit with hefty US tariffs.

(Reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)