POLICING PARTNERSHIPS IN THE PACIFIC: CHINA’S LAW-ENFORCEMENT COOPERATION WITH PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES

By Virginia Comolli | Martin Thorley

Over the past two decades, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has significantly expanded its role as a provider of foreign law enforcement assistance and policing cooperation. What began primarily as targeted support linked to diplomatic competition and counterterrorism has evolved into a more systematic and geographically dispersed portfolio of activities. Today, the PRC supplies equipment, infrastructure, training and, in some cases, operational support to police forces across Asia, Africa, Latin America and, increasingly,
the Pacific Islands. In the Pacific, this engagement has grown markedly in the last ten years in both scope and political sensitivity. Initial efforts centred on infrastructure development and training exchanges, but in several countries these have developed into more sustained and, at times, operationally embedded relationships. As
a result, policing cooperation – traditionally viewed as a largely technical area – has become more closely intertwined with broader questions of influence, security and geopolitics in the region. This trajectory reflects broader global patterns in China’s law enforcement engagement, which is shaped by a combination of external and domestic objectives. Internationally, assistance serves to cultivate diplomatic partnerships, expand political influence, secure support in multilateral forums, and reinforce state authority abroad. At the same time, it advances domestic priorities: protecting Chinese nationals and investments overseas, engaging and monitoring diaspora communities, countering transnational threats and projecting the image of a state capable of safeguarding its citizens globally.

Under Xi Jinping’s Comprehensive National Security Concept and the Global Security Initiative (GSI), the boundary between internal and external security has increasingly blurred, positioning foreign law enforcement cooperation as an instrument through which Beijing seeks to shape its external environment in ways that reinforce domestic stability. Against this backdrop, this report finds that Chinese policing assistance and cooperation in the South Pacific is: Politically differentiated, ranging from infrastructure grants to formal security frameworks. Institutionally layered, combining central direction with provincial actors and diaspora-linked networks. Strategically consequential, reshaping regional security dynamics without necessarily displacing traditional partners. Operationally assertive in some contexts.