Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads to Papua New Guinea later this week for a go to aimed toward shoring up India’s outreach to Pacific Island nations, with an eye fixed on countering China’s rising footprint within the Pacific.

The first go to by an Indian prime minister to the biggest of the Pacific Island nations comes as New Delhi’s hostilities with Beijing have prompted it to work extra carefully with nations such because the United States, Japan and Australia within the Indo-Pacific area.

Modi will cease in Papua New Guinea capital Port Moresby on the second leg of a three-nation tour throughout which he’ll first attend the Group of Seven summit in Japan after which go on to Australia.

On May 22, Modi and Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape will host the third summit of the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation, a grouping of India and 14 Pacific Island nations.

The summit, which is being held eight years after India hosted the final one in 2015, might give contemporary momentum to New Delhi’s bid to determine a presence within the Pacific Island nations. India started its outreach in 2014, nevertheless it has been sluggish to get off the bottom.

“Those places are very strategic if you want to make a naval base or a friendly port or friendly airstrip and they also have vast ocean resources,” retired navy chief Arun Prakash advised VOA Tuesday.

“The main worry for Western countries and India is that several of these countries are a void and China tends to walk into voids and fill them up.”

The 14 nations set to take part within the Port Moresby summit vary from such giant islands as Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to smaller ones corresponding to Tonga and Tuvalu. The different nations can be Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu, Niue, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Palau and Nauru.

Papua New Guinea is particularly vital. The island of 9.5 million is the biggest of the Pacific Island nations and one of many few with which India has longstanding ties and a commerce relationship. It can be house to a small Indian inhabitants of about 3,000.

Modi and Marape will meet Monday and the 2 sides are anticipated to signal pacts that embody cooperation in micro- and small to medium enterprises to agreements between their state broadcasters and reciprocal preparations for issuing visas on arrival.

“One of the important challenges that Papua New Guinea faces is climate change and adaptation. These are areas where India can play an important role by offering affordable partnerships in areas like solar energy,” Swati Prabhu, an affiliate fellow on the Center for New Economic Diplomacy in New Delhi advised VOA.

Papua New Guinea additionally needs to shift its economic system from export of main supplies corresponding to pure fuel and minerals to completed merchandise.

The nation is being courted by the U.S. and its allies amid issues about China’s rising army and financial affect within the area. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited in 2018.

U.S. President Joe Biden was to go to Papua New Guinea on May 22 however has canceled the go to to deal with debt restrict talks in Washington.

China has begun making inroads within the Pacific Island nations with its Belt and Road initiative – final 12 months Beijing signed a safety cope with the Solomon Islands and in March it gained a contract to redevelop the port in its capital metropolis, Honiara.

Analysts say India hopes to companion with the Pacific Island nations with improvement initiatives in areas corresponding to clear vitality, expertise and group improvement initiatives corresponding to photo voltaic electrification and provide of agricultural tools.

Affordable clear vitality initiatives are particularly vital in a area whose leaders say local weather change is their best safety menace amid worsening cyclones and rising sea ranges.

Some see India’s outreach to the Pacific Island nations as a part of its ambitions to be considered as an rising international energy.

Analysts nonetheless say that whereas India’s bid to construct affect within the Pacific Island nations marks an bold starting, it has its limitations because it can not match China’s assets and New Delhi’s main focus must stay on its quick neighborhood in South Asia and the Indian Ocean.

“If you call yourself an Indo-Pacific power and are part of the Quad grouping, you must make some outreach to the Pacific also. But whether it is within our capabilities to sustain ourselves that far out in the Pacific is a question mark. We don’t have such deep pockets and our navy is also relatively small,” Prakash mentioned. “But perhaps in coordination with Japan, Australia and United States, we can render assistance there,” he mentioned.