Take a walk through the city where China’s foreign minister met on Monday with the leaders of nearly a dozen Pacific Island nations, and China’s imprint is unmistakable.
On one side of Suva, the capital of Fiji, there’s a bridge rebuilt with Chinese loans and unveiled with the country’s prime minister standing beside China’s ambassador. On the other, down Queen Elizabeth Drive, sits Beijing’s hulking new embassy, where the road out front has been fixed by workers in neon vests bearing the name of a Chinese state-owned enterprise.
Looming over it all is Wanguo Friendship Plaza, a skeletal apartment tower built by a Chinese company and meant to be the South Pacific’s tallest building, until Fiji’s government halted construction over safety concerns.