Editor’s Note: This article was submitted as part of the Irregular Warfare Initiative’s 2025 Writing Contest, in which authors were invited to explore how the United States and its partners can use irregular warfare to strengthen security cooperation, build trust, and enhance resilience among Indo-Pacific nations. This article stood out for its innovative examination of how China leverages police partnerships, rather than traditional military power, to expand influence in the Pacific Islands, and for its clear-eyed recommendations on how the United States can adapt to compete in this gray-zone domain.
As Sheena Greitens observed earlier this year for IWI, the United States secures allies through defense cooperation, while China builds influence through policing. In the Pacific Islands (where few nations have militaries), this divergence gives Beijing an opening to expand its reach, using law enforcement ties to cultivate dependence and erode sovereignty.
With only three Pacific Island Countries (PICs) having standing militaries (Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga), security and defense responsibilities fall on police forces in many states. The PRC has recognized that advancing police partnerships with PICs is an effective way to grow its influence at the expense of host nation sovereignty. For the United States, security cooperation outside of traditional military-to-military engagements is often an area where traditional approaches from Washington are not well suited to compete. To remain competitive, the United States must adapt its security assistance model—shifting from military-first engagement to a strategy that empowers local police forces, amplifies regional voices, promotes local law enforcement and legal regimes, and undermines Beijing’s use of policing as a tool of influence.
With the United States reconsidering how it approaches foreign aid, leveraging cost-effective solutions that can counter PRC influence while delivering real impacts in countries is crucial. In the Pacific, the United States can bolster regional security and strengthen its influence by strengthening policing cooperation programs that already exist. Washington can further counter PRC influence by leveraging social media campaigns and trusted local messengers to counter common narratives about the value of PRC policing while building local alternatives and grassroots opposition to these endeavors.
China’s Policing Partnerships in the Pacific
The PRC has engaged with six different PICs to provide policing support in some capacity, ranging from sending Fijian police officers to China for training to deploying Chinese police officers on patrol in Kiribati[KB1] . In Samoa, the PRC funded a police academy, and in 2022, the Solomon Islands signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with China that included police cooperation. Some analysts have argued that the PRC’s overseas police presence is more effective than military presence in influencing local elites, government, and local populations.
For many Pacific nations, there is an urgent need to address real security challenges. Illegal fishing—often by China—is a persistent threat, and drug trafficking is a growing problem. Through policing assistance, the PRC addresses such security challenges while laying the groundwork for Beijing to gain influence over the national security strategy of these countries. In 2018, the PRC gifted Papua New Guinea 200 surveillance cameras and a Chinese EXIM bank loan to build a Huawei data center. Though the data center was too expensive for Port Moresby to maintain, it was later revealed to be highly vulnerable to remote access, with its information accessible by the PRC. In Fiji and Vanuatu, the PRC carried out extraditions of Chinese nationals in 2017 and 2019, respectively, raising questions about due process and the rule of law in each of these countries.
The PRC also uses its police presence on these islands to undertake the extraterritorial policing of Chinese citizens abroad. These actions have raised concerns that the presence of the PRC within local police systems will shift the focus of these forces from protecting community interest to ensuring leadership survival. Even without a formal police presence, the PRC works with criminal groups to establish an informal police presence. In Italy and Spain, individuals with suspected criminal ties helped to set up secret overseas Chinese police stations. According to a ProPublica investigation, Beijing protects the criminal actors involved in setting up and running these stations, turning a blind eye to their illegal activities in exchange for them acting as overseas enforcers.
A Two-Pronged Approach: Partnership and Public Awareness
The United States should counter the PRC’s policing influence in two ways. First, it should work with regional partners, namely Australia, to develop viable policing alternatives that align with Washington and Canberra’s shared interests. Here, the Pacific Policing Initiative is one such initiative that should be carried forward and supported to deliver lasting change and promote US and allied interests in the region.
The Pacific Policing Initiative is not enough on its own and would need a targeted information campaign on social media to highlight the very real risks posed by China’s police presence. A combination of factors has led to Pacific Island Countries having some of the highest rates of citizens connected to the internet in the world, making a social media campaign likely to have high engagement.
There is already a recognition by Pacific Island Nations of the danger posed by China’s overseas policing apparatus. Fiji, which once signed a security agreement with China, has since decided that Chinese officers will not be deployed within its police force. Papua New Guinea has paused plans to pursue a policing deal with the PRC. In Papua New Guinea, the first PIC to sign onto China’s Belt and Road Initiative, there has been vocal pushback at the local level against China’s economic dominance, and the United States should tap into this related sentiment and help raise awareness of the danger posed by China’s police presence.
There are risks associated with this approach. Pacific Island States have agency; political elites and citizens in these countries are rightly concerned about the very real security challenges that they face. It is not enough for the United States to launch a messaging campaign to dislodge the PRC; Washington should work to provide tangible security assistance that can effectively blunt criminal groups. One way to do so would be by providing financial support and expertise to the Australian-led Pacific Policing Initiative, which includes a regional training facility in Brisbane and is valued at $271 million. In September, the US State Department announced that the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs plans to provide a resident advisor from the Department of Homeland Security Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers to support development and recruitment in Papua New Guinea. The State Department should look to replicate this partnership with other PICs, establishing an ‘on the ground’ presence across the region.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the contest for influence in the Pacific will not be won alone through military might but through trust, responsiveness, and respect for local priorities. China has recognized that in nations where police, not soldiers, are the face of security, offering policing assistance is a way in. For the United States, matching this approach means expanding military—military cooperation to build durable, values-based partnerships rooted in transparency and community safety. By investing in regional policing initiatives and supporting locally driven messaging campaigns, Washington can both counter Beijing’s reach and strengthen the sovereignty and resilience of Pacific Island nations.
Imran Bayoumi is an associate director with the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. From 2024 to 2025, he served as a policy advisor at the US Department of War.
Main Image: Samoan Police officers. Photo by Claire McGeechan, AusAID. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.
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