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The Biden administration last month recognized the Cook Islands and Niue as "sovereign and independent states" and promised to open diplomatic relations. The United States opened a new embassy in the Solomon Islands in January and another in Tonga in May. A U.S. Embassy is promised for Vanuatu next year.
On top of all that, the administration is seeking some $40 million from Congress for infrastructure development in the South Pacific.
That's an awful lot of sudden diplomatic attention to a remote grouping of 14 sparsely populated island nations whose combined economies are about that of Vermont.
What's behind this sudden flurry of activity in a faraway, largely forgotten expanse of the Pacific Ocean?
The obvious answer is China, which has been making its own recent moves to step up its diplomatic engagement with the Pacific islands. China's efforts appeared successful last year, when Beijing signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands. The announcement of that accord blindsided the United States, as well as its two key allies in the region, Australia and New Zealand, who feared China might be about to establish a military base in the area.
Biden had hoped to be the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Pacific islands last May, but he was forced to cancel his planned trip to deal with an unnecessary debt ceiling standoff in Washington. Chinese President Xi Jinping, facing no such domestic constraints, has made two extended trips to the region, in 2014 and again in 2018.
China can boast of more than $2.7 billion of investment in Pacific island nations, including projects from its Belt and Road Initiative. The country also assisted the region with vaccines and medical supplies during the coronavirus pandemic. But aside from the Solomon Islands, Beijing's efforts appear to have stalled. The Pacific islands declined to sign a regional security pact with China. They actually prefer Washington's embrace -- if the United States would only pay them some attention.
The island nations could provide a potentially reliable bloc of votes in China's favor in the U.N. General Assembly. Also, China is constantly on the lookout for new diplomatic allies in its ongoing competition with the self-ruled island of Taiwan.
But the Pacific island nations don't want to be seen as anyone's pawns on a strategic chessboard, including Washington's. Their top concern is dealing with the impacts of global climate change, because they are quite literally on the front lines. The low-lying islands are already experiencing rising sea levels, coastal erosion and storm surges. Some are in danger of disappearing.
So the Biden administration is correct in devoting a large portion of its promised assistance to technology, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to build more rapid communications and early warning systems, and to improve disaster preparedness for typhoons, tsunamis and other severe weather events.
Predictably, China, through its state-controlled media outlets, has criticized the latest U.S. initiatives in the Pacific.
But the administration's efforts in the Pacific are better late than not at all. The priorities seem right -- infrastructure and combating the effects of climate change.
The broader lesson should be that in the global competition with a more assertive China, neglect of any country or region is not an option. It's a lesson that should be carried to Africa, South America and other too-often-ignored corners of the world.
* Guest editorial excerpt by The Washington Post.