China and Pacific Security — Community-Level Impacts

Summary of the paper

When analysts discuss China's security agreements in the Pacific, the conversation is almost always framed at the strategic level: naval access, surveillance infrastructure, alliance disruption and the Indo-Pacific balance of power. This ISPI commentary, part of the Governance & Global Policy research pillar, looks at the dimension it says is consistently missing from that analysis: what China's expanding security presence means for the everyday public safety of the people who live in Pacific Island nations.

The commentary focuses on two channels through which that presence reaches communities directly: law enforcement assistance and disaster response. It treats both as delivering real value while raising questions that strategic analysis does not ask, and it closes with three recommendations for the United States and its allies.

What the paper finds

• Strategic framing dominates the debate. Most analysis of China's Pacific agreements centers on naval access, surveillance infrastructure, alliance disruption and the balance of power, which leaves the community-level public safety effects largely unexamined.
• Law enforcement assistance is part of the agreements. China's security agreements with Pacific Island nations include provisions for law enforcement training, equipment provision and technical assistance.
• The assistance has real operational value. For Pacific Island law enforcement agencies with chronic capacity constraints, the paper says Chinese assistance offers genuine operational benefit.
• The question is what comes with it. The policy issue is not whether the assistance helps, but what alignment obligations it creates, what intelligence access it enables, and what it means for policing in communities with significant diaspora connections to the United States and its allies.
• Disaster response is dual-use. Chinese disaster response capacity deployed after major emergencies provides genuine life-safety value while also establishing presence, intelligence access and operational familiarity with Pacific Island infrastructure that serves Chinese strategic interests.
• The community level needs ongoing independent analysis. The paper describes the community safety implications of this dual-use engagement as complex and under-analyzed, and argues that island law enforcement and emergency management leaders hold community-level knowledge that strategic analysts do not have.

What it recommends

• Develop U.S. and allied capacity-building programs for Pacific Island law enforcement that provide the operational value Chinese assistance offers, with governance structures and alliance relationships that do not create alignment obligations.
• Commission ISPI and similar institutions to monitor and analyze the community-level public safety implications of China's expanding Pacific security presence on an ongoing basis.
• Engage Pacific Island community safety practitioners directly in U.S. Pacific security policy development, creating policy input channels for island law enforcement and emergency management leaders.

Who it's for

U.S. and allied officials designing security assistance for the Pacific, Pacific Island police and emergency management leaders weighing outside offers of training, equipment and disaster support, and researchers, journalists and funders who want a community-level view of China–Pacific security rather than another strategic overview.

Cite as

Pulley, Warren (2026). What Beijing's Pacific Agreements Mean for Community Safety: The Community-Level Public Safety Implications of China's Expanding Security Presence in the Pacific (ISPI CM-14). Island Security Policy Institute, Honolulu. https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/cm14-china-pacific-security https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23449942

@techreport{ispicm142026,
  author      = {Pulley, Warren},
  title       = {What Beijing's Pacific Agreements Mean for Community Safety: The Community-Level Public Safety Implications of China's Expanding Security Presence in the Pacific},
  institution = {Island Security Policy Institute},
  address     = {Honolulu, HI},
  number      = {ISPI CM-14},
  year        = {2026},
  url         = {https://ispiglobal.com/papers-landing/cm14-china-pacific-security},
  doi         = {10.5281/zenodo.23449942}
}

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