China, a country that has its own issues with press freedom, has shown remarkable warmth towards the latest unelected Fijian government.

Research on China’s aid in the Pacific that will be launched at the Lowy Institute this month suggests China’s aid to Fiji has skyrocketed since the coup in December 2006. In 2005 China pledged $1 million in aid to Fiji. In 2007 grant and loan pledges totalled $167 million, which is more than half of China’s annual aid to the entire Pacific. That compares to the $21 million that Australia, a major player in the South Pacific, has earmarked for Fiji in 2007-08.

Just as Australia and other Western donors are trying to squeeze the rebel Fiji government, China has dramatically stepped up its aid, effectively dissipating any pressure Western donors might have been generating, says Fergus Hanson, a research associate at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, and deputy editor of its blog, The Interpreter.

China’s aid package includes $150 million in a low-interest loan for infrastructure and resettlement programs that will no doubt be a welcome boost for a cash-starved government trying to keep the country afloat. And this is not the first regime for which China has come to the rescue: Sudan, Zimbabwe and Myanmar are all recipients of Chinese largesse.

So what is China playing at? China says its aid is given without any strings attached and without regard to internal circumstances.

Coup or no coup, China will continue to give aid to Fiji, the argument goes. But this claim fails to stand up to scrutiny.

In the case of Fiji, in response to a major negative internal development, China dramatically increased its aid. It’s also tied to the political string China attaches to all its aid: adherence to the One China policy, which sees Taiwan as an inviolable part of China.

China’s huge increase in aid represents a successful attempt by Fiji to circumvent Western pressure. Some will also see it as an attempt by China to take advantage of a Western withdrawal to enhance its standing.

Good, old-fashioned competition with Taiwan is probably a key motivating factor, too.

Fiji is one of the few Pacific island countries that gets away with housing a Taiwanese trade office at the same time as it professes adherence to the One China policy. Taiwan has also maintained links with Fiji’s elites. While the coup leader, Commodore Voreqe "Frank" Bainimarama, has made overtures to China in the face of Western snubs, it must have been foremost in China’s mind that Taiwan would be his next port of call.