Chinese expansion across Pacific faces key test in Kiribati election with island just 1,300m south of Hawaii

The eyes of the world’s major powers are resting on the remote Pacific atolls of Kiribati this week as its 110,000 inhabitants go to the polls in a bitterly contested presidential election that will define whether the nation aligns itself with China or the West. Polls opened on Monday across the 32 atolls that are dispersed across 1.3 million square miles in the central Pacific, but the results will not be released until Tuesday. A win for President Taneti Maamau, the pro-Beijing incumbent, would be a victory for China, helping it to consolidate its hold over the strategic country, whose Christmas atoll is just 1,300 miles south of Honolulu, home to the US Pacific Command, at a time when it seeks to expand its influence over the Indo-Pacific region. Electoral success for opposition candidate Banuera Berina, who broke away from the government over the president’s decision to switch diplomatic allegiance last year from Taiwan to China, could offer some relief to Washington and Canberra over their concerns about Beijing’s strategic, military and territorial ambitions.

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