The United States' foreign aid agency has flagged that it will pump more resources into civil society and free media throughout Asia and the Pacific as it intensifies efforts to push back against China's influence across the globe.
USAID senior adviser on China Anka Lee is in Canberra for talks with Australian officials as the agency develops a new strategy to compete with Beijing.
The Chinese government has ploughed enormous resources into infrastructure and major commercial projects in several parts of the world, including South-East and South Asia.
While the Biden administration has vowed to meet that challenge and reassert American influence, it has also opted out of several key trade agreements in the region, which could see its economic influence in Asia rapidly erode.
But Mr Lee said aid and development was another crucial arena for strategic competition, and the decisions made by donors like the US and Australia could still shape the region in significant ways.
He said the US and Australia needed to "step up" their development efforts in Asia and the Pacific, which he labelled "ground zero" in the contest with China.
"The United States needs to be more present in the region, and we want to work with our Australian allies and friends here to make sure that we are really offering what is beneficial to our partners here," he said at an event organised by think tank Development Intelligence Lab.
Mr Lee said a key focus would be making sure that societies in the region were "resilient" and "able to protect and rebuff any kind of influence or any efforts by the PRC (People's Republic of China) that might be detrimental to their interests."
While Australia remains by far the largest aid donor in the Pacific — and Chinese development assistance has actually fallen away in recent years — Beijing has still won credit from several Pacific Island governments for its investments in key infrastructure projects.
The security pact recently struck by Solomon Islands and China has also exacerbated anxieties in Canberra about Beijing's capacity to successfully woo political leaders across the region.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has ratcheted up his attacks on internal critics and civil society groups in his country since news of the security agreement broke, labelling them anti-China "bigots" who were being manipulated by "foreign masters".
Mr Lee said "elite capture" by China presented a sharp challenge to the United States and its allies in several regions.
He also said the US had to think "a little bit more carefully and clearly" about where it enjoyed a "comparative advantage" against China, and suggested Washington could benefit more from Australia's "convening power" in the Pacific.
The new policy being developed by USAID identifies five categories of activities by China which Mr Lee said were "potentially very detrimental" to the region and to the US development agenda.
They included China "enabling illiberal practices" in other countries through the export of telecoms and surveillance technology, corrupting elites in order to achieve strategic gains, and using its economic heft to silence its critics in other countries.
But Mr Lee also said that while the China strategy was vital, it could not be the agency's single organising principle.
He also acknowledged that the United States could not "force countries to choose sides" between Washington and Beijing, and suggested that presenting developing countries with a stark binary choice would only stir resentment.
"[Saying] it's either between us or China is not productive. We need to focus more on our relationship, what we bring to our partner countries than their relationship with China," he said.
"It is, in the end, about them."
