Source: Global Times
The volcanic eruption in Tonga has aroused international public concern. After the disaster, the Chinese Embassy in Tonga visited and congratulated my aid and construction personnel in Tonga for the first time. For the first time, people around the world have also learned from the media that there are so many Chinese aid and construction personnel building and serving Tonga. The "accident" of the eruption revealed China's deep and solid foundations of people-to-people diplomacy with Tonga and other Pacific island nations.
Satellite image of an undersea volcanic eruption in Tonga. Image source Visual China
Tonga is an underdeveloped country and a key recipient of assistance from the Pacific Island region of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Poverty Reduction Plan. At the request of Tonga, China began to send medical teams to Tonga in 2017. Due to their long semi-colonial history and influenced by Western public opinion, Chinese medical aid workers did not initially gain the trust of their Tongan counterparts and patients, and they always had to ask "Where did you graduate?" But Chinese medical personnel quickly filled in many gaps in Tonga's medical technology, puncturing the untruths imposed by some countries with superb medical skills and service attitudes. During my fieldwork in Tonga, I visited Viola Hospital, and both the medical staff and patients interviewed expressed their appreciation for Chinese doctors.
Education assistance is also a beautiful business card of people-to-people diplomacy between the two countries. The tonga people have a single recipe, mainly high-calorie foods such as starch and meat, and rare vegetables rich in vitamins and high fiber. As a result, Tonga has become a world-famous area with a high incidence of coronary heart disease, diabetes and other diseases. In 2018, the Tonga government requested China to provide educational and agricultural technical assistance, hoping to improve the health of its people by introducing vegetable cultivation techniques. Therefore, Liaocheng University sent an education assistance team to Tonga to carry out assistance activities such as Chinese language teaching, agricultural theory and agricultural technology practice teaching. Chinese agricultural experts not only brought rich vegetable varieties that the Tongan people had never seen before, but also advanced agricultural planting and irrigation techniques, which not only enriched the recipes of the Tongan people, but also increased employment opportunities and farmers' incomes.
One point of hard work, one point of harvest. With the joint efforts of Chinese aid and construction personnel, as well as the vast number of Chinese-funded institutions and overseas Chinese, the friendship between China and the people of Tonga has become increasingly deep. The author has visited Tonga twice for fieldwork and deeply felt the deepening and strengthening of the foundation of people-to-people diplomacy between the two countries. In the capital Nuku'alofa, a local policeman thought we were parking illegally, and I immediately talked to him, euphemistically pointing out that the traffic signs were not clear. When the police learned that the driver was a Chinese agricultural expert who had come to Tonga to aid, they immediately smiled and praised the contribution of Chinese agricultural experts to the people of Tonga and immediately withdrew the ticket.
When the duty officer of the Prime Minister's Office Building of Tonga learned that the author was a scholar from China, he immediately and warmly invited the author to visit. Officials from Tonga's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Transport, who are also working in the same building, also met with the author to give a warm and friendly briefing on Tonga's economy, diplomacy and port construction. On several field visits to Tonga and other Pacific island countries, the author has more and more profoundly and intuitively felt the friendship of the people of the island countries, including Tonga, to China and the deep roots and flourishing of people-to-people diplomacy between the two countries. (The writer is the principal investigator of the Pacific Island Countries Research Center of Liaocheng University)