NZ PM Ardern To Meet Biden Today Amid Pacific Tensions

11:00 ET 16:00 BST: New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will meet US President Joe Biden at the White House today as the struggle with China intensifies over influence in the Pacific.

• Last week, the Biden administration identified China as the major 'long-term threat to the rules based international order.' To counter China, Biden plans to develop deeper relationship with allies in the region.
• This includes last month's ASEAN summit in Washington and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework unveiled by Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tokyo.
• New Zealand is one of the nine signatories to the IPEF and the meeting today represent an upgrade of the bilateral relationship. (Ardern's predecessor Bill English wasn't offered a White House visit.)
• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is currently on a junket around the Pacific trying to sign Island nations up to a security pact which has been critised in the West for foreshadowing greater Chinese military presence in the region.
• Wang criticised the IPEF in Fiji today: 'The so-called Indo-Pacific Economic Framework recently rolled out by the US claims to build a free, open, and inclusive new order, but how can any economic frame call itself free if it doesn’t lower tariffs?'
• Wang continued: 'How can it be called inclusive if it purposefully excludes China, the largest market in the region and in the world?'
• So far the reaction to both proposals has been lukewarm. Pacific nations have been hesitant to jump into an opaque security arrangement with China and likewise countries in the region, outside of reliable US allies, have seen few benefits from a US trade agreement which doesn't provide access to the US market.