If you were ever fortunate enough to venture to the palm-fringed islands of the South Pacific, you would probably look forward to tucking into some tropical fruit and freshly caught fish.
These days, though, you might be disappointed.
While mangoes and marlin are certainly available in the tourist resorts, in towns and villages it is more likely to be fried rice and springs rolls you would be dining on.
Chinese restaurants have sprung up all over the region, some of them big and grand, most little more than shacks with corrugated-iron roofs.
Often they are next door to Chinese-run trade stores, where shopkeepers hunker down behind iron-bar grilles and sell everything from candles to corned beef.
The shops and restaurants are the most visible sign of a growing Chinese presence in the South Pacific.
China's new South Pacific influence
As China extends its economic and political potential in the world, nowhere is too remote or too small to merit Beijing's interest, not even the tiny nations which slumber in the South Pacific.
If you were ever fortunate enough to venture to the palm-fringed islands of the South Pacific, you would probably look forward to tucking into some tropical fruit and freshly caught fish.
These days, though, you might be disappointed.
While mangoes and marlin are certainly available in the tourist resorts, in towns and villages it is more likely to be fried rice and springs rolls you would be dining on.
Chinese restaurants have sprung up all over the region, some of them big and grand, most little more than shacks with corrugated-iron roofs.
Often they are next door to Chinese-run trade stores, where shopkeepers hunker down behind iron-bar grilles and sell everything from candles to corned beef.
The shops and restaurants are the most visible sign of a growing Chinese presence in the South Pacific.
If you were ever fortunate enough to venture to the palm-fringed islands of the South Pacific, you would probably look forward to tucking into some tropical fruit and freshly caught fish.
These days, though, you might be disappointed.
While mangoes and marlin are certainly available in the tourist resorts, in towns and villages it is more likely to be fried rice and springs rolls you would be dining on.
Chinese restaurants have sprung up all over the region, some of them big and grand, most little more than shacks with corrugated-iron roofs.
Often they are next door to Chinese-run trade stores, where shopkeepers hunker down behind iron-bar grilles and sell everything from candles to corned beef.
The shops and restaurants are the most visible sign of a growing Chinese presence in the South Pacific.
