Great power competition in the Pacific Islands:
Can the United States catch up with China?

China is on the move in the islands of the Pacific, posing a big geopolitical challenge for the incoming Trump administration.

These islands encompass one fifth of the world’s surface, and they aren’t big on landmass. But they are vast in terms of territorial waters and the fishing and mineral rights that go with them, and they sit astride the major sea lanes through which much of the world’s commerce flows. These specks on the map are also where the United States fought and won World War II in the Pacific.

One index of the Great Power Competition today is the race to open embassies on the Pacific islands. China not only leads the United States in diplomatic outposts, but also has vastly more personnel on the ground. It spends heavily and competes everywhere it can by whatever means it chooses. In the Solomon Islands, for example, China is currently building a deep-water port, having bought influence reportedly by bribing local lawmakers.

President-elect Trump faces a special challenge in the Pacific, for a great many of the islands are built on coral reefs, and rising ocean levels is their topmost concern. That doesn’t square with the President-elect’s dismissal of climate change as a “hoax.”

How to tackle the challenge? Our next distinguished speakers, Kathryn Paik and Danny Stoian, will lay out the possible courses of action on the islands and other areas of U.S.-China competition in a presentation on Thursday, Jan. 28. We’ll meet in person at the World Trade Center, but the program will also be available to members over Zoom. We’ll begin with a reception at 5:15 to meet our speaker.

About the Speakers

Kathryn Paik is a deputy director and senior fellow with the Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. She served more than 23 year in the U.S. Marine Corps, most recently as director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific on the White House National Security Council from 2021-2023. She has field experience, having served as the Marine Attaché to Indonesia for three years, and she speaks Mandarin and Indonesian. A CH46E combat helicopter pilot, she was deployed in Iraq and throughout the Indo Pacific. She has degrees from the U.S. Naval Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School.

Daniel (Danny) Stoian is a member of Senior Foreign Service currently serving as the Director of the Office of Management Strategy and Solutions (M/SS), the strategic arm for the Department of State’s Under Secretary for Management, which develops and enhances management policies, improves governance processes, and embeds data and analytics into decision-making to advance foreign policy.

Director Stoian previously served as the Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary for Management from 2022-2023. He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Regional, Global, and Functional Affairs in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs from 2019-2022. He also served as the Deputy Executive Director for the Bureaus of Near Eastern Affairs and South and Central Asian Affairs from 2017-2019, overseeing 27 missions and 17 domestic offices.

From 2015-2017, he was the Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, where he established the Office of Data Analytics and launched the Knowledge Management Portal. In addition to his work in Washington, D.C., he has served in Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Tunisia, and Bahrain.

Contact programs@bcfausa.org for more information on how to register.

Date: January 28, 2025
Time: Members Reception 5:15pm, Presentation: 6:00pm
Location: World Trade Center, 401 E. Pratt Street, Baltimore, MD 21202