This is CBS I On The World with John Bacheler. Here's John Bacheler.

The Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, in Wellington, New Zealand, making remarks about

a small island that suffered the catastrophe of a volcano in these last months.

U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken warned of China's quote, problematic behavior,

end quote, during a visit to the Pacific island nation of Tonga, citing Beijing's militarization

of the South China Sea and what he called economic coercion. I go immediately to Cleopascal,

Senior Fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who travels the vast canvas

of Oceania. And we're heading to the Marshall Islands and then eventually to Papua New

Guinea. But we start now with the breaking news of Mr. Blinken condemning China's conduct,

political warfare. Cleop, you have educated me and my audience about this for some time.

It is good to see the State Department showing up. It's a big part of this contest. Tonga,

it's the volcano. That's the rescue ship from Australia that didn't, that needed rescue

itself. That is efforts by China. Why is this important to China? What does it do for China

in the Pacific? Good evening to you. Good evening. This is part of the expanding

sphere of influence of China in the Pacific Islands, which is particularly important for them

for power projection, for being able to block off Australia, for being able to leapfrog

over to its increasing possessions in Latin America, for being able to block off access from the

Indian Ocean for resupply if India gets involved. It's that same old World War II map, which is why

the Americans were in Tonga. There was no battle, but the Americans weren't Tonga during World War

II for exactly the same reason. Tonga suffered gravely as my memory of that volcano. Is it

recovering? Does it need things? Is Australia back in the game having fixed the ship?

It is recovering. It was biblical. They had a volcano and earthquake in a tsunami.

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