{"id":69620,"date":"2025-02-22T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T00:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/feb\/22\/cook-islands-china-partnership-response"},"modified":"2025-02-22T09:00:52","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T00:00:52","slug":"on-the-ground-in-the-cook-islands-controversial-deal-with-china-stirs-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=69620","title":{"rendered":"On the ground in the Cook Islands, controversial deal with China stirs debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some residents say the agreement has harmed relations with New Zealand while others welcome the economic benefits it may bring<\/p>\n<p>Standing under the shade of trees outside the Cook Islands parliament this week, Fe\u2019ena Syme-Buchanan questioned a controversial deal signed with China that has sparked concern across the Pacific country.<\/p>\n<p>The photographer from Rarotonga feels mixed emotions about the agreement <a href=\"https:\/\/viewer.gutools.co.uk\/world\/2025\/feb\/17\/cook-islands-signs-china-deal-agreement\">prime minister Mark Brown struck with Beijing last week<\/a>, describing it as a \u201cdouble-edged sword\u201d.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/feb\/22\/cook-islands-china-partnership-response\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some residents say the agreement has harmed relations with New Zealand while others welcome the economic benefits it may bringStanding under the shade of trees outside the Cook Islands parliament this week, Fe\u2019ena Syme-Buchanan questioned a controversi&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4619,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,855,56,874],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-cook-islands","category-new-zealand","category-pacific-islands"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4619"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69621,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69620\/revisions\/69621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}