{"id":76317,"date":"2026-02-10T12:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T03:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/10\/car-diplomacy-turbo-charges-politics-pacific"},"modified":"2026-02-10T12:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T03:17:18","slug":"a-free-limo-is-hard-to-turn-away-how-car-diplomacy-turbo-charges-politics-in-the-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76317","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A free limo is hard to turn away\u2019: how car diplomacy turbo charges politics in the Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A luxury Chinese sedan gifted to Fiji is the latest in a string of vehicles donated by foreign countries to deepen partnerships and seek influence in the region<\/p>\n<p>At a ceremony in January, a shiny black luxury sedan rolled into the leafy, rain-soaked ground of Fiji\u2019s state house. It was a gift from China to the Pacific nation\u2019s president, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu, who thanked Beijing for the \u201cbeautiful limousine\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The vehicle given was a Hongqi or \u201cRed Flag\u201d car, the same brand used by China\u2019s leader, Xi Jinping, during military parades.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/10\/car-diplomacy-turbo-charges-politics-pacific\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A luxury Chinese sedan gifted to Fiji is the latest in a string of vehicles donated by foreign countries to deepen partnerships and seek influence in the regionAt a ceremony in January, a shiny black luxury sedan rolled into the leafy, rain-soaked grou&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4040,"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":[41,50,436,874,63,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-fiji","category-pacific-islands","category-solomon-islands","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76317","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\/4040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76318,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76317\/revisions\/76318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}