Washington: The United States has cautioned Pacific Island nations against assistance from Chinese security forces after it was revealed that Chinese police were working in the remote atoll nation of Kiribati, a neighbour of Hawaii.

Reuters reported on Friday that Kiribati’s acting police commissioner, Eeri Aritiera, said uniformed Chinese officers were working with Kiribati police in community policing and a crime database program.

The US is seeking a bigger role for its coast guard in helping remote Pacific Islands nations monitor millions of kilometres of ocean rich tuna – a move that also boosts surveillance as a rivalry with China over security ties in the region intensifies.

Earlier this month, the US Coast Guard and Kiribati police boarded two Chinese fishing boats during a patrol against illegal fishing in the nation’s vast exclusive economic zone but found no issues aboard, a coast guard official said.

Asked to comment on the Reuters police report, a spokesperson for the US State Department said: “We do not believe importing security forces from the PRC will help any Pacific Island country.  Instead, doing so risks fuelling regional and international tensions,” using the abbreviation of the People’s Republic of China.

The official added that Washington did not tolerate China’s “transnational repression efforts”, including its attempts to establish police stations around the world.

“We are concerned about the potential implications security agreements and security-related cyber cooperation with the PRC may have for any Pacific Island nation’s autonomy,” the spokesperson said.

Kiribati, a nation of 115,000 residents, is considered strategic despite being small, as it is relatively close to Hawaii and controls a 3.5-million-square-kilometre exclusive economic zone. It is also host to a Japanese satellite tracking station.

China has announced plans to rebuild a World War II US military airstrip on Kiribati’s Kanton Island, prompting US concern.