Fiji, Oct. 26 -- Surrounded by hundreds of maritime assets, Micronesia is "on the front line" of China's activity and growth in the Pacific, according to Benjamin Blandin, research fellow with the Institute for National Defence and Security Research.

Blandin was a presenter at Friday's Developments in Micronesian Security webinar, hosted by the Pacific Centre for Island Sustainability, explaining the rapid growth of China's activities in regions including French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Guam.

He is a French scholar specializing in geopolitics with a focus on China's asymmetric warfare along the first island chain. According to PCIS, Blandin's research examines the integration and deployment of unmanned and unconventional maritime sy...