Pacific Cocaine Flood Gives China an In

More than 17 tonnes of cocaine seized in the Pacific this year has triggered alarm among security experts that Beijing will exploit the crisis to expand its regional policing footprint across island nations Australia considers its backyard. It's the kind of "humanitarian opening" China has used before — only this time, the vulnerability is Australia's own insatiable demand for narcotics that's fuelling it.

Australian Federal Police Sound the...