Former Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has announced he will enter the election race next year for the Pacific nation in a pledge to counteract Beijing influence. The 73-year-old politician, best known as the instigator of two military coups in 1987, told The Australian newspaper on Dec. 27 that Fiji needed to determine its own future and decide how to manage its natural and national assets, rather than “allowing people to come in and buy them.” Rabuka warned that current Fijian PM Frank Bainimarama could sell out Fiji’s ports and airports due to accumulating debt, saying the country could one day find itself “enslaved” by the “friendly” Chinese aid it was now receiving. “The spread, although not aggressive in the sense of military thinking, is aggressive in the sense of economic exertion of power,” he said. “China is the only one that is really doing that emphatically.” Rabuka’s decision is …