Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper -- recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands.

Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese ambassador Zhou Limin after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Company fell through.

"The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati," the government said Monday evening in a statement.

Pacific nations Kiribati, Cook Islands and Nauru sit at the forefront of a highly contentious push to mine the depths of the ocean.

Kiribati holds rights for deep-sea mining exploration across a 75,000-square-kilometre swathe of the Pacific Ocean.

Through state-backed subsidiary Marawa Research, Kiribati had been working with Canada-based The Metals Company to develop the area's mineral deposits.

That agreement was terminated "mutually" at the end of 2024, The Metals Company told AFP.

The Metals Company said Kiribati's mining rights were "less commercially favourable than our other projects".

The firm is racing to win regulatory approval that would make it one of the first companies to mine international waters on an industrial scale.

It has partnerships with Kiribati's Pacific neighbours Nauru and Tonga.

Members of the International Seabed Authority are currently meeting in Jamaica to thrash out the rules for deep-sea extraction.

- 'Bending over backwards' -

Kiribati, a climate-threatened archipelago home to some 130,000 people, has been drifting closer to China since it severed links with Taiwan in 2019.

Chinese companies have in recent years been granted access to Kiribati's profitable fisheries -- one of the nation's few natural resources besides minerals.

A visiting cadre of Beijing police have also visited capital Tarawa to help train local Kiribati forces.

Tessie Lambourne, a leading member of Kiribati's political opposition, said China seemed to be seeking access to "our maritime space for its own interest".

"I always say that our government is bending over backwards to please China," she told AFP.

China and Cook Islands struck a five-year agreement in February to cooperate in exploring the Pacific nation's seabed mineral riches.

The deal did not include any exploration or mining licence.

Companies hope to earn billions by scraping the ocean floor for polymetallic rocks, or nodules, that are loaded with manganese, cobalt, copper and nickel -- metals used to build batteries for electric vehicles.

Nauru, Tonga and the Cook Islands believe the industry holds the key to economic prosperity in a region where scarce land is already under threat from rising seas.

But Pacific neighbours Palau, Fiji and Samoa are staunchly opposed -- pushing for lingering environmental questions to be cleared up before anyone takes the plunge.