Geopolitics looms large as Pacific Islands leaders prepare to gather in Tonga
From August 26 to 30, Pacific Islands leaders are gathering for the annual Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting, taking place in Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa. Several pressing issues will be up for discussion: climate change, debanking, and the New Caledonia crisis, among others. In keeping with the “Pacific Way,” member states are entering the summit with the intent of coming to a consensus on how to best tackle these challenges.
Multilateral fora such as PIF—and the high-level meetings that come along with them—are part and parcel of regional affairs, as they create mechanisms through which Pacific Islands countries band together to increase their influence in international politics. This is especially important when considering the small scale of many countries in the region, which limits their ability to gain traction individually. By coming together, they find strength in numbers.
Geopolitics is looming large as this year’s confab approaches. In recent years, outside powers’ interest in this vast maritime region has markedly increased, mainly due to its geographic relevance to the growing geopolitical rivalry in the Indo-Pacific between the United States and China. The interests of their respective allies and partners have grown, too. And while other issues may be no less important, geopolitics has garnered the headlines.
As US-China relations have become increasingly adversarial, concerns about the impact of competition between the two powers are on the rise in the Pacific Island countries. These nations tend to take a “friends to all” approach to foreign affairs, in which they are loath to pick sides between external powers lest they polarize their region into competing blocs. However, they have also sought to leverage this newfound interest to bargain for larger amounts of aid—a salient dynamic in the world’s most aid-dependent region.
China is adept at leveraging high-level visits and has hosted leaders from Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu over the past six weeks alone.
These anxieties emanating from the Pacific Island countries are completely understandable. No country wants to be a pawn on another’s chessboard, after all. However, the idea that they are immune to geopolitical machinations just doesn’t pass muster in practice. As a wise Indo-Pacific observer recently put it to me, cannily turning the phrase attributed to Leon Trotsky: “You may not be interested in geopolitics, but geopolitics is interested in you.” All signs point to this interest continuing, not abating.
Furthermore, many of the key issues facing the region carry undeniable geopolitical implications. Subsea cables are just one example. Increasing regional access to them does help address daunting connectivity challenges, but they are also a global geopolitical flashpoint. Donor-funded programs in this space are meeting local needs and demand, but they aren’t just driven by an altruistic desire to do good; they are also driven by geopolitical calculations.
As the Pacific Island countries prepare to take center stage next week, several countries are sending delegations consummate to the forum’s importance. Australia will have a seat at the head table as a PIF member, while the United States and China will be operating from the sidelines as PIF dialogue partners. Countries such as New Zealand, a PIF member, and Japan, a dialogue partner, are among the other notable attendees.
While the leaders’ meeting garners a lot of attention by virtue of its profile, it’s only one of many avenues through which external powers are engaging the Pacific Island countries. Australia, the United States, China, and others are employing a range of diplomatic approaches—high-level visits, in-country representation, and official development assistance, for example—as they jostle for influence, adjusting their approaches as Pacific states increasingly assert themselves on matters of foreign policy.
China is adept at leveraging high-level visits and has hosted leaders from Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu over the past six weeks alone. Australia has also been proficient at this, hosting leaders from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands this year, all while keeping up a rapid tempo of visits to the region from Australian senior officials. The United States performed relatively well on this count in 2023, but has fallen behind in 2024, partially due to demands posed by crises elsewhere and the upcoming US election.
Leader-level visits and multilateral confabs are important, but nothing beats a consistent on-the-ground presence. With diplomatic missions to all sixteen Pacific Island countries, Australia has long had deep roots across the region, but contends with perceptions of paternalism. China will soon have missions to ten, but it has struggled to adapt to local contexts. The United States opened its eighth mission in July and has another pending in Kiribati, but it has been slow off the mark in following on with the necessary personnel and resources to increase operational tempo.
According to the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Aid Map, total official development assistance to the region has steadily increased from the mid-2010s to 2021, the most recent year for which data is provided. Australia remains the largest provider of development aid to the region. Contrary to some perceptions, China has actually decreased its official development assistance in favor of a more targeted approach. The United States has shown up but has been slow-going on delivering promised aid, as evidenced by the delayed renewal of Compacts of Free Association with the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau due to hiccups in the domestic policymaking process.
What have these efforts resulted in so far, though? While China has certainly gained influence, especially on economic issues, it has not met many of its desired goals on security issues. Australia and the United States may have lost some ground to China. But influence isn’t a zero-sum game, and Washington and Canberra remain the partners of choice for most Pacific Island countries, especially on security issues. Notably, the United States continues to face stubborn questions about its reliability and staying power; continuing a steady drumbeat of diplomacy, including at next week’s leaders’ meeting, and working closely with allies and partners will steadily help alleviate these questions.
While the countries of the region have welcomed this renewed interest, they want external parties to pay more attention to their views instead of benevolently lecturing them on geopolitics. In doing so, countries such as Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu have written their first-ever foreign policy and national security white papers, respectively. Meanwhile, Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, one of the region’s elder statesmen, has advocated a “zone of peace” concept to guide regional foreign policymaking.
As officials from Australia, China, the United States, and elsewhere are welcomed to the region’s proverbial village, they should come prepared to listen and, as former US Secretary of State George Shultz put it, tend the garden. While multilateral gatherings inevitably have a talk shop element to them, the PIF leaders’ meeting is an important one that exemplifies the “Pacific Way” and presents an opportunity for nations to work together on addressing the region’s most pressing challenges.
Parker Novak is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and Indo-Pacific Security Initiative, where he specializes in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Indo-Pacific geopolitics, and US foreign policy. The opinions expressed here are his own.
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