2023: The prospect of Pacific Island agency
2023: The prospect of Pacific Island agency
25 January 2023
The many large oceanic states in the Pacific Islands have come into the international spotlight in 2022. This is in some part due to their continued struggle for more serious global climate action, and because increasingly these island states find themselves in the midst of a US-China competition for hegemony in the region. Obviously, however, these islands have for the most part navigated Indo-Pacific security dynamics themselves, independently from US or Chinese pressures.
Here, 9DASHLINE asks several experts for their assessment of the prospect for Pacific Island agency in 2023 international politics, especially beyond the 'big power influence' by the US and China that has so often been written about in 2022.
SEASONED POLITICIANS
PRIESTLEY HABRU — PHD SCHOLAR, UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
The Pacific Islands region is deeply heterogeneous and we cannot assume all countries are the same. There are huge differences in terms of population, geography, languages, colonial and political experiences, ethnicity, and so forth.
The Solomon Islands, under Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, was perhaps the most “vilified” (to use his own word) leader in the Pacific in 2022. In his September 2022 address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he said that the Solomons had been “unfairly targeted” in the media. He said such treatment “threatens our democracy and sovereignty”.
According to Sogavare, since switching allegiance from Taipei to Beijing in 2019, the Solomon Islands government’s intention has been all along “to develop our country”. Its volatile political nature, economically-strapped and diverse population, and growing concern for improved livelihoods remain huge challenges for its government. This challenging circumstance is the same everywhere in the small and developing island states of the Pacific.
Therefore, it is envisaged that Sogavare will continue to use the geopolitical situation between China, the US, and its allies to his advantage. I do not think that Sogavare will be swayed too much by the big powers, as was demonstrated by him and former Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama during a dinner hosted by President Biden at the White House in September 2022, as part of the US-Pacific Partnership Summit in Washington DC.
Before he became the Fiji Prime Minister in December 2022, Sitiveni Rabuka said he did not believe Beijing would have “too much influence” in the Pacific region, citing the new Australian Labor government’s shift in focus towards the region since coming to power. Rabuka stated that he would not be seeking a security pact with China if he would win the election, and we can only hope that this position will remain under his coalition government. Fiji is an important member of the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) and hosts most of the regional organisations and institutions, including the PIF headquarters in the capital Suva.
As seasoned politicians, Sogavare in the Solomon Islands and his Fijian counterpart Rabuka are powerful leaders of their respective countries. I think that they will not be coerced or easily influenced by the current geopolitical wrangling between US and China. Going forward, they will be using geopolitics to their advantage in 2023.
SYMBOLIC INCLUSION OF PACIFIC AGENCY
DR JOANNE WALLIS — PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
In 2023, Australia, the US, the UK, and other regional partners will continue to realise that Pacific Island countries can exercise their agency in clever, capable, and creative ways to pursue their interests. Those partners have come to this realisation as they are increasingly focused on the region with the perception of growing strategic competition with China. However, Pacific Island agency should not come as a surprise. Pacific Island countries have exercised their agency to shape international politics for decades — for instance, with their advocacy during the negotiations on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the establishment of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, and more recently, efforts to respond to climate change.
The realisation of Pacific Island agency means that we are likely to see regional partners show greater interest in prioritising Pacific Island countries’ interests and platforming Pacific perspectives. The adoption of the Pacific Islands Forum’s ‘Blue Pacific’ narrative in the nomenclature of the ‘Partners in the Blue Pacific’ (PBP) initiative between Australia, the US, the UK, New Zealand, and Japan, suggests that Pacific ideas about improved donor coordination are influencing regional partners’ policies.
However, the PBP also risks the possibility that regional partners make symbolic or performative references to Pacific priorities while instrumentalising them in their own interests. In this case, regional partners have arguably appropriated the Blue Pacific terminology to attempt to make the PBP initiative appealing to the region, when in fact they have potentially undermined the intent of the Blue Pacific narrative by side-lining regional mechanisms such as the Pacific Islands Forum.
BALANCING INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DYNAMICS
MAIMA KORO — PACIFIC RESEARCH FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
For Pacific countries, 2022 was an ongoing process of balancing internal dynamics with international geopolitics. Also, some have noted smaller-scale local realities that need to be balanced with national priorities as well as regional and global obligations.
Pacific perspectives have been relatively silent in the international geopolitical discourse about major powers like the US and China, with the agency of Pacific states and people often being overlooked. The geopolitical debate highlights the differences in values, beliefs, and perspectives of the Pacific states from those of the hegemonic powers.
In 2022, Pacific leaders exercised their agency in multiple forms. Samoa cancelled a wharf project that was to be funded by China. Some Pacific leaders paused a regional trade and security deal proposed by China. The Solomon Islands signed the inaugural US-Pacific Partnership Declaration on their own terms.
The Pacific Leaders are aware of external powers seeking to assert their own interests in the region. For 2023, the process of internally balancing national priorities with multiple external interests will continue.
STRUCTURING ENGAGEMENT
HENRIETTA MCNEILL — PHD CANDIDATE, DEPARTMENT OF PACIFIC AFFAIRS, AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
In 2022, an increasing number of external actors in the Pacific Island region have tried to become more involved with and shape the regional architecture. This involvement included not only China and the US with their respective proposed or successful regional agreements, but actors like South Korea or the European Union — and the Australian-led regional institutions have also been angling for their slice of the Indo-Pacific pie.
2022 demonstrated that it matters whom these external partners engage with and how. Pacific leaders are using the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) — the region’s premier political body — to centre external party engagement. The PIF leaders, for instance, highlighted an initial oversight by the US not to include Cook Islands, Niue, or the French territories in its US-Pacific meeting — this oversight was subsequently addressed. This was a successful exertion of agency by Pacific leaders, centring the Pacific Islands Forum as the dialogue mechanism.
At the request of Pacific leaders, 2022 also saw an online-only Dialogue Partners meeting to avoid complicating already tense negotiations to bring the Micronesian states back to the Forum. In 2023, we will see the results of the PIF’s review of regional architecture, and this will likely result in some structure around how external partners engage and can be engaged with. The review and all regional conversations with partners will be tied to the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, centring Pacific priorities and avoiding the domination of ideas by external partners.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform. Image credit: Flickr/The White House.