Pacific islands emerging as a strategically vital region

The fourteen Pacific Island countries - Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Palau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa, Vanuatu, Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, Cook Islands and Niue - have traditionally been close partners of the US and its allies, in particular Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. There are also French overseas territories--New Caledonia and French Polynesia--which are members of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), a grouping formed in 1971 to advocate for the shared interests of the region globally. However, this strategic paradigm is slowly evolving into a larger paradigm. Analyst Mulyanto has now pointed out that China. India, Indonesia and South Korea are now also scrambling for influence in the tactically vital region.

In this context Papua New Guinea's (PNG) Prime Minister James Marape appears to have become a busy host of many VIPs arriving in Port Moresby, the country's capital. The visitors have included China's recently reappointed Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the United States Secretary of State Blinken and US Defence Secretary Austin. One may also see Marape showing special respect to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In July, the PNG prime minister also shook hands with visiting Indonesian President Joko Widodo.

In late July, French President Emmanuel Macron also travelled to PNG after visiting New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific, as well as Vanuatu. In May, South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol hosted in Seoul the first-ever Summit meeting featuring Korea-Pacific dimensions. Twelve leaders from the region were invited to discuss maritime cooperation, climate change and energy security, among other issues. Representatives from Arab League countries as well as Pacific Island nations also met and agreed in June to strengthen cooperation in environmental protection, investment and other sectors as part of the Riyadh Declaration issued in Saudi Arabia.

Countries like India, Indonesia and South Korea are seeking their own influence in a region critical to global shipping channels and the ocean economy - keen not to be left behind in the scramble for friends in the Pacific. However, their outreach apparently appears to be principally about defending their national interests, rather than about siding with either of the global superpowers. Strategic analysts have observed that such an approach is being welcomed by Pacific Island nations as, according to them, it is giving them more partners to choose from and the chance to avoid getting trapped in a China-US tussle.

Nevertheless, in recent years, geopolitical tensions have joined the waves on the pristine beaches of the region. Four Pacific Island states - Palau, Tuvalu, Nauru and the Marshall Islands - currently recognise Taiwan over China.

That number was once larger but Beijing has used the promise of investments and trade to wean away Taipei's partners in the region. In this context in 2019, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati severed relations with Taiwan and decided to recognise China instead. In July the Solomon Islands also engaged in a policing agreement with China as a consequence of the security pact the two countries had signed in April, 2022. It needs to be added here that since 2009 China has been attracting the Pacific Island nations with the Asian Development Bank. In addition, China has also emerged as the top trading partner with regard to the Pacific Island nations.

In response, the US has also started to increase both its diplomatic and security presence in the region. It opened an embassy in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara in February and entered into a new security pact with Papua New Guinea during Blinken's visit in May.

Other countries have also been hustling to deepen their relations with Pacific nations. Their reasons vary but the geography of the Pacific Island nations makes them valuable partners, in particular, for nations looking to emerge as regional powers. They sit astride vital maritime shipping routes. Any future military conflict in the Indo-Pacific could make them key outposts where nations would want to dock and fuel ships. In addition, their vast exclusive economic zones - swathes of sea around a nation that only it can exploit economically - span large parts of the Pacific Ocean, making them potentially critical partners as countries look to the oceans for deep-sea minerals, food and more.

It needs to be noted that Modi's May visit last year to Papua New Guinea was not his first to the region. In November 2014, Modi flew to Fiji for India's first summit with the 14 Pacific Island nations. This was an innovative strategy as the last Indian prime minister to visit Fiji was Indira Gandhi 33 years earlier. Modi promised that New Delhi would be a "close partner of the Pacific Islands". A second summit followed in 2015, in the Indian city of Jaipur, before the recent third summit in Port Moresby. Such measures by New Delhi confirm the aspiration of that country to become a major global power and a regional leader. Sana Hashmi, a Taipei-based fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation has noted in this context that India is "seeking to expand its diplomatic footprint and strengthen ties with countries that have traditionally been outside its purview." Hashmi has also underlined that India's moves in the Pacific should not be viewed internationally only as "solely aimed at countering China or matching up with its activities". That, according to her, would not be fully correct.

There are multiple areas whereby India is trying to enhance its importance within the Pacific region. Climate change is a key area of focus for India in its relations within that matrix. It may be recalled that in 2014, Modi announced a US Dollar 1billion climate adaptation fund for the region and India has continued to give since then US Dollar 200,000 in aid annually to each Pacific nation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, India also supplied more than 100,000 vaccines to the Pacific and was a major contributor to the United Nations COVEXIN facility to provide subsidised shots to poorer nations. This was in contrast with the slowness with which the US responded to requests for shots from the Pacific Islands in 2021.  Through a line of credit, India has also helped Fiji modernise its sugar industry.

In addition, India as the world's largest importer of palm oil, imports large volumes of the kitchen staple from Papua New Guinea along with the Netherlands. Indian gas companies, meanwhile, have also shown an interest in PNG's offshore gas projects. Such measures tend to connote that India's actions in the region are mostly driven by its own national interests and every Indian measure do not revolve only around China."

It is clear that India currently has been busy trying to engage its newfound Pacific partners and has highlighted that during the summit in Port Moresby. It appears that within the current situation countering China in the region is probably not India's priority but New Delhi is trying to position itself as being different from Washington and Beijing. In this regard it would be worthwhile to refer to India's Foreign Secretary who has observed that New Delhi's policy towards the Pacific Islands was fundamentally different from any other country which is trying to trap smaller nations in debt.

It would be worthwhile at this point to refer to the recent strides that are being taken within the Korean calculus pertaining to the Pacific region.

Just as New Delhi is pushing for a multipolar approach in the Pacific, Seoul, too is now looking to carve out its own space in the region, keen to avoid getting left out in the superpower scramble for influence. Professor Joanne Wallis and Assistant Professor Jiye Kim, have described South Korea's policy as "looking for new neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region". In different meetings and discussions, it is being underlined that South Korea can support the region through loans, grants, green technologies and in a low-carbon energy transition. The varied attempts on the part of Republic of Korea in this regard also does not forget to refer to the nuance that while a close ally of the US, South Korea's proximity to China means it would not participate in direct containment of Beijing. Such a measure, according to Wallis and Kim, should be seen as an effort by Korea to emerge as a "middle power capable of projecting power in the Indo-Pacific region." 

 Any analytical survey of the evolving strategic participation pertaining to the Pacific Islands also needs to refer to the role of Indonesia. Last year Indonesia hosted the first Indonesia Pacific Forum for Development in Bali.

Indonesia's participation within this paradigm has drawn attention because of the decades-long conflict between Indonesia's military and separatist rebels in Papua, a province that borders Papua New Guinea, and this had long shadowed Jakarta's relations with Pacific Island nations. This included difficulties with the Vanuatu leadership. In 2021, Vanuatu's then-Prime Minister Bob Loughman used the United Nations General Assembly platform to criticise Indonesia. Indonesia hit back at Loughman for those comments but the two nations have since tried to rebuild ties, with Vanuatu's foreign minister visiting Jakarta this year. Vanuatu - among several Pacific Island nations - shares Melanesian roots with Papua's Indigenous residents.

However, despite their proximity, the Pacific Island nations are not major trade partners as yet for Indonesia, which counts China, Japan, Singapore, the US and India as its biggest markets. This equation might not change soon but Indonesia is discreetly trying to create valuable strategic benefits.  Strategic analysts and observers like Wardhani have nevertheless underlined that as Indonesia increasingly looks to increase its sphere of influence and project itself as a regional power, it needs recognition from countries in its neighbourhood to be taken seriously.

One can to conclude by asserting that more potential partners for the Pacific region lining up with promises gives the island countries more choice and bargaining power.

Muhammad Zamir, a former Ambassador, is an analyst specialised in foreign affairs, right to information and good governance.
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