What does our Pacific family really mean to us?
Substantial geopolitical developments in the Pacific have happened under this government's watch
This security pact made between Bejing and Honiara, that will allow Chinese military assets to access the Pacific region, is a reflection of the underwhelming performance of Australia as a key stakeholder in the region, and the beginning of a new era of strategic competition in the Pacific.
Back in the 60s, Australia was more aware of its geographical footprint. While the age of jet travel was still out of reach, back when expensive long-haul flights on DC-8s were still reasonably undesirable, the nation was captured by the happenings of the region in ways that many of us cannot imagine now. There was once a popular Aussie television show called “The Adventures of the Seaspray”, a single dad and his kids having adventures with their Polynesian crew mate, solving mysteries and floating around in our pacific backyard.
To Australians that grew up in this time, their relationship with the Pacific region was more widely understood, growing up through the 80s and 90s it felt like Fiji and the Pacific were one of the only international holiday destinations affordable for middle Australia. What happened in the region mattered, it was reported on the news, and our defence strategy and regional diplomacy was crafted and imagined to reflect our awareness of place in the region. Before we took on the endlessness of the global war on terror and turned our gaze to our role in an ensuing great power competition, we once defined our national security through the lens of a wider Pacific.
These days, between the Jetstar sales, most of us don’t lose much sleep over the fact that we have whittled down our foreign aid, our diplomatic influence and ultimately our prestige in the Pacific nations. The age of globalization and consumerism has profoundly altered our sense of perception, our flags are firmly planted in the Anglo European projections of another hemisphere, when in reality, so much is in flux around us closer to home.
We make arrangements like AUKUS or the Quad that reflect this disjointedness, ideologically placing us in some kind of location between Europe and the United States, like some hopeful Atlantis, not in the geographical reality sitting at the bottom of Asia in the Chinese century with our largest two-way trading partner and our “Pacific family”.
In 2008, the Centre for independent Studies published a performance report on the progress of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) -- an assistance package put in place in response to a civil crisis in 2003. The report identified the clear challenges to the mission, noting that although the package was somewhat successful in restoring law and order it “ignored the real constraints to growth” and couldn’t have an exit strategy without “raising agricultural incomes, providing new sources of employment, and growing indigenous commercial opportunities”.
By the programs conclusion in 2017, after fourteen years, these recommendations were not achieved. In fact, between 2009 and 2019, the Solomon Islands have suffered the largest cuts in aid compared to other pacific nations, and whatever benefit RAMSI once had before is expiration has additionally compounded this issue.
Australia has sent riot police to the Solomons, more recently in December 2021, but it is clearly not enough. What does it do about the unexploded ordnance it buried with its allies after the second world war, the health crisis present before and after COVID, and the social and political issues that have rocked the nation for decades? The lackadaisical approach from this government towards the third largest pacific nation, has only served to deepen the divide, isolate the nation from economic and social opportunity and embolden the Sogavare government to go down this path with China.
The “framework agreement” between Honiara and Beijing could have been avoided and now opens up a new realm of strategic challenges in the region for Canberra, Auckland and the other lukewarm members of the “pacific family”. In a draft obtained recently, the agreement would “make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands”. Additionally, Chinese forces “can be used to protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects in Solomon Islands”. Quite a development indeed.
These islands are falling into the sea and our leaders have openly have laughed at this predicament, their lack of interest in our region has led to this consequential development. When our Pacific family look across and see a decade of failure to meaningfully assist in the region, combined with a steady reduction in aid and a lack of any genuine diplomatic investment and mockery from our leaders who refuse to lead on climate change, we shouldn’t be completely surprised at this outcome. And it has all happened under the watch of this government.
Across the islands from Kiribati to Tuvalu, each Pacific community cedes precious land to rising sea levels, salinity seeps into precious aquifers, crops fail, and livelihoods become untenable in a climate crisis. A decade of diplomatic neglect, shrinking aid budgets and belligerent foreign policy towards the Solomons and all the nations throughout the pacific island chain has weakened our position to anticipate and prevent this scenario.
We get carried away with foreign interpretations of our region and perhaps foreign perceptions of our role within it. Back in the “Seaspray” days we understood and focused on the Pacific, under the pretext of globalization we upgraded our scope to the Asia-Pacific, now we get lost in the grand strategic maps of the Indo-Pacific, and we struggle to see our place on it. Will these developments pull our gaze back to our immediate region and our immediate future within it, or are we doomed to continue seeking our place in another hemisphere?
The power vacuum left in the region by an under-equipped and disinterested government, despite unprecedented bluster and rhetoric towards Beijing, has allowed China to establish a foothold in our region. Penny Wong and the opposition call this the 'Worst foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of WWII', and they are clearly right to criticise this failure by the government. Not since the end of the WWII has a non-allied foreign power established a foothold in such a geographically important region to our national interest.
This is a development that will have profound consequences for regional security. The challenges that await a government in the future will require patience, planning and a strategic outlook that genuinely addresses many of the mounting challenges faced by Pacific nations.
The future Australian government must offer an alternative that takes the needs of our Pacific Family seriously. It must offer an approach that recognises the predicaments of these nations, acknowledges the profound existential threat they face, whilst seeking to work closely to ensure that our important region can function independently in the interests of all who inhabit it. Increasing aid, expanding migrant work programs, encouraging training and education to ensure that the strong links of Pacific friendship are encouraged.
Now the great power competition comes a bit closer to our door, and our failures are the new opportunities for the two powers that wage it. This serves to further weaken our standing and our ability to independently assure our neighbours that our interests are the same as theirs. It would be a shame if Australia lost the narrative in the Pacific due to this government’s incompetence.