Hello, everyone. Good morning, afternoon or evening, and welcome to this edition of Elsewhere in Focus. You can find all the articles in the series here (along with my other diaries).
When we discuss geopolitics, continents often push out island states, especially the smaller ones. We talk about Asia and Africa, South and North America and Europe (which is a part of Asia) but where do Fiji and Nauru fall? Or Tonga? Through imperial imagination that tried to gather up the many islands littered across the pacific as one community, which then fed into postcolonial plans for regional organisation, we now have a name or few for the region: the Pacific Islands, earlier called South Pacific and at times, Oceania.
If you remove Australia and New Zealand whose membership in the forum is contested, most of these countries are small islands. Despite being tiny, as a group, they have contributed highly to developing international policy on climate change. Let us learn about this forum today.
Pacific Island Forum—Nature, Divisions and Contributions to Global Policy
What Is the Pacific Island Forum?
The Pacific Island Forum (PIF) is an organisation of small island states and countries in the Pacific. Before we go into a details of the forum itself, let us take a brief look at what the Pacific means because despite the PIF itself being smaller, they are engaged in discussions and movements in other small islands in the Pacific that are not yet independent. Thus, it is helpful to know what the regions denizens see as the whole, even if they are not yet part of the PIF. Greg Fry provides a great description of the Pacific region in his work, Framing the Islands: Power and Diplomatic Agency in Pacific Regionalism.
What we can say, however, is that at the core of the idea of the Pacific are the thousands of islands scattered across the central and southern Pacific Ocean, including to the north of the equator. They stretch from the Micronesian islands just south of Japan and east of the Philippines, south to Papua New Guinea, and south-east along the Melanesian chain to New Caledonia, and then east across the Polynesian Pacific to Tahiti. These societies are organised into nine independent states (Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu); five associated states (Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Niue, Palau and Marshall Islands); and eight dependent territories—of France (New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, and French Polynesia), the United Kingdom (Pitcairn Islands), New Zealand (Tokelau) and the United States (American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands). It also includes, importantly, the sea around them—extending out to 200 nautical miles for some purposes. This area—which is recognised as constituting the boundaries of the oldest regional organisation, the SPC (renamed the Pacific Community at its fiftieth anniversary conference in October 1997)—covers more than 30 million square kilometres (not including Australia and New Zealand).
In terms of politically weighty decision-making, such as treaty-making and collective diplomacy, the membership is a little smaller because, until 2016, only independent states were recognised in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). But, even here, the regional boundaries seen as relevant for political action include the dependent territories, as, for example, when the organisation takes a collective position on decolonisation in New Caledonia or nuclear issues in French Polynesia. For some purposes—and particularly for sovereignty movements and regional NGOs, such as the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organisations and the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific movement—the cultural and political identities of the Pacific stretch to an extended outer boundary incorporating Hawai`i in the north, New Zealand in the south, Easter Island (a territory of Chile) to the east and West Papua, a province of Indonesia, in the west. Although they are members of the Pacific Community and the PIF, Australia and New Zealand do not always put themselves within the regional boundaries. This in/out behaviour is an important variation in what is seen as constituting ‘the region’. Australia, for example, sees itself as part of the South-East Asian and Indian Ocean regions as well as the Pacific. But, despite its significant region-making initiatives in the other two areas, it is the Pacific where it has seen itself as having a leadership and management role.
As Fry says, although the region encompasses many, not all of them are part of the Pacific Island Forum. The forum’s website lists the current membership.
The Pacific Islands Forum brings the region together to address pressing issues and challenges, and foster collaboration and cooperation in the pursuit of shared goals. Founded in 1971, it comprises 18 members: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
Our vision is for a resilient Pacific region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, that ensures all Pacific peoples can lead free, healthy and productive lives.
The membership of Australia and New Zealand is not without contestations (mainly because they are both colonial nations and hegemons, especially Australia, and are accused to neocolonial ambitions in the region).
The forum as Sruthi Darbhamulla reports for the Hindu was established in 1971 (1 Sep 2024). It started out as the South Pacific Forum but changed its name to Pacific Island Forum in 2000 to be more inclusive of the countries and territories north of the equator.
The Forum was founded in November 1971, with Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Nauru, New Zealand, Tonga and Western Samoa as the founding members. In January 1972, the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation was established; it was renamed to the Forum Secretariat in 1981. [...]
Australia and New Zealand are among the larger nations in the bloc, with some countries having populations as small as 1,500 people. The Pacific Island Forum envisages a “resilient Pacific region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, that ensures all Pacific peoples can lead free, healthy and productive lives”.
Several of the member countries of the Forum are particularly susceptible to environmental challenges, making climate change and sea level rise key focal points for the forum.
A cherished method of dispute resolution central to the Forum is the “Pacific way”, which seeks to build consensus and places relationships between the countries of the “Blue Pacific Family” at the centre. The Blue Pacific Family members are linked by common culture and heritage, and distinguish themselves from the broader Indo-Pacific region.
While the forum discusses many issues specific to their member states and territories, the most important as far as the small island states in the forum is concerned has been climate change. Given the growing competition between China and the West for Pacific influence, there has been increased media attention as well. Charlotte Graham-Mclay reports for the Associated Press about the concerns of the forum in the wake of such attention (27 Aug 2024).
Its leaders — from Pacific Island nations, some of them among the world’s most imperiled by rising seas, as well as Australia and New Zealand — have long been at the forefront of urging action on climate change.
For the first few decades of the forum’s existence, the annual meetings of its leaders largely escaped wider notice. In recent years that has changed, regular forum-goers say: China’s campaign of aid, diplomacy and security agreements with leaders across the Pacific has prompted a rapid expansion of the size and scope of the organization and its meetings. [...]
Where large powers might attend the forum seeking to curry influence while undermining others’ sway, the focus of the region’s leaders sits squarely where it always has been: the perils of climate change and rapidly rising seas.
Reminders are everywhere in the Tongan capital, Nuku’alofa — metal water bottles supplied as keepsakes to delegates are labeled “one less plastic bottle,” but at each meeting and meal, plastic bottles of water are distributed. Rising seas and natural disasters, as in many Pacific Island nations, have contaminated rainwater and groundwater and made them unsafe to drink.
This year, the topic has another champion — the United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres, who in a speech at Monday’s opening ceremony decried “humanity treating the sea like a sewer” and applauded Pacific leaders and young people for declaring a climate emergency and calling for action.
Some leaders tried to bring pressing issues at home to center stage: The Tongan prime minister and incoming forum chair, Siaosi Sovaleni, spoke on Monday of the health and education challenges confronting his country — and echoed throughout the Pacific.
Other topics include the legacy of nuclear horrors in the region, the cost of living and debt, and regional security — including a Pacific police training center scheduled for construction in Brisbane, Australia, that is seen as a direct challenge to China’s eagerness to equip the law enforcement agencies of some island nations.
Fiji’s prime minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, in June referred to the confluence of problems — also including transnational drug trafficking in his assessment — as a “polycrisis,” with each challenge exacerbating others.
But the Forum’s most fraught matter is likely to be the ongoing unrest in New Caledonia. Deadly violence flared in the French territory in May over a longstanding independence movement and Paris’ efforts to quash it. A failed attempt by Pacific leaders to visit the capital, Noumea, ahead of the summit has further inflamed tensions.
The most recent Pacific Island Forum meetings discussed the situation in New Caledonia where France is repressing the island’s independence movement in favour of settlers. The Hindu report linked above gives some more details on the subject.
The most pressing issue under discussion at the Forum was the ongoing unrest in the French territory of New Caledonia, where violence ensued between French officers and locals, killing nine civilians and two gendarmes.
The Indigenous Kanak people of New Caledonia have long sought independence from France, which colonised it in 1853. Even though it granted citizenship to all Kanaks in 1957, the demand for independence has continued. The latest unrest followed attempts by the French government to amend its Constitution to expand voting lists in New Caledonia and grant more French residents the right to vote. Kanaks have decried a vote on the matter in 2021 as illegitimate- a position France refuses to accept.
The Forum has now planned to hold an official “talanoa” (dialogue) on the matter later this year.
In short, the Forum’s purpose is to present matter of importance to the Pacific before the world as well as work towards and resolve issues common to the region. In both situations, climate change and its threat to the islands is a matter of supreme importance to the region’s people.
Contributions to Global Discussions and Policy on Climate Change
Given the salience of climate change to Oceania, after scientists, they have been among the first voices to talk about climate change and its impact on the world. Wesley Morgan, Salā George Carter & Fulori Manoa (2024), Leading from the Frontline: A History of Pacific Climate Diplomacy, The Journal of Pacific History, 59:3, 353-374, DOI: 10.1080/00223344.2024.2360093, gives a history of the impact of PIF in developing and driving global discussions and policy on global warming.
Pacific Island states have, for decades, considered climate change a threat to their security. In 1991, island leaders declared global warming and sea level rise as serious environmental threats, and that their ‘cultural, economic and physical survival’ was at risk. Pacific Island countries have since played a disproportionate role in United Nations climate negotiations, working as a diplomatic bloc to shape new rules and to drive multilateral cooperation to reduce emissions. Pacific Island states have also sought greater recognition of climate change as a security threat. This article considers the history of Pacific climate diplomacy. It explains how Pacific Island countries have played a key role in the global response to the climate crisis and outlines the history of regional climate politics in the Pacific Islands Forum. We also focus on recurring tensions between Pacific Island states and Australia with regard to ambition to tackle climate change.
The concerns started to rise in the island states following growing scientific consensus that the planet is going to see an unprecedented increase in temperatures thanks to unrestrained fossil fuel use.
Amidst growing scientific concern, regional assessments considered the potential impacts of climate change for Pacific Island countries. A report prepared for the South Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP) in mid-1988 painted a dire picture, warning that ‘global warming threatens the physical and cultural survival of several South Pacific societies’.3 Pacific Island leaders meeting at the
1988 South Pacific Forum ‘expressed concern about climatic changes in the South Pacific and their potential for serious social and economic disruption in countries of the region’.4 By the late 1980s, the prospect of sea-level rise associated with global warming was especially concerning for Pacific leaders. That low-lying atoll islands might be swallowed by the rising sea also captured the imagination of the international community.5 The issue received global coverage in 1987 when tidal waves caused widespread flooding in Malé (the capital of the Maldives), prompting a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution for assistance to strengthen coastal defences.6 At the 1988 South Pacific Forum, Kiribati President Ieremia Tabai told reporters ‘if what the scientists are saying is true, within 50–60 years there are countries like my country which will no longer be there’.7 In March 1989, the front cover of the Pacific Islands Monthly ran with a full page headline: ‘The Greenhouse Effect: Say Goodbye To Kiribati, The Marshall Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu, The Great Barrier Reef’.8
Given that these states had a solid chance of disappearing if the scientists’ warning proved true, they became a sort of moral symbol of the effects of climate change (sort of like the polar bear floating on an ice block). However, that was not the end of their influence.
By this time Pacific Island countries had become significant actors in the international discussion of climate change. Island leaders helped to frame global warming as an urgent crisis that required immediate action, especially from industrialized nations. That sea-level rise might pose an existential threat for atoll islands meant Pacific Islands leaders had a unique moral authority when they called for measures to reduce emissions. Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Bikenibeu Paeniu told a session of the 1990 World Climate Conference that Pacific islands were ‘extremely vulnerable to the environmental hazards and dangers of the Greenhouse Effect and sea level rise. These are problems which we have done the least to create but now threaten the very heart of our existence’.18 Media reporting increasingly identified with the plight of Tuvalu and other island nations. But Pacific states were not just an emerging poster child for the impacts of climate change. They also developed diplomatic strategies to respond to the issue. At the second World Climate Conference in Geneva, Pacific Island countries joined counterparts in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean to establish an Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) that was intended to build on the initiative of the 1989 Malé Declaration and to represent the shared demands of small island developing states (SIDS) in negotiations toward a UN climate convention.
Initially, Australia played a major role in helping the Pacific Island States gather data and in supporting the South Pacific Forum’s demands asking countries to reduce green house gas emissions. Remember that this was the late 1980s.
In the early 1990s negotiations began in earnest for a global response to climate change. A ‘North–South’ fault-line quickly emerged as poorer nations argued that developed countries – which had burned fossil fuels for centuries – were obliged to move first to cut emissions. Among wealthy countries, differences emerged between European states that wanted clear targets and timetables to reduce emissions, and the United States, which initially opposed any targets.23 During this period, Pacific Island countries proved a consistent voice for ambitious climate action based on the science. Because global warming was seen as an overriding threat to their survival and they had done so little to cause it, Pacific Island countries came to be seen as the ‘international conscience’ on the issue, and they were able to exert considerable moral pressure during UN climate negotiations.
They and the AOSIS also helped draft some of the text on UN climate change negotiations.
After Rio, Pacific Island countries continued to shape discussions at UN climate talks. Nauru drafted the first text of a proposed protocol under the UN climate convention, which was put forward by AOSIS in 1994.28 When introducing the draft protocol (as vice-chair of AOSIS), Samoa’s ambassador to the UN, Tuiloma Neroni Slade, explained the proposal ‘would put in place a mechanism to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from industrialized countries by 20% [from 1990 levels] by the year 2005’.29 The AOSIS Protocol became an important point of reference at the first Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC (COP1) in 1995 where AOSIS won support from most developing countries for their position, and China and India adopted the AOSIS text as the basis for a negotiating proposal. While the draft AOSIS Protocol was ultimately not adopted, it ‘rendered politically unacceptable’ less ambitious proposals from others, including the United States which wanted to stabilize emissions rather than set targets to reduce them.30 It also paved the way for the negotiation of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
However, things changed as fossil fuel lobby got into the act.
The article gives a decade by decade history of global climate change action and how Pacific Island states and territories contributed to it, with US and Australia serving as roadblocks.
Internal Divisions within the Forum
Australia and New Zealand and Accusations of Neocolonialism
As mentioned above, there have been some challenges to Australia and New Zealand’s membership in the Pacific Island Forum.
These two countries since the 19th century had played a significant role in conceptualising how the world—especially the colonial powers—saw the region. Later, in the mid twentieth century, they supported the formation of an organisation to represent the interests of Pacific Islands. The PIF was formed in opposition to the apolitical nature of that organisation and its colonial roots and interests.
Due to this colonial history and entanglement, accusations of necolonialism have been part of their engagement with the Forum. Stephanie Lawson provides a review of the two countries’ engagement with the Forum from its very beginnings in Stephanie Lawson (2017), Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands Forum: a critical review, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 55:2, 214-235, DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2017.1280205.
Even by the beginning of the 1960s, the predominance of the colonial powers in the SPC had become anachronistic (Fry, 1981, p. 461). Mara (1997, p. 170) recalls that the attitudes of the administering powers ‘were at best too paternalistic, and at worst arrogant and autocratic’. Following the 1965 Conference in Lae, where Mara led a walk-out of island delegates protesting lack of islander control, due primarily to French intransigence, a reform process commenced. Change eventually took place, culminating in 1974 with the Conference effectively becoming the governing body. But reform did not lead to an expansion of the SPC’s agenda to encompass political concerns. The SPC, renamed the Pacific Community, survives to this day, having undergone further organisational reforms over the years as a regional body with a broad suite of programmes. But it remains strictly apolitical in that it makes no value judgements when it comes to matters such as domestic political concerns, decolonisation issues or regional crises, none of which affect its operations (Diver, 2016).
In the meantime, island leaders from Fiji, Tonga and (Western) Samoa took certain trade related matters into their own hands by forming a regional body in 1965 – the Pacific Island Producers’ Association (PIPA) – designed to operate as a commercial pressure group to improve returns on exports such as bananas, especially to New Zealand. PIPA was a prelude to more significant moves to establish a broader body with a political agenda that went ‘beyond bananas’ (Kotabalavu, 2014).
The emergence of the Forum
It is not clear exactly where the concrete proposal for a new regional body originated, although the Forum is usually said to be an islander initiative, or more especially an initiative of chiefly leaders (Kotabalavu, 2014). In June 1970, Cook Islands Premier, Albert Henry, reportedly declared the need for an independent organisation catering for political discussion although he believed that Australian and New Zealand support was essential for its success, stating that, unlike the US, Britain and France, they were an integral part of the Pacific (Pacific Islands Monthly, 1970, p. 26).
Whatever role Henry and other island leaders played, New Zealand appears to have been a prime mover in establishing the Forum.1 One commentator suggests that because New Zealand was excluded from PIPA, it was keen to claim a role in a new body while from an islander perspective, although PIPA had been an important step in establishing an independent body, it lacked capacity (Ball, 1973, p. 243). In December 1970, the New Zealand Minister of Island and Maori Affairs announced that he would encourage ‘a political forum where island countries can meet on equal terms with Australia and New Zealand’(quoted in Ball, 1973, p. 243). New Zealand subsequently invited leaders of the independent and self-governing countries – the Cook Islands, Fiji, Nauru, Tonga and Western Samoa – as well as Australia, to a meeting held in Wellington in 1971, effectively the founding moment of the South Pacific Forum.
There have been differences between Australia and New Zealand as well, though the main divide remained between them and the rest of the island countries. Further, there were divisions between Melanesians, Micronesians, and Polynesians and each of these sets of countries went on to establish their own sub regional groupings meant to serve initially as lobbying groups within the Forum but developing into sub regional orgnisations themselves.
Be that as it may, Australia and New Zealand continued to influence forum matters and even played a role in regional politics to some extent.
Until the first coup in Fiji in 1987, the Forum scarcely touched directly on the domestic politics of member countries although a number of crises had demanded some kind of response. An early case was the secession crisis on Santos in Vanuatu immediately prior to independence in 1980. The Forum adopted a unanimous resolution of support for ‘the authority of the elected government’ of Walter Lini – one of the few times it expressed any support for democracy as such in its early years (Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2012). In the event, a Papua New Guinea (PNG) military contingent, with Australian logistical support, assisted in putting the rebellion down. Australian support is said to have been reluctant because of an unwillingness to attract charges of neo-colonialism as well as putting its fragile relationship with France at risk (Gubb, 1994, pp. 29, 33). But former Prime Minister, Barak Sope (2016), says that the strong support of both Australia and New Zealand for Vanuatu’s independence over this period is still remembered, with appreciation.
Apart from the Santo rebellion, the main political and economic issues for Forum members at the time were French colonialism and nuclear testing, the disposal of toxic waste and other environmental concerns, trade, territorial matters including exclusive economic zones, fisheries and the law of the sea. The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone (SPNFZ) Treaty process was especially fraught, with different positions being taken within the Forum. The final document was an attempt to exhibit unified resistance to French testing while leaving US nuclear issues more ambiguous. On the conservative side, Tonga claimed that it went too far while Vanuatu, always much more radical, insisted it did not go far enough (Shibuya, 2003, p. 109). France finally stopped testing in 1996, signing the SPNFZ Treaty in the same year along with Britain and the US.
Interestingly (and importantly) as you see, the Pacific Island states played a part in nuclear non-proliferation by standing against nuclear tests in the region. The push and pull between Australia and New Zealand and the rest of the PIF contributed to those developments.
There were more tensions when Fiji’s membership was suspended in 2006 following a military coup. Fiji developed another island forum called Pacific Islands Development Forum (PDIF) that excluded Australia and New Zealand as core members. Though Fiji was reinstated a few years later after they conducted elections in 2014, they demanded a review of Australia and New Zealand’s membership in PIF.
As per a Diplomat article from 2019, tensions vis-a-vis New Zealand reduced after Jacinda Ardern became premier (she was well liked and consistently advocated for South Pacific in New Zealand policy as opposed to Scott Morrison of Australia).
The change in government in Australia produced some change in policy and more positive engagement. Joanne Wallis, Professor of International Security, University of Adelaide, Anna Powles, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies, Te Kunenga ki Purehuroa—Massey University, and Solstice Middleby, PhD Candidate, University of Adelaide, had written for the Conversation about the gaps in Australia and New Zealand’s recent policy (19 Jul 2022).
While the Albanese government is still finding its feet, its commitments on climate change are insufficiently ambitious and undermined by plans to approve more coal and gas projects.
Conscious of the need to rebuild unity after a challenging few years, this meeting was not designed to push Australia, or indeed any other member, too hard. But the pressure on Australia will remain.
Having been in office since 2017, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is a familiar face at forum meetings. But while Ardern and her foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, have travelled extensively to other parts of the globe over the past year, their presence in the Pacific has been light. Although the meeting was an opportunity for them to reconnect in the Pacific, there is no indication they intend to build on that momentum by increasing their engagement with the region.
Ardern may discover that her catchphrase of New Zealand “being in and of the Pacific” is no match for physically showing up. And physically showing up is no match for real connection.
The Pacific Island states disapprove of Australia’s continued use and extraction of fossil fuels and that remains one significant area of contention. The divisions with other small island states in the region on the other hand remains one of power sharing.
Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia and Inequitable Treatment
As Lawson’s article points out, the divisions between Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesian countries had started to appear as far back as the 1980s. Seeing the Forum dominated by Polynesians, Melanesian states first formed a group of their own (excerpts from the same article).
The Polynesia/Melanesia sub-regional divide highlighted by these remarks gave rise in due course to the ‘Melanesian Way’ as well as a substantive subregional organisation in the form of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). The latter first formed in the mid-1980s as a lobby group within the Forum, subsequently developing into a sub-regional association in its own right. Its genesis was partly a reaction to the perceived conservatism of the Polynesian states, and has since served to undermine the pan-Pacific ideology promoted by the Pacific Way (Lawson, 2013). Furthermore, as Joe Natuman, current Deputy Prime Minister of Vanuatu and with many decades experience in regional politics, has stated, Mara’s Pacific Way meant little to the Melanesian leaders at the time but was rather regarded as a Polynesian affair (Natuman, 2016), a view endorsed by former Vanuatu Prime Minister, Barak Sope (2016) and which also accords with Kotabalavu’s (2014) recollections. This illustrates that assigning a common identity to PICs under the rubric of a ‘Pacific Way’ is highly problematic.
The Micronesian states that became PIF members after they became independent from the US formed their own regional forum as well. Eventually, after Fiji’s suspension, the Polynesian states created a group of their own.
Another notable development in sub-regional relations was the emergence of the Polynesian Leaders’ Group (PLG). The idea of such a group had been around since the mid-1980s but nothing eventuated for more than two decades. By 2010, the MSG had acquired a strong profile while the establishment of the Micronesian Presidents’ Summit (MPS) as well as the Micronesian Chief Executives Summit (MCES) in the early 2000s was another factor. If both the Micronesian and Melanesian sectors had their own formal subregional associations, it seemed almost inevitable that the Polynesians would eventually establish their own, especially in a regional situation in which developments in Fiji had provoked tensions with two key Polynesian countries. The formalisation of the Polynesian group came about in November 2011 when leaders from French Polynesia, Niue, Tokelau, Cook Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and American Samoa came together in Apia at the invitation of Tuilaepa of Samoa, and has since met annually. Its very existence now adds to the phenomenon of sub-regionalism organised around the Melanesia/ Polynesia/Micronesia divide. These not only exclude Australia and New Zealand but also reflect the fact that there are varying identities and interests between the sub-regions as well (Lawson, 2016).
These divisions are not just limited to the creation of sub-regional membership bodies. They also led to the Micronesian countries preparing to leave the PIF in 2021 though there was a rapprochement in the years since. Tess Newton Cain, Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, discussed the matter at the time in The Conversation (15 Feb 2021).
The Pacific Islands Forum is run by a secretariat based in Suva, headed up by a secretary-general. Since 2014, that position has been held by Papua New Guinea’s Dame Meg Taylor.
Determining her successor is the spark that led to the current conflict.
What caused the split?
Normally the secretary-general position is determined by informal exchanges and possibly some horsetrading, with focus on consensus.
But because of COVID-19, this was all reduced to a Zoom meeting. A marathon session, involving two rounds of confidential voting, was used to decide the new secretary-general.
After this, former Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna narrowly beat diplomat Gerald Zackios of Marshall Islands by nine votes to eight (New Caledonia was unable to take part thanks to the government having resigned a few days earlier).
This triggered a rapid and explosive response, with the Micronesian grouping – Palau, Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, and Nauru — announcing they will quit the forum.
This should not have come as a surprise. Ahead of the meeting, the Micronesian leaders had stated that under the terms of a “gentlemen’s agreement” the position of secretary-general should rotate among the sub-regions, and this was their turn.
Not only that, they had clearly warned if they did not get their way, they would see no value in staying with the forum.
Transform Aqorau, a legal adviser to Marshall Islands, says the rest of the region may have underestimated Micronesia’s resolve here and as a result, the forum now has a “totally unprecedented situation” to deal with.
This is not the first time regional cooperative action has been tested, but it is probably the most serious existential threat yet to the Forum, and a major test for our leaders.
Micronesians did have legitimate reasons for their grievances. As Dean Canyon’s article for Security Nexus show, the forum had been dominated by Polynesia and Melanesia.
Power sharing since 1971 has not been consistently shared (Fig 2) between the cultural regions of the Pacific or between nations in those regions. It has heavily favored 3 Polynesian nations
(Tonga, Tuvalu, and Samoa) followed by 1 Melanesian nation (Papua New Guinea).
Neither has the chair position been consistently rotated between the cultural sub-regions at any time in the organization’s history (Fig 3).
PIF’s vision is for “a region of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion and prosperity, so that all Pacific people can lead free, healthy, and productive lives.” However, PIF’s failure to practice equitable inclusion is not the Pacific Way and does not result in harmony. If the Pacific Islands Forum truly considers itself representative of all the Pacific Island states, it should consider the following recommendations.
Recommendations for resolution
- An agreement was perceived to have been made and broken, thus details surrounding the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” for chair rotation must be made transparent and public
- Systematically rotate the chair around the sub-regions as per the “Gentlemen’s Agreement”
- Put a stop to awarding double-term chair periods, which only serve to favor select nations
- When it comes to a sub-region’s turn, the Chair should rotate around the nations in each sub-region instead of skipping many nations in preference of a few – even the ASEAN chair rotates to all of its constituent nations
- The PIF chair period could be shortened to one year to make it more symbolic and to enable many more nations to participate and guide PIF in a significant way
- Now that PIF has been functioning well for a long time, it is an opportune moment to consider membership options that would expand and enhance the voice of smaller Pacific Islands states
As per Wikipedia, apologies and promises were made and thus, the Micronesians did not exit. Wikipedia cites contemporary news articles from Radio New Zealand and Forum communiques, and thus, it can be trusted in this case.
In February 2022, it was announced that the five Micronesian countries would pause the process of their departure.[11][12] The President of the Federated States of Micronesia, David Panuelo, said that he had been told that Henry Puna would step down as Secretary-General, and that other reforms would occur.[36] The Pacific Islands Forum secretariat did not officially confirm Puna's departure, saying only that talks were ongoing.[37] President Whipps of Palau said that the pause gave the Forum one last chance to do the right thing.[37] In April, it was reported that the President of the Marshall Islands, David Kabua, was urging other Micronesian leaders to agree to several proposed reforms but to withdraw their demand for Puna to step down.[38] In June 2022, Forum leaders reached an agreement which would see Puna remain in office, and be replaced by a Micronesian candidate when his term ended.[39] The rotation of the Secretary-General between Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia would be made a permanent feature of the Forum, and two deputy secretary-general positions would be created for the other sub-regions.[40] Kiribati did not agree to the arrangement, and on 9 July 2022 withdrew from the Forum with immediate effect.[41] Kiribati rejoined the Forum on 24 February 2023 following an official apology by Forum chair Sitiveni Rabuka.[42]
As we can see, PIF had divisions but have been able to rise above them as well. Meanwhile, they also became a site for great power competition.
Great Power Engagement with PIF: US vs. Australia vs. China
China has been engaging with the region for years. It is only when Solomon Islands entered a security agreement with China, before which they shifted their diplomatic relationship from Taiwan to China, that US started paying attention.
Some of the growing Chinese influence can be laid at the feet of Australia since Australia under Scott Morrison had been less than perfunctory with the Pacific Island countries. He pushed to have the mention of climate crisis removed from the forum’s communique in 2019.
Henryk Szadziewski, Research Affiliate, Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawaii and Graeme Smith, Associate Professor, Australian National University, wrote about it for the Conversation.
For the US, interest in the Pacific Islands seemingly centres on China and tuna. But these interests alone don’t place the region above others in order of strategic importance.
On China, the Biden administration’s February 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy serves as a useful guide. It says China’s “coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific”.
However, despite the speculation around Chinese bases, airstrips and wharves in the Pacific, the extent of Chinese military presence in the region has been muted.
Indeed, the US is the predominant military power in the Pacific. It has:
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bases in Australia, Guam, Hawai'i, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines
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a newly inked security deal with Papua New Guinea
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exclusive military access to the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau.
US supremacy in the north Pacific also means these states are more likely to adopt Washington’s positions in global affairs, making Sogavare’s stance on China more of an anomaly.
And on the US support for the fisheries agency, it’s worth looking at the numbers and motivation. Not only is the $600 million commitment spread over ten years, it is only three-quarters of the total funding promised in 2022.
This pledge also serves as yet another form of regional deterrence against Beijing, since China’s highly subsidised fleets are the ones primarily accused of illegal fishing.
By comparison, the US doesn’t seem as interested in establishing scholarships, construction, investment and trade in the Pacific – all areas where China thrives.
The US also doesn’t provide easy immigration channels. Australia on the other hand provides that though that is not enough for the islanders.
In Australia, however, there seems to be movement of the dial. In October, for instance, the Pacific Engagement Visa finally passed in parliament. This will allow up to 3,000 Pacific islanders to permanently settle in Australia every year.
The significance of the visa lies in its potential to transform Australia into a nation that looks more like the Pacific.
For Pacific Islanders, reams of research show access to permanent migration is more effective than development assistance. The gains to Pacific families are almost immediate, too.
From a national interest perspective, there’s the side benefit that welcoming Pacific migrants is something China will not do. As Fiji’s deputy prime minister argued, “this is part of a broader strategy to integrate the region in the long term”.
The Australian government faces a similar bind to the US, however. Military concerns can be acted upon much more quickly than economic or developmental needs. And Australia’s military spend in the Pacific – whether or not it’s in response to a clear threat from China – reinforces the longstanding perception Canberra is more interested in securing the region’s territory than the wellbeing of its people.
Unlike China, Australia’s government can’t direct companies to invest in the region, even though this is what Pacific leaders are keen on. (Telstra’s purchase of Digicel Pacific is the lonely exception.)
While much ink has been spilled on China’s debt trap diplomacy, its true hold over Pacific leaders is the promise of future projects, the pipeline of investments.
There are thus gaps in each country’s engagement with the Pacific Island countries, with none of them providing them all of what they need.
As climate change continues to move out of control, with West refusing to do much about it while also refusing to fund climate mitigation and adaptation strategies in smaller island nations, it is only natural for those countries to look elsewhere for support. It is their lives, cultures, and homes on the line after all.
If our countries start paying serious attention to climate change however, other than the scientists, it is the small island nations such as PIF states, the Caribbean and the Maldives that we must thank. They may be the vanguard, but they would not by any means be the only ones affected.
What Must We Do?
If we want to be good comrades to the Pacific Island nations and any small island nation, the only choice is to advocate for better climate policies. To not push and instead play defense would be to leave the most vulnerable in the lurch.
As always, advocating for better, more lineant and indeed open migration is another mandate especially given the threat that all small island states face due to not just sea level rise but also hurricanes, storms and other disasters.
That is it for today, everyone. Until next Wednesday. Stay safe. Be well. Take care.
May all the small island nations have enough.
