The elevation of the Australia-Vietnam relationship to the highest diplomatic level opens opportunities for deeper defence cooperation, especially the expansion of defence industry.

On 7 March, after the conclusion of the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit in Melbourne, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh made an official visit to Canberra where he and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese issued a joint statement on the elevation of the Australia-Vietnam relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP).

The agreement on a CSP includes a section on defence cooperation that pledges to expand current education and training programs, practical exchanges and peacekeeping support. Cooperation in peacekeeping will be elevated to a peacekeeping partnership. Since the establishment of defence cooperation relations in 2010, a remarkable 3500 Vietnam People’s Army officers have graduated from Australian-funded training in Australia and Vietnam.

Under the new CSP, defence cooperation also will be expanded to include defence industry, maritime security, information and intelligence sharing, strengthening maritime cooperation, and enhancing cooperation in cyber-security and critical technology, including through cyber security capacity-building initiatives to address cyber security threats.

The commitment to expand defence industry collaboration with Vietnam is timely. In February 2021, the 13th National Congress of the Vietnam Communist Party adopted a resolution of far-reaching importance for the modernisation of the Vietnam People’s Army. This resolution set the objective to ‘build a streamlined and strong Army by 2025, and a revolutionary, regular, advanced and modern People’s Army by 2030‘. It was assumed that Vietnam would rely on Russia to supply big ticket military platforms and defence technology.

However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year later put paid to Vietnam’s plans as it faced the possibility of severe Western sanctions. Vietnam’s arms procurements have dropped to an all-time low as it marks time. In addition, Ukraine’s resistance to Russian military forces gave pause in Vietnam about its assumptions about the future of modern warfare in an era of drones, unmanned maritime platforms, cruise missiles, electronic warfare and missile defence.

This new strategic situation has opened two major opportunities for Australia.

First, it can expand defence industry cooperation with Vietnam in niche technology areas to assist in capacity-building to counter the new challenges and threats now on display in the Ukraine.

Second, Australia can initiate discussions with the United States, Japan and South Korea bilaterally and multilaterally—perhaps a new informal quadrilateral dialogue—to coordinate defence cooperation with Vietnam.

These opportunities build on a gradual shift in Vietnam’s strategic circumstances and perceptions over the past two decades. To comprehend the opportunities, it is useful to review how Vietnam has altered strategic course.

In 2001, Vietnam began to structure its foreign relations by negotiating strategic partnerships with its closest Cold War allies, Russia, China and India, while also seeking to ‘diversify and multilateralise‘ its external relations. Over the next decade and a half, a three-tiered hierarchy emerged consisting of comprehensive partnerships, strategic partnerships and comprehensive strategic partnerships, the highest level. China, Russia and India were upgraded to the exclusive top tier.

Six years after raising relations with India to a CSP, Vietnam suddenly raised relations with the Republic of Korea to a CSP in December 2022 followed by the United States (September 2023) and Japan (November 2023), and now Australia. The US, which was only a comprehensive partner, gazumped plans by Vietnam and Australia to elevate their strategic partnership in 2023 by agreeing with Vietnam to skip the intermediate stage and go directly to the CSP level.

In just 15 months Vietnam has expanded its constellation of three CSPs to seven by including the US and three of its closest allies in the Indo-Pacific. The fast-paced expansion of strategic ties to the West points to the change in Hanoi’s worldview and underscores the potential for coordination on the full defence cooperation agenda. This flurry of CSP signing is all the more extraordinary when we consider that three of the four partners (the US, Australia, and ROK) had troops on the ground during the Vietnam War.

Agreements on CSPs expand and deepen the scope of cooperation mapped out in the two lower-tier partnership agreements. All of Vietnam’s new comprehensive strategic partnership agreements include a separate section on defence cooperation.

The Vietnam-Republic of Korea joint statement on their CSP contains a section detailing increases cooperation on politics, defence and security, and promoting strengthening defence cooperation through technology, defence industry, and education and training.

The joint leaders’ statement on elevating US-Vietnam relations to a CSP, contains a separate section on defence and security that welcomes ‘further cooperation in defense industry and defense trade in accordance with each side’s conditions through mutually agreed mechanisms‘. The leaders’ statement also commits the US ‘to assist Vietnam to develop its self-reliant defense capabilities in accordance with the needs of Vietnam and established mechanisms‘.

The joint statement on the Vietnam-Japan CSP, which was fashioned as a document for ‘peace and prosperity in Asia and the world‘, contains a 15-point section on cooperation in security and national defence. The two leaders agreed on ‘transferring defence equipment and technology to the Ministry of National Defense of Vietnam‘. They also agreed to assign relevant agencies to discuss the content of Japan’s new Official Security Assistance (OSA).

The task of implementing commitments under these agreements will be complex from both an administrative and diplomatic point of view. Vietnam will need to tread cautiously to take advantage of the new avenues of defence cooperation without offending old friends and incurring strategic risks.

But of the four new comprehensive strategic partners, Australia is well placed to encourage and facilitate coordination. Australia has earned considerable trust in Vietnam because of a long history of engagement and policy consistency.

Australia and Vietnam established official defence relations in early 1998 and exchanged defence attaches in 1999 and 2000, respectively. A major turning point in defence relations was reached in 2010 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding on defence cooperation. Since 2012, Australia and Vietnam have convened a joint foreign affairs and defence strategic dialogue at deputy secretary/deputy minister level. The two sides also hold annual defence cooperation talks, defence policy dialogue and a 1.5 track dialogue. The first formal meeting of defence ministers took place in Canberra in March 2013.

In March 2018, Australia and Vietnam issued a joint statement to establish a strategic partnership that covered cooperation in political matters; economics and development; defence, law, justice, intelligence and security; education, science and technology; labour, social affairs and culture, and people-to-people links; and regional and international affairs.

The section on defence cooperation committed the two parties to an annual meeting of defence ministers to facilitate high-level dialogue.

After raising bilateral relations to a strategic partnership, Australia and Vietnam adopted a ‘joint vision on further defence cooperation’. Funding for Australia’s defence cooperation program stands at $4.15 million in 2023-2024.  The program supports a big agenda of strategic dialogue and information exchange; continued assistance with Vietnam’s peacekeeping deployment to the UN Mission in South Sudan; education and training, including English language instruction; maritime security, including annual naval port visits; and Army and Air Force engagement.

At the recent ASEAN-Australia summit, Albanese announced several new initiatives to implement the government’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040—a $2 billion Southeast Asia investment financing facility, appointing 10 ‘business champions’ to facilitate greater commercial links and a ’landing pad’ in Ho Chi Minh City to bolster Australian technology exports.

The Albanese Government will now have to consider topping up funding for its defence cooperation program so it has the requisite expertise to expand defence industry cooperation with Vietnam. This means assigning more personnel with appropriate expertise to the defence attaches’ office at the Australian Embassy in Hanoi. The business champion for Vietnam will need to be supported by a specialist on government policy on defence exports. The landing pad in Ho Chi Minh City should have a specialist office in Hanoi dedicated to defence industry commercial sales.

Numerous observers have pointed to the cost effectiveness of diplomacy. Australia now needs to take advantage of a valuable diplomatic opening and ensure that it is fully resourced.

America’s economic isolationism is increasingly entrenched, with President Joe Biden’s administration no longer supporting the trade policies advocated by US multinational corporations, retreating instead to a nativist protectionism.

Creating the conditions for the global expansion of US multinationals had been at the heart of US international economic and political strategy since the end of World War II.

The Biden administration’s U-turn last month on digital trade policy was a shock both to the US business community and to the nations that had been negotiating digital trade agreements with the US on the basis of its long-established position of lowering the barriers to digital commerce.

The US government last month walked away from the digital trade negotiations of both the World Trade Organization and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). Both had been pursuing agreements that would have prohibited all restrictions to the flow of data across borders, the forced disclosure of source codes and algorithms, and requirements to establish local data centres.

Australia, Japan and Singapore all supported these measures, accepting US arguments that lowering the barriers to e-commerce would foster its growth to everyone’s benefit and were left stranded by the US about-face.

The New York Times cited the secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce, John Denton, saying: ‘The term we would use is “gobsmacked”. We don’t understand what is going on.’

The Biden administration was influenced by Democrats in Congress who believed the measures gave too much power to the technology giants. The US government wants to reserve its own right to regulate these companies and their data flows.

As well as abandoning its negotiations on IPEF’s digital commerce agreement, the administration decided it wouldn’t proceed with the broader IPEF trade discussions after Democrats complained that it didn’t include enforceable labour and environment provisions.

IPEF was a Biden administration creation, designed to fill the policy vacuum left by the Trump administration’s decision to walk away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement in 2016.

IPEF was intended to be a new kind of international policy framework, setting standards for cooperation among countries on the environment, tax and transparency, supply chains and trade. The US attracted 13 Indo-Pacific nations to sign up to it.

It was explicit at the outset that the agreement wouldn’t provide members with improved access to the US market, which would have required unattainable congressional approval. Instead, the trade section was to cover trade facilitation, labour standards, regulatory practices, agriculture and the digital economy. In the US, it was to be implemented by executive order, rather than by legislation.

Australia and Japan had hoped that agreement on these issues might be a bridge to get the US to join the TPP’s successor, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Instead, the Biden administration’s decision to walk away from the trade discussions it had initiated repeats the experience of the TPP, on which Asia–Pacific nations spent years arduously negotiating with the US only to have it abandon the venture at the 11th hour.

Donald Trump has made it clear that the remnants of the IPEF agreement, which he said was worse for the US economy than the TPP, wouldn’t survive if his bid to regain the presidency in 2024 succeeded.

‘It’s worse than the first one, threatening to pulverize farmers and manufacturers with another massive globalist monstrosity designed to turbocharge outsourcing to Asia,’ he said.

The US Business Roundtable, which is the peak business lobby group, criticised the decision to abandon the IPEF trade negotiations, as well as the broader policy reversal on digital trade rules.

‘High-standard free trade agreements are vital to advancing the interests of American businesses, farmers, ranchers and workers abroad,’ it said, adding that the decision to abandon negotiations on digital trade ceded leadership over the framing of digital trade rules to competitors (meaning China) and undermined economic and national security interests.

The TPP, which was designed by the Obama administration to cement the place of US business in the Asia–Pacific region, to the exclusion of China, was, like the IPEF digital trade negotiation, framed with the interests of US multinationals to the forefront.

There were challenging discussions over the extension of pharmaceutical patent protection—at one stage the US was pressing for big changes to Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme—and over protection for the US media and entertainment industries. The CPTPP, which was signed in 2018 by all the original members of the TPP except the US, removed those provisions.

With both IPEF and the TPP, agreements that unambiguously favoured US multinationals were abandoned in the face of opposition in Congress from both Democrats and Republicans. It is a long way from 1953, when the president of General Motors, Charles Wilson, was able to tell Congress: ‘What was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country.’

The change reflects a view that while trade liberalisation may indeed have benefited US multinationals, it came at a cost of US domestic manufacturing and the communities that depended on it. Trump’s election to the presidency in 2016 represented a political backlash against the brand of globalisation that had been championed by US multinationals. Biden defeated Trump in 2020 partly by appealing to manufacturing workers in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The rejection of trade agreements is consistent with the US decision to sabotage the World Trade Organization’s appeals tribunal by vetoing all new members until it lost its quorum; its use of national security provisions to impose punitive tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, including from the European Union and Japan; and its retention of the Trump administration’s steep tariffs on Chinese goods.

Instead, the big pieces of economic legislation under the Biden administration have been the Inflation Reduction Act, which, among other things, pours US$370 billion into domestic clean-energy subsidies, and the CHIPS and Science Act, which funnels US$280 billion to domestic microchip research and manufacturing. ‘When the federal government spends taxpayers’ dollars, we’re going to buy American: American products made in America, including American component parts,’ Biden said.

For Australia, 90% of whose exports and 80% of whose imports are traded with Asia, the US’s inward turn is not an immediate economic threat but, as critics charge, it opens the way for China to assert its role as the principal economic partner for the nations of Asia and the Pacific.

Perhaps more fundamentally, it raises a question about the US’s strategic commitment to the Asia Pacific region. The TPP was to have been the centrepiece of President Barack Obama’s ‘pivot’ to Asia, which was to include both a strengthening of US economic influence in the region and a greater military presence. IPEF was the TPP’s pale shadow. If the US no longer places a priority on advancing the interests of US business in the Asia–Pacific, will it see the need to continue underwriting the region’s security?

The appointment of an anti-racism ambassador will supplement Australia’s efforts to integrate a more inclusive approach into its foreign policy, as seen in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s pursuit of an international gender equality strategy. A range of countries and multilateral bodies have already implemented racial equity policies, so Australia’s adoption of a racially sensitive lens in its foreign policy won’t be as difficult as some might envisage. DFAT should follow the example of the US State Department, which last year appointed its inaugural special representative for racial equity and justice.

The importance of adopting a race-conscious approach to foreign policy was highlighted in the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Governments and multilateral institutions around the world reacted to this undeniably horrendous act of racially motivated violence by introducing a range of anti-racism policies and initiatives. The European Union led the way, releasing an anti-racism action plan and appointing a coordinator for anti-racism mere months after Floyd’s murder. The UN Human Rights Council also responded quickly, implementing a resolution providing the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights with a mandate to examine systemic racism and human rights violations by law enforcement agencies against Africans and people of African descent.

In the US, the appointment of Desirée Cormier Smith as the first special representative for racial equity and justice was designed to ensure that the US’s foreign-policy processes and programs promote and advance the human rights of marginalised racial and ethnic groups. The role is also responsible for building global partnerships aimed at combating systemic racism, discrimination and xenophobia.

Despite the global progress made in enshrining racial equity and justice in foreign policy, Australia has continued to largely frame racism and racial discrimination as a domestic policy concern. The Australian Human Rights Commission has had a dedicated race discrimination commissioner since 1986 and is currently developing a national anti-racism framework. This year, the government appointed a panel to review its multicultural framework. Indigenous inclusion is also front and centre in Australia’s domestic efforts to improve racial justice, with a referendum to be held on 14 October on enshrining an Indigenous voice to parliament in the nation’s constitution.

Instead of confining racial equity to the realm of domestic policy, creating the role of anti-racism ambassador in foreign policy will provide significant benefits as Australia seeks to enhance its reputation and credibility in the Indo-Pacific region. Such a role would provide an opportunity for Australia to exchange insights with other countries on combating racism and discrimination. Issues such as social cohesion and migrant integration are not unique to Australia; other multicultural societies such as the US, Canada and New Zealand share similar challenges as settler-colonial states with Anglo-Celtic majorities. A key example is working together to tackle the transnational rise of white supremacism, a form of far-right extremism that has resulted in the radicalisation of Australians such as the Christchurch terrorist shooter who murdered 51 Muslim worshippers in 2019.

Australia can also use the appointment of an anti-racism ambassador to help reduce the neo-colonial overtones underpinning its engagement in the Pacific and elsewhere. Australia is the Pacific’s largest aid donor, but it has been criticised for attempting to dictate how Pacific countries run their governments and public institutions. To engender greater trust and support for Australia’s foreign policy objectives in the midst of geostrategic competition in the Indo-Pacific, Australia needs to ensure that regional partnerships are based on responsive and respectful two-way dialogue.

An anti-racism ambassador will also be useful in ensuring that Australia’s foreign-policy decision-making takes account of the racial plurality of the countries it works with. Understanding the often different and sometimes more adverse impacts that foreign-policy decisions can have on vulnerable minorities in the region is important. Australia’s approach to climate change is one area in which a racially sensitive approach is required, in light of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent recognition of the unique issues faced by ethnic and religious minorities, Indigenous people and refugees in adapting to climate change.

While Australia has made significant strides on the domestic front, it can do more in its foreign-policy approach to engender racial equity. George Floyd’s murder was the catalyst for change in the foreign policies of a range of countries and multilateral bodies, but it should not stop there. Australia needs to similarly confront the existence of racial inequities both domestically and internationally by adopting a racially sensitive approach to foreign policy.

In the build-up to the 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the sense of history was palpable. The original NATO construct of 12 members, formed in 1949, is now 31 and will soon be 32 with Sweden’s accession. The alliance has endured plenty of instability in its lifetime, through the Cold War, the Suez crisis, the encircling of West Berlin and much more. Russia’s unrelenting 17-month war in Ukraine, a clear eye on China’s coercive behaviour and internal disagreements about the organisation’s role in the Indo-Pacific gave a sense of urgency and occasion to the summit, including for Australia.

The meeting was geared to tackle tough challenges, including Sweden’s and Ukraine’s bids for membership; security commitments to Ukraine, as a member or not; budgetary and preparedness challenges; future leadership, the Moscow–Beijing partnership; and Europe’s relationship with the Indo-Pacific.

There were initial doubts about whether Anthony Albanese would attend the summit and considerable speculation about what support Australia might provide Ukraine.

That conjecture was likely prolonged due to the government’s wish to save ‘announceables’ for the prime minister’s European trip—while the additions to Australia’s support may have been a consequence of public criticism of the assistance package announced last week.

Most of the uncertainties heading into the summit, including Australia’s ongoing support for Ukraine, were resolved. So how did it all end? Well, Sweden is in and Jens Stoltenberg has been extended as the organisation’s secretary-general, consistent with a view that NATO is only getting started with its support for Ukraine, not showing the fatigue about which so many had been concerned. Predictably, though, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is disappointed.

The NATO summit communiqué reaffirmed the Bucharest decision to admit Ukraine as a member, but it declined to outline a clear pathway to membership. That drove the Ukrainian leader to describe the decision as ‘unprecedented and absurd’.

The summit communiqué stated: ‘We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.’ The precise nature of those conditions is not yet clear, but the writing was on the wall before the summit when key allies such as Germany and the US expressed reservations.

In some respects, it was a missed opportunity. Mapping out a pathway for Ukrainian membership should be part of a deterrence strategy to prevent Russia from thinking it will succeed merely by prolonging the war.

While Ukraine is understandably disappointed, Zelensky was happier with the assistance packages, including the gifts pledged by Albanese.

Recent Australian support has been provided in three tranches. In late June came the announcement of $110 million worth of military vehicles, ammunition and humanitarian assistance. On the eve of the Vilnius summit, the government revealed that a Royal Australian Air Force E7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft would be deployed to Germany to help watch over the supply lines for lethal and humanitarian aid heading to Ukraine. That highly sophisticated aircraft is likely to be capable of much more.

The third in the trio of announcements came on the last day of the summit, when Albanese met with Zelensky and promised a further 30 Bushmaster armoured personnel carriers to help protect Ukrainian troops advancing across a mine- and bomb-strewn landscape.

While the package appears piecemeal and aimed at driving announcements, heart should be taken from the broader Australian public’s resolve for Ukraine and the government’s willingness to listen and increase its support.

But with no end to the conflict in sight, the Australian government now has the opportunity to evolve the current stop–start approach and consider what a continued meaningful contribution to Ukraine looks like. That won’t be easy, with the Department of Defence under significant financial pressure and the government insisting on the costs of supporting Ukraine being absorbed within Defence’s existing budget. But it’s a better approach than the current one of inadequate assistance, followed by public criticism and then more government support. Let’s skip the first two parts.

The one area of inconsistency centred on NATO’s relationship with the Indo-Pacific. Australia’s invitation to the summit as part of the Indo-Pacific four—with Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand—was significant. And, importantly, the NATO communiqué contained strong words on Beijing’s coercive policies and subversion of the international rules-based order. In a sign of the ongoing global shift within NATO, the EU and many member states, Indo-Pacific security warranted a mention: ‘The Indo-Pacific is important for NATO, given that developments in that region can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security.’ This is a direct response to Beijing’s military build-up and economic coercion.

Yet the communiqué contained no mention of the plan, now in doubt, to open a NATO office in Japan. That outcome is likely to have followed French President Emmanuel Macron’s objection, which unfortunately seems to be based on attempts to mollify China and not on precedent, given the existence of offices in other regions such as Africa.

Regrettably, this shows tensions within the organisation on how to engage on Indo-Pacific security. That’s even more disappointing given that the main holdout, France, is a Pacific power. In the face of this tension, it’s vital that Australia not be silent and continue to be a proactive advocate of the inseparability of Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security. The national interest demands a year-round strategy, not just annual visits.

‘I’m trying to figure this out,’ said the journalist who had just phoned. ‘Why is South Korea holding a summit with Pacific leaders?’

That question was undoubtedly asked by more than one journalist, and others, as they sought to analyse the first Korea–Pacific Islands Summit held in Seoul on Monday. Korea hasn’t traditionally played a significant role in the region. While it is a dialogue partner of the Pacific Islands Forum, it directed only US$15.52 million of its US$4.25 billion of development finance there in 2020, representing 0.36% of the total amount spent by all donors. Only 0.3% of Korea’s imports come from the region, primarily from Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.

But, like its closest ally, the United States, and its partners, including Australia, Japan and India, Korea recently adopted an ‘Indo-Pacific’ strategy, which has encouraged it to focus more on the ‘Pacific’ part of that region. In its Strategy for a free, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region, released in December 2022, the Korean government said that it planned on ‘increasing our engagement with the Pacific Island Countries with whom we share the Pacific Ocean’. It later joined the US, Australia and others in the Partners in the Blue Pacific initiative, intended to better coordinate partner assistance.

And Korea is an attractive partner for Pacific island countries—highly developed, democratic and a known supporter of global climate action. At the summit, Korea agreed to double its development assistance to the region and to develop security cooperation in areas such as maritime, climate, energy, cyber and health.

Greater engagement with Korea also offers Pacific island countries another partnership option as they navigate the increasingly polarised strategic environment. Indeed, Korea learned the hard way, during the Korean War, what it means to be caught in the middle of great-power competition—a lesson it’s reminded of daily as it looks across the demilitarised zone at nuclear-armed North Korea.

Korea therefore may have valuable insights to share with Pacific island countries, which have expressed disquiet over the potential impacts of strategic competition playing out in their region. While Korea is an American ally, it has adopted a policy of ‘flexible diplomacy’ to carefully avoid going all-in on American initiatives designed to contain China. For example, the previous progressive Moon Jae-in administration decided against seeking membership of the Quad, and the current conservative Yoon Suk-yeol government has limited its outreach with the Quad to non-traditional security issues. Korea has also indicated that its priority would be defending itself against North Korea rather than assisting the US in the event of a war in the Taiwan Strait.

Notably, Korea’s Indo-Pacific strategy, like ASEAN’s Indo-Pacific Outlook, India’s vision for the Indo-Pacific and Japan’s Indo-Pacific plan, stresses the need for ‘inclusiveness’—a concept absent from the Indo-Pacific strategies of the US and Australia. This reflects that the proximity of Korea and its Asian neighbours to China means they can’t afford the same containment approach—a perception shared by many Pacific island countries.

The Korea summit also offered an opportunity for Pacific island countries to continue to build their relationships in Asia. At the moment, only Papua New Guinea is a member of APEC and an observer of ASEAN, but the Korea summit may help pave the way for greater direct engagement between Asia and the Pacific.

Following hot on the heels of third summit of the Forum for India–Pacific Islands Cooperation and the US–Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ dialogue, the Korea summit also demonstrates the effectiveness of Pacific island countries’ collective diplomacy, particularly under the auspices of the Pacific Islands Forum.

Forum leaders formally adopted the Blue Pacific narrative in their 2017 communiqué to represent ‘a long-term Forum foreign policy commitment to act as one “Blue Continent”’ and to facilitate ‘an assertive Pacific diplomacy’. And they have successfully encouraged partner states to adopt the language of the Blue Pacific narrative (it was incorporated into each of the India, US and Korea summit communications) and to pledge their support for the forum’s 2050 strategy for the Blue Pacific continent. Notably, the 2050 strategy stresses that Pacific island countries strive for ‘inclusive’ partnerships.

And this highlights a tension in the Blue Pacific narrative, and in Korea’s relationships in the Pacific and beyond: managing a preference for inclusiveness alongside the more assertive stance towards China taken by Pacific Islands Forum member Australia, and Korean (and Australian) ally the US. It was telling that, rather than sending Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or Foreign Minister Penny Wong to the summit, Australia sent Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles—who is also its defence minister. While Marles’s interest in the Pacific islands region is well known and longstanding, the Australian media has focused on his bilateral meetings with Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-sup, describing his visit as being primarily for ‘high-level defence talks’.

Beyond defence, Korea must also balance the interests of Pacific island countries with those of other partners on issues such as climate change. Korea is Australia’s third-largest export market, particularly for gas and coal. Indeed, in the lead-up to the summit, the Pacific Climate Action Network issued a call for the Korean government to stop supporting fossil-fuel projects in Australia.

Korea’s interest in the Pacific islands region has been welcomed by Pacific leaders. But Korea will find that, like other relatively new players in the region, such as India, its Pacific islands diplomacy involves a challenging balancing act, and that increasingly assertive Pacific island countries will be watching carefully to see whether it stumbles.