Tag Archive for: Pacific Islands

The Pacific Response Group is making pleasing progress but needs more buy-in

The Pacific Response Group (PRG), a new disaster coordination organisation, has operated through its first high-risk weather season. But as representatives from each Pacific military leave Brisbane to return to their home countries for the winter, there is still plenty of work to do.

The PRG should focus on two key priorities. Firstly, it should engage all members of the Pacific Islands Forum to highlight how the PRG can benefit them as it grows and expands. Secondly, it should consult with regional partners and organisations on the development of operating frameworks to facilitate the group’s deployment.

In October, members of the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting endorsed the establishment of the PRG. The novel multinational military initiative aims to deepen cooperation to improve Pacific military support for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR). Aiming to be of immediate use to the region, the first step in establishing the PRG was to co-locate an advisory capability in Brisbane available for rapid deployment (originally referred to as the Pacific Special Advisory Team in official announcements).

The PRG is composed of 19 people from across its six member countries—Australia, Fiji, France, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga. It deployed to its first disaster just before Christmas, when a planning team of six arrived in Vanuatu to offer advice and support after the devastating earthquake in Port Vila. Since Port Vila’s recovery could be handled by civilian heavy machinery and by urban search and rescue, the PRG planning team quickly determined that a greater military response was not required.

It probably wasn’t what the PRG was expecting for its first call-out: to deploy to a country that lacked a military and deal with a disaster that didn’t require military support. But it was an important and successful exercise in responding fast and exiting in a timely and appropriate manner. There is valuable experience to be gained in practising deployment and communication in the early days of a disaster response.

As we exit the high-risk weather season, October to March, PRG members will return to their home countries, and their deployment response time will rise from 48 to 72 hours. While cyclones are far less likely, the low-risk weather season does not actually bring a much lower disaster risk for most countries. The PRG will stay active and seek to get involved where possible in Pacific national disaster planning exercises, including regional exercises such as Longreach and the French-led Croix du Sud.

But the PRG is still trying to develop its image and brand. Not all national disaster management offices are fully aware of the group, its mission, its capabilities and its plans. Greater engagement is needed across the region, not only from PRG personnel but from officials in-country who regularly engage with government and non-government disaster management organisations.

As the current host of the PRG and the country with the largest regional footprint, Australia should take the lead in promoting the group through diplomatic channels and encourage other partners to do so where possible. The PRG should also develop its online presence to provide the public with more information about the group and its aims and activities.

The PRG should also prioritise establishing appropriate legal mechanisms for the group to enter Pacific countries when requested. Because of the multinational nature of the PRG, it does not neatly fall under any bilateral agreements, such as status of force agreements, that Australia and other military countries may have in the region that enable their forces to enter efficiently upon request.

In March, Pacific security leaders convened at the annual Joint Heads of Pacific Security meeting in Port Moresby, where PRG operations were discussed as part of a regional operations deployment framework. The framework would ‘close a gap in existing regional security architecture by providing a common mechanism to support Pacific-led responses to Pacific security challenges’, according to the meeting’s joint communique.

This would be an efficient way to support PRG operations in the region, in addition to other initiatives such as the Pacific Police Support Group (a multinational deployable police capability). But a complicated regional framework would require endorsement by Pacific leaders and could take years to negotiate and finalise.

In the meantime, the PRG should still consider how it will grow to better meet the needs of the region in coming years. Our October report, Stepping up military support to humanitarian assistance in the Pacific, provides further targeted recommendations for Australia and other PRG members to consider as the group continues to take shape.

Humanitarian assistance in the Pacific should be led by Pacific countries

In the Pacific, the rush among partner countries to be seen as the first to assist after disasters has become heated as part of ongoing geopolitical contest. As partners compete for strategic influence in the region, humanitarian interests should not be sidelined.

Instead, partners to Pacific island countries can advance both humanitarian and political interests by prioritising humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) initiatives that are Pacific-led, resilience-based and—ideally—Pacific-owned.

Not only is HADR important for meeting humanitarian needs; it helps partner countries gain visibility and strengthen relationships. When Cyclone Yasa hit Fiji in 2020, Richard Marles, acting Labor leader at the time, emphasised the importance of Australian readiness to support Fiji. He suggested that Australia should ‘remain the natural partner of choice for the countries of the Pacific and central to that is our standing ready to provide whatever assistance is required.’ Australia has since demonstrated this readiness, for example by deploying its first relief flight within 24 hours of the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck Vanuatu in December 2024.

HADR operations also provide opportunities for signalling capability. China did so when it displayed its range of military capabilities, deploying  army vessels and planes in response to disasters in Tonga and Vanuatu. Furthermore, HADR exercises such as Bhakti Kanyini, a multinational exercise conducted in Darwin in 2024, can improve interoperability among partners and support collective responses.

However, we have observed that these cooperative dynamics are now increasingly marked by contestation among partners. For example, French officials noted that France and the European Union were initially omitted from reporting on HADR efforts in Tonga in 2022, with reports largely crediting only Australia and New Zealand. Competition between external actors can also lead to miscommunication and impede the delivery of assistance, as Australia and China found during the 2020 response to Cyclone Harold in Vanuatu.

New HADR initiatives also raise old questions about how militaries, often among the first on the scene to offer support, can effectively interact and coordinate with other military and civilian-military partners.

Our story map of HADR architecture shows how traditional alliances that support HADR, including the FRANZ (France, Australia, New Zealand) arrangement and the Quad, have been joined by newer initiatives such as the Australia-led Pacific Response Group and the Pacific Humanitarian Warehousing Program, which is supported by Partners in the Blue Pacific and France.

But these initiatives are led by partners, not Pacific island countries. An earlier justification for this was that only Fiji, Tonga and PNG have militaries. However, these militaries are now noticeably far more involved in regional disaster responses, and their national disaster management offices are taking the lead.

Partners can advance humanitarian interests in the region by minimising contestation and competition around HADR. They should share knowledge and expectations, strengthening preparedness and supporting predictability. These partners should develop a Pacific islands-centric handbook on disaster management that captures disaster risk profiles, national frameworks and actors for disaster management, as well as arrangements for requesting assistance and civil-military coordination approaches in different countries.

The United Nations has set out basic guidelines in this area, but the document does not detail country-specific policies, frameworks or responsibilities of national actors. And while the UN has, in recent years, created a set of recommended practices based on lessons learned, it is unclear how these have been adopted at the national level in Pacific countries, each of which has unique structures, protocols and systems. A regional handbook would be a useful way to establish local approaches to effective civil-military interaction and coordination of disaster relief.

This initiative should be developed through the Pacific Disaster Risk Reduction Ministers Meeting, which could help ensure that the outcomes reflect Pacific priorities, preferences and needs. It should work within the existing regional security architecture while avoiding duplication, a key issue under the 2018 Boe Declaration on Regional Security.

By capturing current processes and arrangements, a handbook would also be a useful resource in the development of regional standard operating procedures and coordination mechanism for HADR, key actions proposed within the Boe Declaration Action Plan.

The Pacific is one of the world’s most disaster-prone regions, and climate change is only increasing the destructive power of weather events such as tropical cyclones. Partners of Pacific island countries need to prepare accordingly. They must support Pacific-led preparedness initiatives so that they can build shared knowledge and mutual understanding, strengthen partnerships and meet future humanitarian needs.

The permanent Australia-China contest in the South Pacific

Foreign Minister Penny Wong in 2024 said that ‘we’re in a state of permanent contest in the Pacific—that’s the reality.’

China’s arrogance hurts it in the South Pacific. Mark that as a strong Australian card in this permanent contest.

The Chinese navy’s no-notice live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea have become another talking point in Australia’s effort to deny Beijing a Pacific island naval base.

Canberra can offer the South Pacific this argument: ‘Do you want to host Chinese warships so they can play deadly cowboy games in your waters?’

As Australia prepares for a national election in May, China’s Pacific ambitions are again making headlines. During the 2022 election campaign, Wong lashed the Coalition government after Solomon Islands signed a security agreement with China, calling it ‘the worst Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of World War II’. Around that time, China sent a surveillance ship down Australia’s west coast.

Australia must become used to China’s blue water navy noodling around our shores, and not just during elections.

As with its navy, China’s Pacific ambitions have expanded. In the past 10 to 15 years, Beijing has shifted from pursuing one core aim in the islands—the diplomatic contest with Taiwan. Now it seeks, even demands, great power entitlements. My rough timeline for the shift says the great power assertiveness has been to the fore for the past 10 to 15 years.

In 1975, Fiji became the first Pacific islands state to give diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China. For the next 40 years, China’s overriding purpose was to beat Taiwan in the cheque-book battle for diplomatic recognition. By 2005, China was ahead: seven island states recognised the PRC while six recognised Taiwan. Today, only three island states have diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

With the flag battle mostly won, China has settled into the permanent contest. That’s why Wong has made more visits to the islands than any previous Australian foreign minister. Taking up the diplomatic duel, Wong headed to Fiji in her first week as minister, saying:  ‘Strategic contest will challenge us in new ways. We understand that the security of any one Pacific family member rests on security for all.’

As China probes, Australia steadily responds, building on what we already have.  As Sean Dorney, one of Australia’s great Pacific correspondents, said: ‘Thank God for China! Now Australia has to pay attention.’

Dorney’s point is simply that China reminds Australia of what we should be doing anyway. When Australia speaks of being the region’s partner of choice–economically, politically and strategically—it defines a lesser role for China.

Australia’s response draws on the calm approach used to stare down coercion and sanctions during the five-year icy age from 2017 to 2022, and three years of slow rebalance.

In this grand competition, Australia has the huge multilateral advantage of being in the region. Canberra strives to win the bilateral contests. More than Beijing, Canberra is explicit in stating its defence aims, signing agreements with Nauru and Tuvalu giving Australia veto rights over security partnerships with other countries. The response to claims of paternalism or colonialism is that Australia holds up island states by holding them close.

The next step is negotiation of a defence treaty with Papua New Guinea, building on the 2023 Australia-PNG security agreement.  China has changed the level of the security pledge Australia offers PNG.

Because of PNG’s shared border with Indonesia, Canberra had always been cautious about a full defence treaty with Port Moresby. The moral hazard fear was that PNG might take risks Australia would have to cover, and Australia was wary of going to war with Indonesia because of PNG’s actions.

Paul Dibb tells the story of accompanying Australia’s then defence minister, Kim Beazley, to a Jakarta meeting with Benny Moerdani in the 1980s. Indonesia’s defence chief asked if Australia would fight for PNG, to which Beazley replied: ‘We’d fight to the last man, but we wouldn’t tell them that.’ Such are the contortions when moral hazard meets strategic imperative. China has wiped away that old caution.

When PNG Prime Minister James Marape addressed the Australian parliament last year, he spoke of Australia’s history as a ‘big brother’. This year marks the 50th anniversary of PNG’s independence from Australia, and Marape joined Wong in Canberra on 24 February to welcome Somare-Whitlam scholars, named after the prime ministers of Australia and PNG in 1975.

In her speech, Wong went first to the people dimension: ‘Neighbours, friends, equal partners. One of the nicest things in my job is that the prime minister of Papua New Guinea calls me “sister”.’

In this permanent contest, Australia has unique assets. China makes ambitious offers to South Pacific states. Australia’s great counter-offer is to South Pacific people, as Labor and Coalition governments embrace Australia’s role in the Pacific family.

If New Zealand wants to restate terms with Cook Islands, it should step up support

New Zealand wants to renegotiate its free association agreements with Cook Islands to secure increased transparency in its foreign partnerships. To do so, New Zealand will need to step up its own support and can learn a thing or two from Australia.

Following the announcement of an agreement between the island nation and China this week, New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister, Winston Peters, on Wednesday said his country and Cook Islands needed to ‘reset’ the relationship and ‘re-state the mutual responsibilities and obligations’. He stressed that consultation and transparency was most important.

His stance seems to raise the possibility that New Zealand will seek a power of veto over Cook Islands’ agreements with other countries.

But New Zealand must be careful not to overstep when Pacific sovereignty is at stake: every Pacific island nation is entitled to engage with foreign partners, including China. But Wellington also has a right to ensure that its support to Cook Islands is not jeopardised by engagement with other foreign partners.

This week the Cook Islands government released an action plan for its comprehensive strategic partnership with China. New Zealand is uncomfortable with the Cook Islands government’s lack of consultation with Wellington before the agreement. The deal’s inclusion of cooperation around sea-bed mining, diplomatic missions, maritime cooperation and humanitarian aid must be putting New Zealand even more on edge.

The plan identifies priority areas including economic resilience, environment, cultural exchange, social well-being and regional and multilateral cooperation. It reiterates Cook Island’s commitment to its One-China policy.

Seabed mining, noted as a ‘national priority for the Cook Islands’, remains a key motivator for Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown. The section on maritime cooperation also contains opportunities for cooperation on hydrography, geospatial and foreshore protection, maritime support and attendant infrastructure. This support could provide excuses for increased visits and engagement by Chinese security forces. Disaster management cooperation also strays into New Zealand’s defined role but will likely be limited by distance and emergency response times.

China already engages with Cook Islands at several regional-level forums on fisheries and foreign affairs. But the two countries now commit to bilateral ‘discussions’ before any regional meetings hosted by Cook Islands that China is to attend. China has also been supporting Cook Islands infrastructure development for years, building a court house, police headquarters, sports stadium, school and water supply network. However, not all support has earned favour, with some projects requiring substantial repairs after China’s substandard work.

The action plan notably lacks the security strings that much of the world was worried about. Although Brown promised no security deals, Wellington may still fear the slow-growing Chinese presence and influence that may accompany activities in the plan.

Brown now faces domestic upset. There was a popular protest of over 400 people in the capital (more than one in 40 people in the nation). Opposition party members have filed a motion of no confidence. They are frustrated that the deal is jeopardising the partnership with New Zealand.

In free association with New Zealand, Cook Islands is self-governing, but New Zealand assists in defence, disaster relief and foreign affairs. The 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration is a non-binding agreement to consult with New Zealand on national security issues, but Pacific security has changed dramatically in the past 20 years.

This is where New Zealand can learn from Australia’s new approach.

Over the past two years Australia has redefined competition in the region. Agreements with Nauru, Tuvalu and Papua New Guinea have given Canberra some degree of power to prevent other foreign countries from entering the same security or infrastructure space.

But it hasn’t come cheap.

In Nauru, Australia will provide $100 million in budget support over five years and ensure physical banking services in the country. Under the Nauru-Australia treaty, both countries must agree to any foreign engagement in Nauru’s security, banking and telecommunications sectors and consult on any engagement in critical infrastructure.

Similarly, in Tuvalu, the Falepili Union treaty states, ‘Tuvalu will mutually agree with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other State or entity on security and defence-related matters’. In exchange, Australia is helping address Tuvalu’s climate threats and offering a special visa pathway.

Australia and PNG have just announced plans to restart negotiations on a treaty-level agreement. This follows Australia’s investment in a future PNG National Rugby League team.

In these agreements, Australia has highlighted the lasting value it will provide and has made it clear that foreign competition in the same space will prevent Australian support from reaching its potential.

If New Zealand doesn’t want Cook Islands engaging with China in certain sectors, including those outside traditional security, it will need to show commitment to developing those areas and delivering what Cook Islands needs. It can start by investing more in maritime security and infrastructure and addressing climate threats.

Stepping up in Cook Islands won’t solve all of New Zealand’s issues in the Pacific, with tensions still high in Kiribati and other leaders looking on cautiously. But they can at least start with taking care of their realm.

The Pacific needs greater cyber resilience as malicious actors break into networks

Samoa and Papua New Guinea’s recent experiences with cyber intrusions are the latest reminders of the urgent need for enhanced cybersecurity resilience in the Pacific. What’s needed is capacity building and coordinated response initiatives.

On 11 February Samoa’s Computer Emergency Response Team (SamCERT) issued an advisory warning about APT40, a Chinese state-backed hacking group operating in the region. Days later, reports emerged that Papua New Guinea had suffered an unattributed cyberattack on its tax office, the Internal Revenue Commission, in late January.

SamCERT’s advisory marks the first time a Pacific island country has formally attributed a cyberattack to a China-linked group. While the advisory does not directly name China, it identifies APT40 as the perpetrator behind the cyber intrusion and provides a link to the Australian Signal Directorate’s website that details APT40’s connection with the Ministry of State Security, China’s foreign intelligence agency.

The advisory also warns that the hacking group conducts ‘operations directed at sensitive networks administered by Pacific Island nations’. While this reflects a growing awareness of foreign cyber influence in the Pacific, it also shows the caution that smaller nations exercise when publicly attributing cyber threats to state actors.

APT40, classified as an advanced persistent threat, conducts cyber operations by infiltrating networks and maintaining access. By loitering, it can monitor activity, collect data and carry out more sophisticated attacks targeting high-value accounts, including those of government officials.

This group and this method of operation are not new. Australia, the United States and New Zealand have all previously attributed cyberattacks to APT40. In the Pacific, Palau is the only country that has openly accused China of targeting its digital infrastructure, but didn’t issue technical attribution. Samoa’s willingness to publicly acknowledge this threat is a step towards greater cyber transparency in the Pacific and encourages more open discussions among regional leaders and cybersecurity experts.

Beyond the immediate implications of cyber espionage, these incidents highlight the broader hybrid threats Pacific nations face. Malicious actors often exploit weaknesses in cyber hygiene, including in server exploitation, phishing campaigns and web compromises, to gain initial access to networks. The intersection of cyber operations, economic dependencies and diplomatic sensitivities creates a complex security environment for the Pacific. While raising awareness of cyber threats is crucial, strategic communication must be handled in a way that fosters regional cooperation and builds cyber resilience without unnecessarily escalating geopolitical tensions.

Australia has worked with Pacific nations to enhance their incident response capabilities, provide technical assistance and facilitate information sharing. It has supported initiatives such as the Pacific Cyber Security Operational Network and the Cyber Rapid Assistance to Pacific Incidents and Disasters team. Samoa’s ability to issue a public advisory is, in part, a testament to such capacity-building efforts.

In contrast, Papua New Guinea communicated poorly following a cyberattack on its Internal Revenue Commission that paralysed tax administration functions and potentially exposed sensitive financial data. The commission first characterised the 29 January attack as a ‘system outage’, reflecting deeper structural challenges in the region’s cyber resilience framework, such as infrastructure gaps and bureaucratic red tape.

While it’s ideal for organisations to be transparent about being victims of a cyberattack, this requires a level of cyber maturity. Doing so effectively would require a level of technical capability and strategic communications preparedness to manage public awareness and response that many of these institutions in the Pacific have not yet built.

Governments in the Pacific recognise the importance of cybersecurity. PNG launched its National Cyber Security Strategy in 2024 joining several other countries who have published or are drafting their own. But many still face limitations in resources, technical expertise and infrastructure.

Pacific nations and international partners need to prioritise strengthening national computer emergency response teams and fostering regional cooperation. Enhancing incident detection and response capability, as well as promoting intelligence sharing across borders will help mitigate future cyber threats.

Arguably, Australia’s strategic investments in the region’s digital infrastructure, including high-capacity subsea cables, are important to digital transformation in the region. But transformation is outpacing cybersecurity preparedness, creating a widening gap that exposes critical institutions to cyber threats. Support must be matched with comprehensive and sustained cybersecurity capacity-building programs that raise Pacific nations’ agency—not just token efforts.

Although Australia has committed to building cyber capacity across the region, its support should extend beyond government networks to include businesses, critical infrastructure operators and civil society. Long-term resilience will come from increasing public awareness, developing a skilled cybersecurity workforce and integrating cyber resilience into national security strategies.

At least, Australia needs to gather like-minded partners, such as Japan, France and India, to coordinate investment in Pacific cybersecurity, ensuring that the region is equipped with the necessary tools and expertise to counter the growing sophistication of cyber adversaries.

In its Indo-Pacific strategy, France should engage more with Pacific islanders

France is still expected to unveil a long-awaited update to its Indo-Pacific strategy. This should be an opportunity for it to do more in the region. 

Its current Indo-Pacific strategy relies on two visions: one is more defence-industry-oriented, focusing mainly on the Western part of this supra-region, and another is geographically and thematically more comprehensive. 

But France should also consider a bottom-up approach in the Pacific, focussed on engaging with Pacific islanders. 

Even if the word ‘inclusive’ was no longer used in President Emmanuel Macron’s speech in January, the idea is still in the air, as he said ‘there is no confrontation [with China]’. But an updated idea of inclusivity should extend beyond China to not only Pacific island countries but also local actors.  

In the Pacific, for now, Paris relies on little-known liaison officers (in Hawaii, Singapore and South Korea) plus officers of the Directorate of Cooperation of Security and Defence, in Indonesia and Fiji. Now France is increasing its presence. 

For example, last year, the ambassador to the Pacific moved from mainland France to New Caledonia.  

France is also doing more in terms of defence. In 2023 Macron announced the Pacific Academy, which will provide training for regional military and internal-security officials. As security competition increasingly extends to police forces—with Australia and China signing deals with various Pacific island states—France’s contribution is channelled through a Pacific police attache based in Canberra. 

France is also engaged in the region’s climate threats, having launched the Kiwa Initiative at the 2017 One Planet Summit in Paris. 

Furthermore, two years after Australia’s decision to shift to Britain and the United States as its future submarine partners soured relations with France, Canberra and Paris signed a new roadmap for bilateral cooperation in 2023. The roadmap promotes cooperation in the fields of defence, climate and education, with an emphasis on the South Pacific. 

As momentum builds behind an updated French Indo-Pacific strategy, it is time to pay more attention to Pacific island countries. To that end, France should highlight the idea of empathy and shift the focal point away from US-China competition to topics more aligned with the local concerns, particularly those related to human security—protecting rights, health and prosperity. 

For example, French and Pacific citizens are facing the same challenges at sea including illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, rising sea-levels and possible ill-effects of deep-sea mining. France has long experience in maritime domain awareness. This means it can contribute to regional maritime security efforts. 

Satellites of France-based Unseenlabs can locate ships using radio-frequency detection,  complementing US maritime domain awareness activities in the region. And France was the first to provide assistance after the natural disasters in Tonga in 2022 and in Vanuatu in 2024 through the established France-Australia-New Zealand trilateral aid mechanism. 

In January, the French-led military Exercise La Perouse, named after a French naval explorer, kicked off with eight other Indo-Pacific navies. In the spirit of the explorer, who criticised those who ‘write their books by the fireside’, France should consider other avenues to engage with Pacific islanders themselves. 

For a start, France should be more attentive to the Pacific young leaders. If not, other countries will not wait to offer them grants and to profit from their burgeoning expertise. 

Secondly, in an age of information warfare, contributions to regional media, offering translations and different views, have heightened importance. The Pacific Islands News Association has previously provided a French version of its newsletters. Reviving this could be reconsidered. 

Thirdly, local leaders, NGOs and keepers of ancestral knowledge should be closely involved and associated with the process of applied research. 

To sustain such dialogues, Paris might soon rely on Noumea’s emerging (geo)political science research community. Similarly, the University of French Polynesia could be organising a third edition of its conference series on Great Powers in the Pacific. 

Even at the regional level, Indo-Pacific strategies are not so open or inclusive, despite a new focus on the Global South. While minilateral forums create the impression of a close-knit and liberal diplomatic community, exclusively built around like-minded, great and middle-ranked powers, the time has come to gather more widely. With this aim, there is no need to reinvent the diplomatic wheel when one can, for example, build on the promising Pacific Dialogue on Security in Suva. 

Taking inspiration from the long-discussed centrality of the Association of Southeast Asian nations, a think tank supported by regional universities or an annual 1.5 dialogue—such as those in Singapore, Manama, Dakar and Munich, but enriched with more local participants—might offer opportunities for Pacific island states to recentre talks around themselves and set the agenda. 

New Zealand’s trouble in paradise

New Zealand is taking too hasty and too abrasive an approach to Pacific islands, putting leadership in the region on edge. We see this in a bungled attempt to visit Kiribati that led to a threat to withdraw aid and in a tense public stand-off with Cook Islands over a looming agreement with China.

In January, Kiribati President Taneti Maamau told New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters he would be unavailable to meet during a trip by Peters to Kiribati. On receiving the news, which came only a week before the scheduled visit, Peters and the New Zealand delegation chose not to meet with another Kiribati representative and instead cancelled the trip.

Shortly after, Peters said New Zealand would review its aid to Kiribati.

While Peters regrets the publicity that the issue has generated, he has continued to stress that accountability works both ways in the Pacific. New Zealand had a responsibility to its taxpayers to ensure international aid is meeting its objectives, he said, adding that ‘the lack of political-level contact makes it very difficult for us to agree on joint priorities’ and ‘deliver good value for money.’

Peters isn’t necessarily wrong. It is hard to deliver support without talking things over at the right levels. But the sudden change in approach was abrasive and has only worsened relations. Other statements from Peters, such as labelling the Pacific ‘our backyard’, come with paternalism.

New Zealand is not alone in its frustration with Kiribati. Australian diplomats have struggled to engage optimally there for quite some time, and Maamau, to focus on domestic issues, suspended international diplomatic visits to the country in the lead up to its elections last year. Since his re-election, Maamau appears to have doubled down, delegating bilateral engagements to other ministers.

Australia recently faced a choice similar to New Zealand’s. However, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles stuck with a plan to travel to Kiribati to deliver a patrol boat, even without an opportunity to meet Maamau. Australia ‘remains committed to its longstanding partnership,’ he said. Commitment through frustration is a healthy way to mend partnerships.

Australia also faces the challenge of justifying spending in the region to its taxpayers, particularly after the announcement of a $600 million deal to set up a Papua New Guinea team in the National Rugby League deal. But in that case, it is justifying additional support, whereas Peters has raised the possibility of taking away existing support that is highly valuable for the 120,000 people of Kiribati.

There is some concern that if the relationship continues to sour, New Zealand will be pushing Kiribati towards China. Beijing has an embassy in the country and police on the ground providing training and other assistance. While New Zealand has provided more than $90 million in aid since 2021, its support remains appreciated but not irreplaceable. Following through on threats to step away will only take New Zealand out of the contest, placing more pressure on Australia and the US to pick up the slack before China does. New Zealand should show patience and commitment to its partnership with Kiribati.

Now, New Zealand’s attention has shifted to a closer member of their Pacific family: the self-governing country of Cook Islands, which is in free association with New Zealand.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown says he will visit Beijing this week to sign a comprehensive strategic partnership with China and will not need New Zealand ‘sitting in the room’. Brown said he had assured New Zealand ‘over and over’ that there would be no surprises in relation to security and that Cook Islands would announce the details of the agreement publicly once it was signed.

The country’s free association with New Zealand means that the nation conducts its own affairs, but New Zealand assists in defence, disaster relief and foreign affairs. We don’t yet know whether the strategic partnership agreement with China will relate to these subjects. Brown has reiterated that New Zealand has its own comprehensive partnership with China and didn’t consult the Cook Islands when agreeing to it, nor did he expect it to.

Again, in engaging with Cook Islands, New Zealand’s abrasive public response has caused friction. Last week, a Cook Islands proposal to create its own passports was abandoned after New Zealand, in Brown’s words, ‘bared its teeth in response’.

New Zealand needs to be cautious in its responses to Pacific island actions.

Even if the deal between the Cook Islands and China is revealed as disagreeable, its intentions might not ultimately be achieved. When details are available, New Zealand should encourage community consultation. It can still express concerns fairly and detail why certain objectives might affect its relationship with Cook Islands.

Stubbornness will not aid engagement with the Pacific family. Increasing support, not withdrawing it, will demonstrate what can be gained from greater partnership and trust.

In Pacific island countries, Trump should pursue embassy transformation

The Biden administration struggled with adequately advancing US national security and foreign policy interests in the Pacific islands. The problem was that the White House failed to select the right business concept to pursue.

What is needed is not simply a strategic pivot. What is needed is a business transformation. That requires more than reform and modernisation. It requires a radical rethinking and restructuring of the core business processes of the US embassies and consulates to the Pacific island countries.

Until that happens, Washington’s foreign policy establishment will be unable to afford to compete with revisionist authoritarian powers seeking to displace US influence in the Pacific islands.

Unfortunately, such organisational change cannot be achieved overnight. Among other things, it will require new executive leadership teams, and ambassadorial confirmations for Pacific island countries are notoriously slow. However, that does not mean that the new Trump administration cannot change the status quo at US diplomatic missions in the region by the end of the first 100 days. Here are four suggestions that could help to get the ball rolling.

First, the administration should systematically assess the strategic planning of the State Department in the Pacific. As a matter of policy, each mission is supposed to create a multi-year strategic plan that declare the United States’ whole-of-government priorities in ‘a given country’.

The plain meaning of the phrase ‘in a given country’ suggests that the requirement is to produce an integrated country strategy for every independent state of concurrent accreditation. In practice, that does not always happen. For example, the US embassy to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga, and Tuvalu produced a single integrated country strategy for what it refers to as ‘five diverse and geographically distant Pacific Island nations’.

The Trump administration should consider providing different guidance and instructions to missions that cover multiple countries. That revision might stipulate that the mission is to produce separate integrated country strategies for each of the countries, followed by an integrated mission strategy that synthesises the individual country plans.

Second, Trump should re-evaluate the concurrent accreditation of the diplomatic staff at the US embassy in Fiji to Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu. These countries span the Pacific’s cultural subregions, Fiji being part of Melanesia, Nauru and Kiribati within Micronesia and Tonga and Tuvalu forming part of Polynesia.

The Trump administration should consider restructuring the US diplomatic footprint across the region. While current arrangements may reflect logistical and resource constraints, a more strategic approach would create three subregional complexes of US embassies, consulates and consular agencies. Within each of these complexes, key business functions would be centralised to promote efficiency and thereby reduce costs.

Under this strategic approach, the Melanesian complex would be composed of the US embassies in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The Micronesian complex would be composed of the US embassies in Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau. And the Polynesian complex would be composed of the US embassies in Samoa and Tonga and the US Consular Agency in French Polynesia.

Under this structure, it would make sense for the concurrent accreditation for Kiribati and Nauru to shift to the US embassy in Marshall Islands until the US embassy in Kiribati is established. Similarly, it would make sense for the concurrent accreditation for Tuvalu to switch to the US embassy in Samoa.

Third, the White House should re-evaluate the regional diplomatic posture of the US in foreign dependencies and areas of special sovereignty. In the Caribbean, the US has an independent mission for Aruba, Curacao and Sint Maarten, which are constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In East Asia, the US has an independent mission for Hong Kong and Macau, which are special administrative regions of the People’s Republic of China.

In the Pacific, the US recently established diplomatic relations with the Cook Islands and Niue, self-governing states in free association with New Zealand. Following these precedents, the Trump administration should re-evaluate the diplomatic terminology used to describe other foreign dependencies, areas of special sovereignty and sovereign independence movement territories across the region.

Fourth, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of State should address the gap that exists in inspections of the US embassies in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Under the Foreign Service Act of 1980, the office is required to inspect every US diplomatic post at least once every five years.

Unfortunately, that requirement is rarely met in practice, thanks to waivers from the United States Congress. The most recent inspection reports for the US embassies in Fiji and Samoa were a decade and a half ago. Shockingly, that was before the US pivot to Asia ever really started in earnest.

Pacific security in 2025

2025 will be a big year for Pacific security as Pacific island nations grapple with upcoming elections, disaster recovery, watching the situation in New Caledonia and navigating geopolitical tensions. The Australian government will be kept busy as it seeks to remain the region’s primary security partner.

In 2024, tensions escalated into unrest in New Caledonia, many Pacific countries faced political instability, natural disasters caused devastation across the region, and Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong declared that Australia and China are in a ‘permanent state of contest’.

Many of the same security challenges will feature in 2025, but new regional security initiatives and new governments could change how they are addressed.

In 2025, we can expect national elections in Australia, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Tonga and Vanuatu.

The Tongan and Vanuatu elections will follow political instability of late last year.

Tonga’s new prime minister, Aisake Eke, was voted in by parliament on Christmas Eve, following Siaosi Sovaleni’s resignation in the face of a looming motion of no confidence earlier in December. Eke will have less than a year to deliver before Tonga returns to the polls.

Vanuatu will hold snap national elections on 16 January after the president dissolved parliament in mid-November as a result of ongoing instability. Like most elections, people primarily will vote based on domestic issues, particularly as the country faces a lengthy rebuild of Port Vila following the December earthquake. But the election could have greater implications for regional security than usual.

Over the past few years, Australia has pursued a security agreement with Vanuatu. However, the proposed agreement has contributed to political instability and leadership change. While new leadership may present an opportunity to progress the agreement, continuing political instability may obstruct security development.

Even if the agreement remains stalled, the Australian government will have its hands full delivering on the promises it’s made across the region.

Just before Christmas, Australia made a flurry of announcements with Pacific partners—including Nauru, PNG and Solomon Islands—demonstrating its commitment to security in the region. Those agreements are in addition to commitments through Pacific owned and led regional security initiatives financed by Australia, such as the Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) and Pacific Response Group.

The ‘permanent contest’ with China has shifted Australia’s approach to Pacific policy. In making agreements, Canberra has started adding conditions that support government’s aim of being the region’s primary security partner.

Agreements with Nauru and PNG, as well as the Tuvalu–Australia Falepili Union, have shown that Australia wants to ensure that its efforts, investments and infrastructure are adequately secured. In 2025 and beyond, Australia should ensure these agreements are transparent—for example, by detailing the strings attached to the deal to create a PNG team for Australia’s National Rugby League. This would set Australia apart from others, such as China, which still hasn’t made public any details of its 2022 security agreement with Solomon Islands.

Unfortunately, natural disasters and environmental challenges are almost certain in 2025. Humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations will be necessary as we approach the peak of the 2024–25 high-risk weather season.

The Pacific Response Group should provide a platform for regional military coordination on disaster response, but there’s still plenty of work to be done to show how it will interact with civilian or regional relief mechanisms, such as the PPI.

Competition with China is likely to continue to creep into this space, and those wary of China’s influence will be watching the use of aid in the battle for hearts and minds.

New Caledonia will also remain on the radar of many, with little progress being made on political negotiations. Political instability in Noumea and Paris is affecting efforts to recover from the 2024 riots. Pacific nations are ready to support New Caledonia and, if progress isn’t made before the Pacific Islands Forum this year, additional missions to the French overseas territory could occur.

Many eyes will be on the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, to be hosted by Solomon Islands in September. Positive security outcomes of last year’s meeting, including endorsement of the PPI, were overshadowed by a controversial change in recognition of Taiwan in an official statement. China is likely to further push Pacific nations to cut ties with Taiwan and undermine its legitimacy in regional forums, and Honiara might be more lenient towards Chinese pressure.

Pacific countries will have to ensure their voices are heard when navigating these tensions. To this end, Fiji and Vanuatu released their first foreign policy white papers last year, and in April PNG will table its first since 1981.

In September, PNG will celebrate its 50th anniversary of independence, so the month will be busy for Pacific leaders. Development partners will seek to capitalise on the occasion, making large announcements in partnership with PNG.

Very few of the events in 2024 could have been accurately predicted, including leadership changes, unrest and disasters. This year will be no exception, and the region and its partners must be ready, as always, to adapt.

Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘A PNG view on recruitment for the ADF: yes, please’

Originally published on 12 August 2024.

Papua New Guineans should serve in the Australian Defence Force. As a Papua New Guinean, I believe this would instill Western values of democracy and freedom in our young people, who must be made to realise that these principles are under threat as China expands its influence in the region.

Australian military service would also provide employment for young people from PNG and other Pacific island countries, giving them real life skills.

As Australia considers the possibility of Pacific recruitment, it must understand that this would not just be a way to make up the ADF personnel shortfall. It would also help the countries from which service personnel were drawn, demonstrating good will towards the Pacific and going well beyond mere words in promoting their alignment with the West.

In general, the Pacific islands would prefer to align with Australia and the United States rather than China, but this view is predominantly held by older people, especially those who remember what they call the good times of the colonial era. In contrast, the younger people do not care greatly whether their countries are aligned to the West or not.

Service in the ADF would do more than bind many young people in PNG and other Pacific island countries to Australia. It would also teach them the moral values that come with military service, values that are lacking among far too many of them, especially in PNG. And they would take those values back home after completing their ADF service, to the gratification of their fellow citizens, not least their extended families.

Serving in the armed forces of a sturdily democratic country such as Australia would also reinforce democratic values that are fast eroding in the Pacific islands.

Terms of service for Pacific island people should require them to return home after, say, nine years in the ADF. If they later wanted to apply for Australian citizenship, they could be given preferential treatment, but only after at least five years serving in the armed forces of their home countries.

This should be an important feature of Pacific recruitment. Pacific defence and security forces are short on skills and suffer declining disciplinary and ethical standards. The infusion of ex-ADF people would address both problems. For the PNG Defence Force, the skills transfer would be particularly effective, because almost all its equipment has been donated by Australia.

If Pacific islanders did not shift from the ADF to their home countries’ forces, their skills would still benefit their countries in non-military employment.

In return for giving Pacific islands these benefits, Australia would gain from their labour availability. Pacific island countries, such as PNG, have economies that are not growing much but populations that have exploded, leaving many well educated young people unemployed.

The $600 million that Canberra plans to spend on establishing a team from PNG in the Australian Rugby League competition would be far better spent on ADF recruitment in the country. It would employ far more PNG people if it were. And rugby league does not teach life skills, whereas ADF service would provide that and other much deeper benefits.

Crucially, Pacific countries must be treated as equal partners in defence of democracy and freedom. It is not their politicians but their people who must realise that Western values that they enjoy, such as democracy and freedom of speech, are not guaranteed.

They must also be reassured that the Pacific islands are not merely a military buffer against a threat to Australia. Young Papua New Guineans, who have a better grasp of geopolitics than their parents, are increasingly of the view that PNG must not be treated as useful cannon fodder in a possible war. If they think that that is Australia’s attitude, any sense of loyalty or partnership will vanish.

They can see what China is doing to enlarge its influence and what the US is doing in response. In my experience, they are not clear about what Australia is doing, as distinct from what it is merely saying, to demonstrate commitment to the region.

In the spirit of equal partnership, the ADF should avoid creating a Pacific Regiment, one composed entirely of Pacific recruits, as that would give rise to criticisms of colonialism and second-class status. Instead, as recommended by former British Army officer Ross Thompson, it should follow the model that Britain uses for Fijian recruits: it should spread Pacific islanders across a range of units.

Australia needs to demonstrate its commitment to Pacific island countries. The best way it can do so is by giving Pacific islanders the benefits of service in the ADF.