Tag Archive for: Pacific Islands

Pacific initiatives need transparency and ground rules to reduce harmful competition

It’s time for the Pacific to talk about ground rules in the security sector.

The Pacific Response Group (PRG) is expected to be endorsed at this week’s South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting in New Zealand. For this group, and the recently announced Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI), to succeed, participants must agree on ground rules concerning the training received and the type of equipment used by participating nations.

Australia doesn’t have to lead the way in setting these rules, but it should encourage the conversation. China will probably try to delegitimise these initiatives and turn the conversation into one about competition and paternalism. Australia should push back against such statements.

Ground rules are needed to ensure greater interoperability and effectiveness between the forces. If Pacific countries are to spend time, effort and resources on these regional security initiatives, all participating countries must be willing to have the tough conversations to make them work.

Greater security effectiveness is the primary reason for clear ground rules. There is no need for duplication of effort from multiple partners for training or equipment. Such duplication would only cause confusion between the different approaches in practice. Many Pacific countries have said they can be easily overburdened by offers of assistance that aren’t filling gaps.

Groups participating in the PPI should be receiving the same training, and when they’re in training, they should use the same equipment as they would when deployed in the region under these security initiatives.

These ground rules in question shouldn’t be designed to be extensive, burdensome or restrictive for relationships. They should be practical in creating mutual understanding of where additional external support is not needed. For example, the training that PPI participants receive at the Pinkenba facility in Australia or in any of the future regional centres of excellence shouldn’t be duplicated by other partners through other initiatives. At the same time, militaries participating in PRG operations shouldn’t use communications equipment that is incompatible with the rest of the group.

Nor should these ground rules infringe on the sovereignty of any country or its ability to have a security partnership with other countries. The goal should be to facilitate cooperation on areas that doesn’t impact these larger concerns. However, these mutually agreed upon ground rules should come with understood consequences. Failure to comply with them would hurt the initiatives underway and by extension the security of the rest of the participating Pacific nations. There needs to be regional commitment to the success of these initiatives.

While such discussions are likely already happening behind the scenes, there should be greater public awareness of them. Transparency helps those being supported by these security initiatives to understand how and why they are being developed, which will also combat external efforts to undermine their success. Pacific leaders will need to step up to take ownership of some of these decisions. Equally, Australia, as a member of these initiatives,  should encourage and support these efforts to agree on ground rules for the acceptance of external assistance.

Unfortunately, China will challenge any discussions of this sort. It tries to undermine the advancement of any partnerships between Australia and the Pacific, even when they benefit the region. This has already been demonstrated by China’s attempt to prevent the endorsement of the PPI by Pacific leaders. Chinese narratives seized on statements by Australian ministers that they are in a state of ‘permanent contest’ with Beijing and see ‘no need for Chinese police’ in the region to paint the PPI as a deceptive Australian-led initiative designed to control the region and block China out of the security space. The contest with China cannot be allowed to interfere with the development of these Pacific owned and led initiatives that are designed to provide enormous benefit to the region. If anything, China’s attempts to stymie these initiatives prove the necessity of the ground rules.

Australia’s current strategy appears to be to lay low and try to avoid stirring up trouble or concern in this area. It’s likely the Australian government believes that if it’s not outspoken, it’s less likely to offend other Pacific leaders or have its actions be portrayed as competitive. Instead, Australian leaders presume that these conversations can be handled behind closed doors. But that strategy isn’t working, especially when China doesn’t play by those same rules. There is an information void, at the very least in public communications, and China is seeking to exploit that void to promote its own narrative and agenda. Clear ground rules and public conversation will narrow the information gap.

Ground rules on accepted training and equipment will reduce the kind of competition between external powers that harms regional development, and they will allow region-owned security initiatives to reach their full potential.

Despite the resources boom, PNG poverty is still sky high

The people of Papua New Guinea have derived no measurable benefit from the resource boom, unlike the populations of all other resource-rich nations.

A World Bank study shows that while the PNG economy achieved rapid, resource-driven growth from 2009 to 2017, multiple measures show levels of poverty remained the same and are among the worst in the world.

The study’s findings highlight the failure of the PNG state to provide basic services to a large share of its population, despite both the flow of resource-derived taxation and rising levels of foreign aid.

As PNG also ranks at the bottom of Transparency International’s corruption measures in the Pacific region, lack of governance is a recipe for social instability.

The World Bank surveyed 16,000 households across most regions in the country between 2016 and 2018. It found that 39.3 percent of the population were living on less than World Bank’s international poverty line of US$2.15 a day (at 2017 prices).

This was almost identical to the 39.7 percent found to be below the poverty line in a smaller, but still comprehensive, World Bank survey of 4100 PNG households in 2009.

The World Bank also looks at other indicators of poverty, including whether adults have completed primary school, whether children are enrolled at school and whether people have access to electricity, basic sanitation and drinking water. Approximately 42 percent of the population lives in a household with poor school attendance; 61 percent does not have access to good drinking water; and more than 80 percent has poor access to electricity and sanitation.

On this multi-dimensional measure, 74.5 percent of the PNG population is in poverty, ranking the country 120th among 122 where the World Bank has conducted similar studies. It is on par with Chad, Malawi and Niger. There was no improvement in any of the non-monetary measures between the two surveys.

‘The fact that PNG has some of the highest share of deprivations anywhere in the world is surprising given the relatively large level of resource-related economic activity occurring in the country’, the World Bank said.

PNG has rich and developed resources of oil, natural gas, gold, copper and nickel. Between 2010 and 2017, the country averaged annual economic growth rates of just under 4 percent, peaking at 10 percent in 2014. Export revenue and business investment were rising rapidly.

Because of the resources boom, the GDP per person soared. After allowing for inflation, there was a 29 percent gain between 2009 and 2017, when it reached US$2333. This was about the level of Ukraine, Honduras and Laos at that time. However, the level of monetary poverty in these three countries was only 6.6 percent, while the broader World Bank measure of poverty, including access to education and services was 8.9 percent.

The countries with similar levels of poverty to PNG—Niger, Chad and Malawi—have GDP per person of only US$500 or less. Other countries with high levels of poverty had all achieved significant improvements in at least four of the five non-monetary measures of poverty, as had other low income, but resource-rich nations.

While the resources sector accounts for about 30 percent of PNG’s economy, it is a relatively small employer. Spillover benefits to the rest of the country would depend on either the resources sector stimulating activity in other economic sectors or on the government redistributing its increased revenue through payments or improved supply of essential services. Neither has occurred in PNG.

The study notes that in addition to the flow of resource-based taxes and royalties, the PNG government has also benefited from increased foreign aid from both Australia and the United States in response to ‘geopolitical’ concerns, meaning Chinese influence.

The study does not analyse the reasons for PNG’s failure to share the benefits of the resources boom, beyond speculating that the poorly developed non-resource private sector was unable capitalise on the boom. That low levels of education, or ‘human capital’, limit the population’s ability to take advantage of economic growth. And ‘a host of governance issues’, including what it termed ‘clientelism’, or the exchange of political favours for monetary returns, limits the effectiveness of administration.

Transparency International surveys have found that corruption is worse in PNG than anywhere else in the Pacific. They found that 96 percent saying members of parliament and staff government leaders’ offices were involved in corruption, while 82 percent said bribes were needed for business to secure government contracts. The survey found 54 percent had personally paid a bribe to get a service in the previous 12 months, while 57 percent had been offered a bribe in an election.

Australia has long been the principal source of foreign aid to PNG, and successive Australian governments have worried about the nation’s social and political stability.

The Australian government’s offer of $400 million in support of its Pacific Policing Initiative at last month’s Pacific Island Forum meeting followed a similar initiative in a security agreement with PNG late last year. That included a contribution of $200 million to strengthen the PNG judiciary, police and correctional services.

It may take more than policing to contain the social pressures building as a result of the failure of the population to receive any benefits from resources sector, however. The disastrous experience of Bougainville’s conflict over Rio Tinto’s copper operations 30 years ago provides a historic parallel, social instability may get worse if the benefits are not provided to the people they are designed to help.

A PNG view on recruitment for the ADF: yes, please

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.

Australia’s Pacific gender agenda: down from rhetoric to reality

Last week was a busy one for gender equality in the Pacific. Yet, what could have been a great opportunity to advance gender equality across the region instead fell on preoccupied ears in Canberra. This speaks to a broader failure of the government to translate its rhetoric to reality when it comes to its Pacific gender agenda.

From 22 to 26 July, the Marshall Islands simultaneously hosted the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women, the 8th Pacific Ministers for Women Meeting and, importantly, the third Pacific Islands Forum Women Leaders Meeting (PIFWLM). PIFWLM gives necessary teeth to the Pacific gender equality architecture. Drawing together senior political leaders, civil-society groups and youth representatives from across the Pacific Islands Forum, the meeting acts as a direct bridge to forum leaders on priority and emerging gender issues.

Unlike in 2023, Minister for Women Katy Gallagher did not make the trip to the Pacific. Instead, she attended the Pacific Ministers for Women Meeting virtually from Canberra and left Australia’s representation at PIFWLM to Australian Ambassador for Gender Equality Stephanie Copus Campbell.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, among Australia’s most successful female leaders, was gearing up to attend the Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting on 29 July. There, she announced a critical project in ‘responding to the Indo-Pacific’s most pressing challenges’—an $18 million ‘cable connectivity and resilience centre’ in the Pacific. On paper, the centre aims to boost Pacific connectivity and resilience; however, it also serves to deny China a stronger presence in critical infrastructure.

The ministerial absence at PIFWLM and the perceived priority on great-power competition fly in the face of Australia’s purported regional identity—the partner of choice in the Pacific, and a global leader in gender equality. Disappointingly, this is not an isolated incident, but is emblematic of a systemic gap between the government’s rhetoric on Pacific gender equality and the reality of its actions.

The most obvious example is Australian official development assistance (ODA) to the Pacific. The 2023–24 Budget allocated $1.433 billion in ODA to the region, 80 percent of it targeted to ‘perform effectively’ on gender equality. On paper, the sum vastly exceeds the contributions of other development partners. However, the breakdown paints a different picture. The proportion of ODA projects with a ‘principal’ objective of progressing gender equality was only 5 percent—a figure that has not increased since 2007. The other projects labelled gender equality as a ‘significant’ objective—the subjectivity of which may induce misinterpretation and tokenistic gender-equality objectives. By comparison, French targets mandate that 75 percent of projects pursue gender equality, and a minimum of 20 percent come from principal projects.

Similar criticism can be directed at the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme. Women make up only 20 percent of PALM participants, hindered by an over-representation of male-dominated industries, inflexible arrangements causing family separation, and the absence of appropriate accommodation and safety measures at employment sites. Furthermore, the ‘win–win’ of PALM often comes at the expense of local women, who are forced to shoulder a greater burden of household work that reduces their ability to engage in paid employment.

To bridge the reality gap, Australia ought to redefine and feminise its approach to Pacific development.

The first step is to engage with Pacific women to determine what development, security and gender equality look like for them. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s $170 million Pacific Women Lead program is a fantastic start on this front, promising to give Pacific women greater ownership of funding initiatives and objectives.

However, there is still a need to boost ‘principal’ investment targets to support transformative change rather than symptom management. As Gallagher said in the Pacific Ministers for Women Meeting, progress on gender equality is rarely the result of a quick win. Instead, investment should include culturally sensitive, targeted and long-term programs to drive meaningful female participation in decision-making, leadership and the economy.

Complementary to this, and where Australia should leverage its expertise, is gender mainstreaming and gender-responsive budgeting. This year’s forum meetings are the first that mainstream gender equality and social inclusion, as mandated by the Revitalised Pacific Leaders Gender Equality Declaration. We should be using the rich capacity within the Australian Public Service, including in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Office for Women and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, to deliver on that declaration.

As geopolitical competition permeates the Pacific’s waters, perhaps the best way for Australia to remain a partner of choice is to not focus on cables but on women. As aptly put by Vainetutai Rose Toki-Brown, the Cook Islands minister of internal affairs and chair of PIFWLM 2023: ‘Let us see each other, hear each other, understand each other, and lean into each other. Let us make history together.’ Australia owes it to itself, and to the women of the Pacific, to heed those words.

Why Australian universities should battle for the Blue Pacific

To the Australian government and academic sectors, Pacific universities seem to be like that short kid on a basketball court—the one who stands patiently on the sidelines, waiting for a chance to be picked that never seems to arrive.

The result is an Australian tertiary system hopelessly under-engaging with universities in our region, particularly in the Blue Pacific—for example, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, countries whose friendship contributes to our national security.

Our universities don’t cooperate operationally with Blue Pacific institutions enough, they have too few students from the region, and they do little joint research with it. Instead, they greatly favour arrangements with China.

There are three domains where universities could play a massive national security role in the Blue Pacific: partnerships, payments and policy.

On partnerships, my colleagues and I reported last year that Australian universities had overwhelmingly favoured making educational and business arrangements with China. They have more than 3800 agreements with Chinese entities, covering such matters as admission; recognition of credit; study abroad and exchange programs; and joint research and degree programs.

In the entire Blue Pacific, excluding New Zealand, we have only 182 agreements in total across 16 nations. There are another 180 or so with New Zealand and 126 with Japan. Even India, the fastest growing tech economy in the world and our second-largest international student market, has only 69 agreements with Australian universities.

And this is happening as China is regarded as, at least, a destabilising force in our region.

So why do our universities partner with it so strongly? Well, in part for the money.

This is where payments comes in. China is Australia’s biggest trading partner and the leading supplier of international students to our universities. A great many students from China can clearly afford an education in Australia. Research with China is also hugely productive: a 2020 study found around one in six scientific papers published by Australians featured a Chinese collaborator.

Pacific students are far less able to afford an Australian education, and we don’t make it easier for those who can. A study in 2022 found massive problems facing Pacific islander students in Australia, including language barriers, new environments and cultures, and racial discrimination.

Our reliance on Chinese students now threatens our national security in a different way. Some of our most research-intensive universities have recently said that they cannot survive without international student fees. We do scant research with Pacific island countries and seem to have no policy to promote it.

That brings us to the third domain: policy, or better put, our lack of policy. Because government policy can deeply influence what universities research, it’s not surprising that Australian researchers aren’t looking to the Pacific for collaboration.

Another driver could be attributed to Australian misconceptions of the Pacific nations, which range from views the region is underdeveloped or primitive to being a tax haven or shipping point for illicit drugs. In the 2024 Lowy Institute Poll, nearly a third of Australians were opposed to relaxing visa requirements for citizens of Pacific island countries. Those requirements exclude many of our Pacific neighbours.

Consider the University of the South Pacific (USP). Often called the region’s pre-eminent tertiary organisation, Australia has been funding the USP for more than 50 years. Yet the USP officially collaborates with only four of Australia’s 43 universities, and just last year New Zealand contributed more than twice as much funding to it as Australia did.

This clearly isn’t acceptable from a national security standpoint. As Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University, said:

An important challenge will be to bring more countries from the Global South into an inclusive Indo-Pacific policy conversation, particularly Southeast Asian and Pacific Island states. These need to include options across a broad landscape of economics, development, sustainability, technology, as well as more traditional notions of defence and security.

The role Australian universities could play is as a go-between in research and teaching connections between the Blue Pacific and our partners Britain, US and Japan.

As universities are pushed to reduce international student intakes, they should be looking to prioritise Blue Pacific nations, not a country that poses a security threat to the region. This will require the government to take research across the Blue Pacific seriously and to incentivise university engagement through partnerships, payments and policy. Rather than capping all international enrolments, perhaps the government could incentivise institutions to correct our under-involvement in the Pacific.

We’ve had plenty of panda diplomacy, wine diplomacy and rugby diplomacy. Perhaps a little university diplomacy might see Australia improve not only its standing but also the whole region’s security.

Business is converging with organised crime in the Pacific islands

Economic diversification is exposing Pacific islands countries to new criminal threats, according to the latest report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

The countries have implemented regulations and policies in tax regimes and company law to attract foreign business and investment, capitalising on their natural resources such as timber, minerals and fish and seizing new digitally enabled opportunities. But these measures are also attracting organised crime that involve private companies.

Many vulnerabilities diminish Pacific Island nations’ resilience in the face of criminal activities. Problems include limited monitoring and enforcement capabilities, inadequate technical skills (to evaluate cryptocurrency schemes, for example), weak or absent due-diligence processes and public service corruption.

Some of the most serious examples of convergence between business and organised crime happen in the logging industries in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. These industries are dominated by Malaysian and Chinese companies that harvest and export timber primarily to China. Although the business operators are legitimate, most of their activities involve illegal practices, including felling of protected species, excessive harvesting and tax avoidance.

In addition to financial and environmental crimes, human trafficking contaminates the Pacific region’s mining, logging and fishing supply chains. Asian men are trafficked to the Pacific islands as labourers. Women and children are trafficked domestically to logging camps for sexual exploitation. The large flow of foreigners is also boosting illicit drug importation. In 2023, Solomon Islands authorities made their first-ever seizure of methamphetamine and ketamine, which had been smuggled in by Chinese entrepreneurs using logging operations as cover.

Furthermore, the regulatory environment in some Pacific countries is being exploited by those who are not interested in investing in the region.

Some avoid sanctions by misusing local open maritime registries to adopt the flag of a country with favourable tax regimes and less stringent regulations. For example, Russian ships, banned from US and European ports over the war in Ukraine, have been given the Marshallese flag. The Marshall Islands is among the top three flag states in the world by registered tonnage.

Other individuals, some sanctioned, take advantage of company laws that make some Pacific countries ideal destinations for offshoring and hiding assets. Corporate anonymity allows businesses registered in the Marshall Islands, for example, to engage in money laundering. In 2022, a US-led investigation resulted in the seizure of two super yachts worth more than US$1 billion in Fiji. The investigation uncovered a global web of shell companies and trusts registered in the Marshall Islands and elsewhere that had hidden the identity of the yachts’ owner, Suleiman Kerimov, who had been under US sanctions and is reportedly linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Golden passports and visas, which allow foreigners to buy residency or citizenship through investment, are also open to corruption. While they are an essential source of revenue for some Pacific islands, such schemes lack proper due diligence mechanisms. In 2023, it emerged that the fugitive brothers Atul and Rajesh Gupta, businessmen accused of syphoning large sums of money from South Africa’s state funds, had acquired Vanuatu citizenship. Criminals from Lebanon, Italy and Russia have also taken advantage of the region’s lax citizenship schemes, and Chinese spies have entered Britain on Vanuatu passports.

There is a real tension in Pacific Island nations between the desire to welcome investors and the fear of attracting criminal exploitation. This can be partly overcome by increasing the countries’ resilience so that they can screen investors more effectively and stop them from abusing the system for illicit gain or employing exploitative practices.

Building resilience is difficult, however, and the challenge is compounded by the disparity in diplomatic power between Pacific nations and the countries from which illicit foreign investment originates, especially in the case of China. This often results in certain companies receiving more favourable treatment with greater access and impunity. There is also an added risk that if these foreign business actors have close relationships with their governments, they could become tools for political influence in the Pacific.

Pacific island nations need the golden passports, flags of convenience and offshoring opportunities to connect them to the global economy, even though their measures attract illicit networks that reach Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. To help protect them, we must better integrate the Pacific islands into global efforts to counter transnational crime perpetrated by outright criminal groups and business actors alike.

Editors’ picks for 2023: ‘Pacific media needs more support to protect the truth’

Originally published on 16 May 2023.

Media freedom is an essential pillar of democracy. In Pacific island countries, this pillar is under threat from financial and capacity constraints. Democratic partners—which believe in the importance of a strong, independent media—must do more to support journalism and media in the Pacific to protect the integrity of independent thought and defend against information warfare.

ASPI’s Pacific program has facilitated workshops with Pacific journalists and engaged with media professionals to help identify the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for development in their organisations. This work points to some key lessons that should guide governments and other groups seeking to further support Pacific media.

The spread of information online—which includes some information that is false, deliberately manipulative and harmful—moves much more rapidly than media outlets and governments can keep up with. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, found that fake news spreads six times faster than real news on Twitter. False information disguised as government leaks is increasingly being shared online, compelling leaders to release correct information faster.

More and more of what should be government announcements are coming from the private social media accounts of individual politicians. That puts journalists on the back foot when addressing current events and creates unnecessary friction between governments and the media.

Some friction is important, but it should come from holding governments accountable, not a race to be the first to share information. Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape’s admonishment of the media for reporting on a potential US presidential visit is a recent example of the unnecessary competition to be first with journalists who are just doing their jobs.

In some cases, journalists have inadvertently reported false leaks and rumours as fact based on what they were been exposed to online. These inaccuracies often come from inexperience in detecting false information, and insufficient time to closely check sources plagues young journalists, exacerbating mistrust. Senior media professionals lack the resources to provide the mentoring required for these roles and would welcome additional outside support.

Support does exist, but democratic partners still need to do more to provide Pacific media outlets with training and exchange opportunities. Unlike some other areas of engagement in the Pacific, we are not at risk of overwhelming our Pacific counterparts in the media arena. In fact, nearly every individual we spoke with was hungry for more training and greater engagement.

In Solomon Islands, BBC Media Action’s first foray into the Pacific has addressed some of the underlying challenges in reporting, including emergency broadcasting and financial broadcasting. By embedding a trainer in the country and reaching beyond the capital, this training program has been exemplary in meeting Solomon Islands’ needs and is greatly appreciated by local media institutions.

BBC Media Action is not alone in this endeavour. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s international development group also delivers huge benefits across many Pacific countries and is growing again. But partners should establish more of these programs across the region. In cases where a trainer can’t be based in the country, consistency and strong relationships are key.

Many senior reporters and executives also lament the loss of exchange opportunities. They speak highly of past programs that allowed them to travel and learn for a short period of time in much larger and more complex newsrooms.

Offering these exchange opportunities again would be extremely beneficial for Pacific media, but they must be two-way. We shouldn’t burden small Pacific news outlets with a temporary loss of personnel, and two-way exchanges would also give partners’ media staff invaluable experience in the region.

Beyond training, Pacific media professionals will struggle to implement best practices without appropriate funding. Pacific media organisations are not adequately resourced to keep up with demand and need more equipment. In the near term, that means the provision of laptops, cameras and quality sound-recording equipment, and the training required for their use and maintenance.

Building a strong, independent and resilient Pacific media is crucial to countering misinformation and disinformation operations in the region. Rumours of corruption, assassination plots and financial opportunities swirl online and in person. The confusion this creates provides opportunities for malign actors to manipulate information and populations.

Pacific journalists frequently mentioned geopolitics as an area of growing concern for false information. ASPI has previously highlighted some of the influence activities being undertaken in Pacific island countries by the Chinese Communist Party, including suppressing the truth and spreading lies in Solomon Islands, accusing Australia and the US of instigating the November 2021 Honiara riots, and seeking to undermine democracy and partnerships across the region.

To increase Pacific resilience to these information operations, democratic partners need to be more transparent and support Pacific media to critically evaluate whether proposed assistance and equipment truly benefit the people.

Moving beyond simply copying and pasting press releases requires effort on both sides. Partners shouldn’t deliver equipment, aid or infrastructure without providing an opportunity for the press to ask questions and encouraging local journalists to take those opportunities whenever they can. From these questions stems a story about how this support is truly benefiting people in the Pacific.

Transparency is one of the many strengths that sets democratic partners apart from authoritarian alternatives. For instance, the Media Association of Solomon Islands boycotted Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s speech in Honiara in May 2022 when they were told that only one Solomon Islands journalist could ask their own minister a question at the event.

No media in any country should have to rely on support from China, a country that consistently ranks among the world’s worst for media freedom—particularly if that partner is also responsible for spreading false information and seeking to manipulate the information environment.

Unfortunately, many Pacific island countries are heavily reliant on Beijing’s support, and without greater effort from democratic partners, Pacific media organisations won’t be equipped to survive the constant barrage of false information and confusion they face.

Australia–Tuvalu treaty can do more on climate change

The Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty is a promising starting point for Australia’s regional response to climate change. The creation of a pathway for Tuvaluans to relocate to Australia makes it the world’s first agreement specifically related to climate migration. In addition, the treaty’s provision of $16.9 million to fund land reclamation in Tuvalu has been applauded as a concrete commitment by Australia to address climate impacts in the Pacific.

However, Australia can do much more to help Tuvalu and the Pacific more broadly deal with the climate crisis. Australia must increase its efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change by cutting its own greenhouse gas emissions and helping Tuvalu build climate adaptability. That will reduce the number of Tuvaluans and other Pacific islanders deciding to relocate, partly or exclusively because of climate change.

The Pacific region has contributed minimally to the global production of greenhouse gases, but countries such as Tuvalu are bearing the brunt of climate impacts largely driven by the emissions of industrialised countries including Australia and the US. It’s expected that much of Tuvalu’s land area and critical infrastructure will be below the average high-tide level by 2050.

The treaty elevates Australia’s bilateral relationship with Tuvalu in the context of the Pacific’s struggle with climate impacts. Guided by the principle of Falepili, a Tuvaluan word referring to traditional values of good neighbourliness, care and mutual respect, Article 3 prepares a special mobility pathway for Tuvaluans to live, study and work in Australia. The treaty is a much-needed step in the right direction and contrasts with the then deputy prime minister’s 2019 public expression of annoyance at Pacific calls to shut down Australia’s coal industry.

Aside from climate-related assistance, the treaty’s focus on security cooperation has also attracted widespread attention. Article 4(1) obliges Australia to help Tuvalu in the event of natural disasters, public health emergencies and military aggression. This places Australia in a similar position to other Western countries with a regional stake, including the US through its compacts and New Zealand through its arrangements with Niue and Cook Islands.

The treaty also reciprocally places a security obligation on Tuvalu to ‘mutually agree with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other State or entity on security and defence-related matters’ such as ‘defence, policing, border protection, cyber security and critical infrastructure’. Tuvalu’s consultation with Australia on security matters is intended to prevent yet another Pacific country from being drawn into Beijing’s sphere of influence as was Solomon Islands. Tuvalu is one of the few Pacific island countries to recognise Taipei over Beijing, and Australia would like that to remain the case.

Despite its importance in addressing both traditional and non-traditional security concerns, the treaty is only a first step. Australia needs to do much more to combat the climate crisis in the Pacific. Relocation is a legitimate response to climate change, but many in Pacific island countries consider migration a last-resort solution. They would prefer to remain in their communities and seek ways to adapt to the changing conditions.

One key reason adaptation is preferred to relocation is the significance of ties to land. The inhabitability of atoll communities such as within Tuvalu is not simply about the presence of resources and locals’ ability to maintain a livelihood. It is also about the cultural and historical relevance of a place for its people.

Although the Tuvaluan government announced its plan to become the world’s first digital nation as a response to rising sea levels, it’s difficult to envisage how that will be achieved. Already, UNESCO has classified the Tuvaluan language as endangered. The migration of 280 Tuvaluans annually, out of a population of 11,200, even if it’s temporary for reasons such as work and study, could lead to the demise of Tuvaluan culture and language in the coming decades.

As an alternative to climate-change-induced migration, temporary or permanent, adaptation approaches such as land reclamation have been posited as a more viable response to the climate crisis. Commenting on the Australia–Tuvalu treaty, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape highlighted his support for its reclamation provision and criticised its emphasis on resettlement because of the high emotional and resettlement costs.

Land-purchase agreements have also been suggested as an alternative response to climate impacts such as rising sea levels. Even the concept of floating cities isn’t too far-fetched, with the world’s first prototype unveiled last year at the UN headquarters in New York. Such adaptation measures should be a strong focus in the Australian government’s approach to Tuvalu’s call for climate-related assistance.

Australia’s mitigation of greenhouse-gas emissions is another appropriate mechanism for responding to the Pacific’s climate crisis. Achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is important, but Australia must do more sooner rather than later to proactively combat climate change. Mitigation of emissions will help to not only slow the rate of sea-level rise around Tuvalu, but also reduce the frequency and severity of climate-driven phenomena such as tropical cyclones and coastal erosion being confronted by other Pacific island countries such as Solomon Islands and Fiji.

The phenomenon of climate-induced migration has likewise emerged in these countries, with cascading and compounding climate risks contributing to the decision to relocate. Communities with high population densities and those that are dependent on agriculture and fishing are highly vulnerable to climate change.

The COP28 climate summit that starts this week in Dubai will be an opportunity for Australia and like-minded counterparts to discuss ways to address the Pacific’s climate crisis. The creation of a loss and damage fund, for example, would help Australia respond to climate impacts through multilateral cooperation. The provision of compensation via the concept of loss and damage is welcomed by the Pacific Islands Forum, which notes that ‘movement away from home can result from, be a form of, and cause loss and damage of an economic and non-economic nature’, including loss of cultural heritage.

While more details about the Australia–Tuvalu treaty will come to light in the coming weeks and months, it is clearly only one strategy for enhanced Australia–Pacific cooperation on climate change. Climate mitigation and adaptation must be prioritised in Australia’s response to ensure that the human-security needs of Tuvalu and other Pacific island countries are met. Equally important in the fight for climate justice in Pacific island countries such as Tuvalu is Australia’s multilateral engagement through events such as COP28.

The Falepili Union and the question of Pacific sovereignty

The surprise signing of the Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union agreement at the recent Pacific Islands Forum has been touted as a pathbreaking development in Australia’s Pacific relations. It is hugely significant, but, on closer inspection, this bespoke treaty may not be as original as many suppose.

Antedating the Falepili Union by more than four decades there is, in fact, another security treaty that could oblige Tuvalu to first clear with another state any request for an Australian military presence on Tuvaluan territory.

In addition to providing for more general security consultation, the 1979 US–Tuvalu Treaty of Friendship requires Tuvalu to consult with the US should any third party want access to Tuvalu for military purposes.

A contributing factor to the hype surrounding the Falepili Union was the regional gloss put on it by the public signing of the bilateral agreement at a Pacific Islands Forum meeting. The association of its security provisions with broader definitions of security in the forum’s 2018 Boe Declaration and 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent even had some echoes in the earlier agreement.

There was also a regional backdrop to the US–Tuvalu treaty, albeit more muted. Ostensibly, it was a bilateral pact to surrender American claims to four of Tuvalu’s nine islands asserted under the 1856 Guano Islands Act, which enabled US citizens to claim for the US islands that had commercial quantities of guano, a nitrogen-rich strategic resource.

However, Washington was anxious to remove an own-goal irritant of colonial claims that had virtually no validity, fearing that it could damage its dispute with the Pacific states over ownership of the region’s valuable tuna resources. Ceding all the relevant guano claims helped create a friendlier atmosphere that contributed to the successful negotiation of the South Pacific Tuna Treaty some eight years later.

Unsurprisingly, the US–Kiribati Treaty of Friendship concluded later in 1979 replicated many of the Tuvalu provisions given that the motivations were much the same. However, its language was rather more nuanced to reflect the greater geostrategic significance of Kiribati to the US. A key difference between the two agreements is that the Tuvalu treaty covers the whole of Tuvalu while the Kiribati treaty is more specific as to consultation on military use by third parties.

Article 2 of the Kiribati agreement limited general military consultation to the 14 islands over which the US was ceding claims, while Article 3 was more specific, almost presciently so, in echoing the language of Falepili. It stated that all the World War II American military facilities on three islands ‘shall not be made available to third parties for military purposes except with the agreement of the Government of the United States’.

While it is highly unlikely that Tuvalu will have any difficulty managing the obligations of both its security agreements, questions have been raised about the provisions of the Kiribati treaty.

China reportedly has wanted to upgrade the US-built airstrip on Kanton Island to modern international standards and is undertaking feasibility work at the request of Kiribati. Invariability, the dual-use potential of the airport upgrade has produced a tug-of-war over Article 3 and Beijing’s motives.

The US–Kiribati treaty suggests a partial rejoinder to some critics of the Falepili Union who have seized on Article 4(4) to assert that it has undermined ‘Pacific agency’ by tying Tuvaluan security to broader Australian military ambitions in the region. The first sentence of Article 4(4) states: ‘Tuvalu shall mutually agree with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other State or entity on security and defence-related matters.’

If ‘mutually’ is read as to mean reciprocally, this provision might be interpreted to say that Tuvalu would have to agree to any Australian agreement that might affect Tuvaluan security or sovereignty. However, the Falepili Union is not a reciprocal security treaty. It is not expected to give Tuvalu any say on AUKUS or similar Australian agreements. Australia agrees to come to Tuvalu’s assistance if threatened, but Tuvalu has no positive obligation to come to Australia’s defence if the need arises.

The sweeping range of security subjects identified in the second sentence of Article 4(4) includes ‘defence, policing, border protection, cyber security and critical infrastructure, including ports, telecommunications and energy infrastructure’. This offers some clarity on the provision’s reach, perhaps, but it doesn’t resolve the dual-use question at the heart of the Kanton Island issue.

The perceived one-sidedness in the Falepili Union has led to accusations of neocolonialism. Others have portrayed the union as implying something along the lines of the compact of free association (COFA) status that exists between New Zealand and the Cook Islands and Niue or between the US and the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau.

As written, the Falepili treaty doesn’t establish a COFA agreement with Australia, and there’s little to suggest that either party is committed to such a trajectory. Unlike the COFA states in the Pacific, Australia doesn’t have the variety of organic ties with Tuvalu, a British colony, that the COFA states developed over decades of colonial control and which were crafted to provide a supported transition to self-government.

That’s not to say that some of these administrative, economic and social ties couldn’t be created over time between Australia and Tuvalu. For the moment, the agreement provides for establishing a special visa arrangement initially capped to allow up to 280 Tuvaluans access to Australia with a proviso that numbers could be expanded if changed environmental conditions required more or faster entry requests.

The Tuvaluans are well aware of the previous occasion on which Australia offered environmental refuge to a Pacific island. In 1963, Canberra proposed that Nauruans could voluntarily relocate to Curtis Island off the coast of Queensland as their homeland in a belief that Nauru would become uninhabitable due to phosphate mining.

The Nauruan leadership rejected the offer of relocation fearing both the loss of their nationhood and ultimately their sovereignty.

The Tuvaluans have similar fears today and thus are anxious to preserve the sovereignty of Tuvalu as a state as well as their identity as Tuvaluans. Thus, they are seeking similar arrangements with other regional states including New Zealand to spread the risks of relying solely on Canberra.

Rather than a slippery slope to dependency, the Falepili Union is best considered as a continuation of the innovative ways that Tuvalu has pursued since independence to preserve and protect its sovereignty. These include its 1987 aid-supported national trust fund, its plan to preserve national identity through a digital recreation of the entire country and its attempt at legal preservation of its borders despite sea-level rises.

Australian intentions will become more explicit when the treaty is submitted to the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Treaties along with a national interest assessment for public comment. The committee’s recommendation on implementation legislation will be important to clarify the depth of the Falepili Union for Australia.

What the US should do better in its engagement with the Pacific

At the US Institute of Peace’s Interorganizational Global Forum on security cooperation in the Pacific islands in September, the US emphasised a ‘whole-of-government effort’ in engaging with the region that involves cabinet-secretary-level meetings, an intelligence briefing on matters such as illegal fishing and climate migration, strengthening the US Peace Corps’ presence and touring the US Naval Academy’s rugby team. While these are reasonable first steps, the forum highlighted three other things the US needs to do better: listen to its own Pacific experts, invest in the Pacific’s regional architecture and reframe the traditional security dialogue.

At the forum, a senior US official described how the US gets the bulk of its Pacific history and background ‘from Australia and New Zealand’. There are indeed many well-known regional security experts worth listening to, like Anna Powles, Tess Newton-Cain, Jose Sousa-Santos, Meg Taylor and William Waqavakotoga—especially if their views are disagreeable to the US.

That said, there’s a growing number of US citizens with Pacific expertise whose insight would help boost the US–Pacific relationship and strengthen the region’s security as outlined in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.

To name a few: Dana Lee Ling at the College of Micronesia knows more about ethnobotany than perhaps any other American in Micronesia; Clark Graham has lived in Chuuk since the time of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and runs Chuuk’s premier private school for elementary students; Natalie Nimmer and Tamara Greenstone-Alefaio have extensive experience in Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia in the fields of education and environment; and Jack Niedenthal, Thane Hancock and Eileen Natuzzi have saved thousands of lives through their medical expertise.

US citizens like these know the North Pacific’s cultural and political histories, education and healthcare systems, and environmental issues and have witnessed firsthand the vulnerabilities Pacific islanders face. The US government needs to recognise and listen to such experts.

The US must also pay attention to the Pacific’s regional architecture. Virtually every Pacific islander at the forum emphasised that, while bilateral relations are important, more must be done to acknowledge organisations such as the Pacific Islands Forum, the Pacific Community and the Forum Fisheries Agency. Just being perceived to be undermining such architecture can damage US relations with development partners.

The solution is simple: the US should provide the bulk of its funding that’s unrelated to the Compacts of Free Association through the Pacific Islands Forum and the Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific. By treating these organisations with the respect Pacific islanders are asking for, the US will accrue the soft power it seeks. The US should also make sure to send an envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum who is culturally aware—who knows not to wear pants when meeting the king of Tonga and is happy to drink sakau with Pohnpeians. Then the US principles of peace, liberty, democracy, human rights and justice may be better amplified throughout the region.

The US must also reconsider how traditional security issues are discussed. On the margins of the forum, former and current US officials privately commented on anti-US sentiment among some Pacific islanders. They gave examples of people equating China’s militarisation and its efforts in the South China Sea to the US Armed Forces’ build-up in Guam. There was also talk about hostility towards AUKUS and its relationship to nuclear-powered submarines, and the fortification of Guam and Palau with dual-use facilities. At least four islanders said, ‘We are not naive’ in reference to the defence build-up in the region; understandably they would prefer their homes not to become battlegrounds as they did in World War II.

Islanders are right about the dangers of conflict—my former boss, David Panuelo, became increasingly worried about a kinetic conflict during his service as president of the FSM. And yet the US and Australia only say that the security situation in the Pacific has deteriorated without sharing enough details as to why and how.

As his press secretary, I ensured that Panuelo received briefings on China’s movements in the region, including its nuclear-powered (and nuclear-equipped) submarines passing through the Pacific, its dual-use research vessels’ activities in the FSM, its militarisation of the South China Sea and its infringements on the Philippines’ coastal territory. If, for example, the Pacific Islands Forum secretary-general doesn’t have access to similar information, the US and Australia must ensure that Pacific governments receive enough intelligence to make informed decisions.

In fending off China’s presence in the Pacific, it can be tempting for the US to frame its strategy as a game of StarCraft: factories, command centres and supply lines are enemy targets, and kinetic conflict is deterred by building missile defences and other assets. But what Pacific islanders want is for the US to show the same level of attention to the vulnerabilities they face domestically—poverty, domestic violence, climate change, and career and educational challenges. If the US can forge a genuine partnership of respect with the Blue Pacific Continent, then those democratic sovereign nations will choose an America-led international order on its own merits, regardless of the very real threats from autocratic and authoritarian China.