America’s being told it could improve its standing in the Pacific by being more present.
The United States has no resident ambassador in any of the 14 Pacific Island countries, at a time when the geopolitical giants are jockeying for power and influence in the region.
Charles Edel, the Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, believes the US could do more to prove it’s committed.
Over the past 10 years it’s paid just “episodic attention” to the region, says Edel, in spite of considering itself a Pacific nation. Now that other big guns are getting a look in – notably China – it’s voicing its concerns about that country’s growing ambitions.
Earlier this month senior officials from both the United States and China showed up at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Palau and tried to present themselves as the better friend to the region.
US deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau made his third trip to the Pacific in less than two years, and announced a total of NZ$257 million in investments into the region, including a $100m port project in Penrhyn, in the Cook Islands.
“We have come with a lot of very specific projects we’d like to work with our Pacific partners on,” Landau told One News.
Beijing also sent a representative to the meeting in Palau, one of just 12 nations to have diplomatic relations with Taiwan over China.
Qian Bo, China’s ambassador to the Pacific, threatened there would be ramifications if Palau allowed Taiwan to play a role in the forum.
Beijing warned Chinese citizens against visiting the tropical island, citing theft, robbery and dangerous marine life. That could be devastating for a country that relies on tourist dollars.
Surangel Whipps Jr, the president of Palau and the host of the forum, accused China of “weaponising tourism”.
This comes just a few months after China launched a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile into the South Pacific’s nuclear-free zone.
On The Detail today Edel talks about how the region is becoming the focus of geopolitical rivalry.
“Over the last 10 years, and this has become an area of increased attention because as the United States has paid episodic attention, others have keyed into the region too,” said Edel, who is based in Canberra and follows events in the Pacific closely.
“Primarily China, which actually exercises and excites how Americans think about this, but others too. So all of a sudden it’s kind of moved from peripheral to increasingly closer to the center of how America thinks about not the world, but certainly the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.
China has a security agreement with the Solomon Islands and policing initiatives with countries including Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Vanuatu.
Naoero, formerly Nauru, and Kiribati are particularly closely aligned with China.
Kiribati’s President, Taneti Maamau, did not attend this year’s forum, and Naoero “dissented” from the section in the communique criticising China’s missile test.
The United States is increasingly concerned that its allies and partners – notably Australia – could be cut off if China acted more offensively in the region, or that China could otherwise “interpose” itself between the US and Asia.
“The United States, for a long time, has been a supporter of democratic governments around the world,” Edel said. “Obviously, this looks a little bit different under the Trump administration, but a Chinese state that is using its influence to increase corruption around these states, is a concern for the United States.”
Asked why it was acceptable for the United States to project its influence into the region but not for China to do the same, Edel says that Washington had long done this “in accordance with the wishes of the Pacific”.
The US’ reputation in the region has been undermined by President Donald Trump’s actions in his second term – notably his aversion to renewable energy projects and international efforts to limit climate change, his termination of international aid programmes, and his war on Iran and the resulting energy crisis, which has hit the small isolated islands hard.
But Edel says the US could better prove its sticking power by engaging with the Pacific “consistently and across the range of interests that are important to them”.
This meant issues that matter to the Pacific – not just military security – and being more present, Edel says.
“Another one which we’re hearing consistently from the region, is the huge spike in transnational crime … and the expansion of the narcotics trade across the Pacific.
“There are some really good steps that we actually heard announced at the Pacific Island Forum this past week.”
Part of the US funding pledged to the region was for enhanced aerial surveillance and more training for police and border officials.
Disclosure: Anna Fifield is a non-resident fellow at CSIS.
This Saturday episode of The Detail is made with funding from the Peter M. Acland Foundation
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