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The Pacific Islands in Transition: Opportunities and Challenges Seminar
2017-03-11 16:15

 

The role of foreign countries in a changing Pacific

Michael Powles

 

 

Iwould like to begin with a quote from a widely respected Pacific Islandthinker, the late Professor EpeliHau’ofa of Tonga:

 

“Conquerors come,conquerors go, the ocean remains, mother only to her children. Oceania is vast… hospitable and generous. We are the sea, we are the ocean. … We must notallow anyone to belittle us again, and take away our freedom.” [EpeliHau’ofa,‘Our Sea of Islands’ in Hau’ofa E, (ed), A New Oceania: Rediscovering OurSea of Islands. Suva. University of the South Pacific, 1993 2-16

 

Thiscould be regarded as a call to arms against foreign involvement in the Pacific.But what it opposes is specifically the “belittlement” that past foreigninvolvement has brought. EpeliHau’ofa wrote these words over twenty years ago.Today, and this is the principal theme of this paper, there is a new confidencein the Pacific Islands region, a stronger determination than there has ever beenthat the people of the region themselves, not foreigners as in the past, mustdetermine their own futures.

 

Inevitablythis new confidence will increasingly affect, and sometimes limit, the role offoreign countries in the region. And as EpeliHau’ofa clearly implies, thecultural and traditional beliefs and aspirations of Pacific peoples will be akey element.

 

I’vedecided therefore, to make the main focus of this paper a discussion of thenature of change, past and present, in the Pacific Islands region.

 

Onepoint I’d like to make at the outset is that I make no claim to academicexpertise. My commentsare based rather on several decades of experience workingat what I like to call the diplomatic coal face of international relations, agood part of that in or relating to the Pacific Islands region – and also incountries, like China, which have begun to take an increasing interest in thePacific.

 

First,some background. (And here I do very much rely on the work of seriousresearchers.)

 

Thefirst humans to enter the Pacific Islands region came probably around 50,000years ago from Asia. They populated the island of New Guinea and alsoAustralia. Then Austronesians, the parental stock of all Polynesians, mostMicronesians, and many coastal Melanesians, began moving into the region about5,000 years ago. They reached New Caledonia by 4,000 years ago; Fiji, Samoa andTonga by 3,000 years ago, and over the following 2,000 years occupied the moredistant parts of what is now called Polynesia.

 

Asfar as biological origins are concerned, Aboriginal populations of Australiaand New Guinea are quite clearly related and both groups share a common originin Indonesia over 35,000 years ago. On the other hand, the peoples of Polynesiaand Micronesia show clear signs of Asian ancestry – specifically from Taiwanand southern China – in aspects of their DNA. (They are thought to have startedleaving Southern China and Taiwan about 6,000 years ago and reached theirnear-final shoreline of New Zealand about 800 years ago.) [ThePacific Islands – an encyclopediaBrij Lal and Kate Fortune (eds) University ofHawai’i Press, Honolulu, 2000 p.53]

 

Assumptionsabout how far and how frequently Pacific people sailed across the ocean varyconsiderably. Evidence is clear on return voyages once or more every year or soby Tongans – who were among the greatest navigators – to Fiji, Samoa and ‘Uvea.Occasionally they went further, to Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Niue and beyond. [TheSouth Pacific, Ron Crocombe, University of the South Pacific, 2001 p.44]

 

Thenext major phase in the history of the Pacific began about 400 years ago withthe expansion of European influence. The Spaniards were first, with Magellan’svoyage of 1521. Spain took Guam in 1565 as a provisioning stop for its galleonson their annual voyages between Spain’s two great colonies, the Philippines andMexico. [Crocombe p.53]

 

Overthe succeeding two centuries other island groups were visited, most notably byBritish expeditions under the leadership of Captain James Cook in the 1770s.

 

Onecommentator has observed that since the 16th century and the firstcrossings of the ocean by exploring outsiders, it has provided foreigners,Europeans mainly, with an immense imperial playground, with territories for allsides to take, either for wholesale exploitation or for the simple amassment ofregional power or to feed their uncontrollable imperial greed. [Pacific– The Ocean of the Future, Simon Winchester, William Collins, London, 2015 p.28]

 

Echoesof this colonialist attitude can be heard even today in, for example, theconfident assertions that “the Pacific is big enough for all of this”,referring to the competition for regional leadership between the United Statesand China.  

 

Thedescription of the Pacific as being“big enough for all of us” was coinedby the Lowy Institute of Sydney and picked up in 2012 by then  Secretaryof State Hilary Clinton. These kinds of proprietorial instincts on the part ofoutsiders would have upset the late EpeliHau’ofa, quoted earlier. And at the Chinaand the Pacific: The View from Oceania conference held in Apia in February2015, one of the Pacific Islands’ leading academics queried such suggestions. [Chinaand the Pacific: The View from Oceania, Michael Powles (ed), VictoriaUniversity Press, Wellington, 2016 p.262]

 

 

Thefirst dependent territory or colony in the Pacific to become independentwas Samoa, in 1962. (An identifiably New Zealand comment is that it wasprobably no coincidence that its administering power, New Zealand, had taken aleading role in promoting the trusteeship and self-determination principleswhich became enshrined in the United Nations Charter.) Most other Pacificterritories followed Samoa into independence or self-government, excepting onlythe French and some of the American possessions which remained, effectively,colonies. (Dutch sovereignty over West Papua was transferred to Indonesia aftera controversial “Act of Free Choice”.

 

Perhapsthe most difficult task for Pacific leaders on independence was to overcomewhat Sir Peter Kenilorea of the Solomon Islands identified as the “fear of theunknown”. Assuming a confidence often unwarranted by the resources available tothem, they had to chart a way through uncertain undercurrents towards anuncertain destination. [New Flags Flying:Pacific Leadership, Ian Johnstone and Michael Powles (eds) Huia Press 2012p.9]

 

Theyhad to persuade their peoples to see their country as a vibrant new nation,setting out with confidence and determination on a path it had chosen foritself, even though, as Terence Wesley-Smith points out, in most cases thepreparation for nationhood and independence had been inappropriate andinadequate. [There Goes the Neighbourhood inJenny Bryant-Tokalau and Ian Frazer (eds) Redefining the Pacific? Ashgate,2006, p.121-126]

 

Althoughthe objective of independence was to liberate colonised peoples, those peopleswere obliged to take up that freedom in the context of institutions,ideologies, and expectations that were themselves legacies of colonisation. [Wesley-Smith2006 p.122-3]

 

Recentobservers have reflected that taking on those tasks took courage, with whichthese descendants of master ocean navigators were certainly well endowed.Courage must have been very necessary for leaders like Walter Lini of Vanuatu,bullied and deceived by powerful France or Britain, or Kessai Note (MarshallIslands) and John Haglelgam (Federated States of Micronesia) going from theirtiny Micronesian atolls to Washington to try to get a fair deal from themightiest nation on earth. Some seemed to sail through with confidence becauseof heritage, or ambition, or love of the battle – particularly the Samoans andTongans, and Albert Henry (Cook Islands), Hammer DeRoburt (Nauru) and MichaelSomare (Papua New Guinea).  Others, like Ratu Mara (Fiji) and Walter Lini(Vanuatu), who have said they would rather have been somewhere else, probablyhad to work hard to keep going at all. [NewFlags Flying, p.103]

 

Perhapsthe most effective courage was shown by those leaders, for example in Samoa,Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Niue and Solomon Islands, who steadfastly andquietly tried to take their people towards the goal well described by Samoa’sTofilauEtiAlesana:

 

“The stability ofthe country … that really is an asset. Developed countries abroad won’t wastetheir resources with a country that is not resting peacefully.” [NewFlags Flying p.31]

 

Asense of collegiality among Pacific leaders wanting a forum in whichthey could conveniently compare notes on common problems had been ignitedbefore independence by the refusal of metropolitan powers, particularly Franceand Britain, to permit them full participation in the then premier regional organisation,the South Pacific Commission. In 1971, not least to overcome these colonialobstacles, the South Pacific Forum, now called the Pacific Islands Forum, wascreated.

 

Withina decade of achieving independence or self-government, it was becoming obviousthat some of the political systems negotiated with the old colonial masters andintroduced at independence were inadequate or unsuitable and reassessment andchange were needed. The institutions, methods and practices inherited from thecolonial period demanded increasingly critical scrutiny.  [NewFlags Flying p.12]

 

Oneof the most respected observers of those early decades following independencewas the late Professor Ron Crocombe of the University of the South Pacific. HisThe South Pacific (2001) has long been highly regarded. He was deeplyconscious of the post-independence problems faced by many Pacific Islandcountries. Indeed, some of the chapter headings in The South Pacific themselvesheadline depressing situations:

 

Administrativedecay in the Solomon Islands

 

Continuing crisisin Vanuatu

 

Ethnic strife inFiji

 

Class struggles inTonga

 

Would the last toleave turn the lights off? [Cook Is and Niue]

 

Holding on in theCook Islands and Niue

 

Tuvalu: nowhere togo

 

Macro-problems inMicronesia

 

The politics ofphosphate

 

Nuclear politics inthe Marshall Islands

 

FSM’s delicatebalancing act

 

Ethnic superiority,ethnic legitimacy, and other ethnic factors in Island politics

 

Nation-building andxenophobia

 

Regionalism – butwhat region for what purpose?

 

The Fiji hijack [ofregional institutions]

 

Seeminglya series of daunting problems. Some probably were; but the late GregUrwin, one of the most outstanding of the Pacific Islands Forum’s severalSecretaries-General, was not at all depressed by the many problems and issuesin the region during the decades immediately following independence. In anaddress in 2004, he said:

 

“What isessentially going on is that people, a quite broad range of people, are tryingto redefine what it will take to run their countries into the long-term future.I don’t think it is stretching reality to say that this analysis hasapplicability even in situations where serious breakdowns have taken place suchas in the Solomon Islands aed Bougainville. It is far from being a negativeprocess, except whwre it exceeds certain bounds, as in the cases I’vementioned, or unless you take the – to me – quite unrealistic view that we aredrifting away from some mythical past golden age. It will often be a somewhatmessy process – genuine change is like that. It may well be a sign of ongoingpolitical maturation, and as such the cause for considerable optimism.” [Urwin,G, Secretary-General Forum Secretariat, South Pacific Success Stories,Address to the 32nd Annual Congress of the Fiji Institute ofAccountants, 21 May 2004, Nadi, Fiji, Quoted in New Flags Flying, above,p.295]

 

Moreover,it needs to be kept in mind that most Pacific Island countries had had, asmentioned, inadequate preparation for independence in terms of both thepractical governmental resources essential for effective governance and in theadvice offered on the form of government the new independent states shouldadopt.

 

Ithas been suggested that through Pacific inexperience and British failure toexamine other options, most former British possessions were forced to try tobuild new nations with, it can reasonably be claimed, unsuitable constitutionswhich ignored longstanding local traditions of consensus government and indeed enshrinedparliamentary division and required elected leaders to challenge and opposeeach other, rather than consult and cooperate.  

 

Inthe case of Fiji, once regarded as the jewel in the crown of British coloniesin the Pacific, particular British policies, the import of immigrant labour andthe over-militarisation of the Fiji population made matters worse. Thedisharmony which boiled over 17 years after independence was almost inevitable.[New Flags Flying  p.296]

 

Irepresented New Zealand in Fiji in the early 1980s, before the worst disharmonybegan to boil over. I knew Fiji’s Prime Minister at a time when he was regardedby many as the region’s outstanding leader. He used to enjoy chiding me aboutNew Zealand’s role in Samoa, in which he knew my father had been involved,saying that the agreement between Samoa and New Zealand not to followprecisely the Westminster parliamentary precedent would in time be disastrousfor Samoa. As it turned out, it wasn’t disastrous, but events in Fiji in thefollowing years were. I never had the opportunity to mention that to KamiseseMara.

 

 

And,overall, he traditional partners of Pacific Island countries, most of them the formermetropolitan or colonial powers, have not been particularly helpful to thesenew nations since independence.

 

Relianceon foreign aid inevitably affects the freedom ofchoice of Island countries on the international stage. (It can be a little sadto watch, as I have many times at the United Nations, as the small former USterritories of Micronesia appear as virtually the only countries to side withthe United States on sensitive issues, often relating to the Middle East, wheneven America’s traditional allies oppose or abstain on US proposals orpositions.)

 

Moreover,in recent years Western aid donors have consistently attempted to impose theirown definition of “good governance” as conditions attached to aidprovided to Pacific Island countries. Although  the need for bettergovernance has long been accepted, in the Pacific as elsewhere, externalsolutions imposed as conditions to the grant of aid are increasingly unpopular.Terence Wesley-Smith of the University of Hawai’i has written strongly on thesubject:

 

“For the firsttime, the sovereignty of Pacific states has become attached to performancecriteria. … The idea of somehow engineering the wholesale transformation of thecentral values and practices of Oceania societies to fit the mold ofwestern-style administration is deeply troubling.”  [Wesley-SmithThere Goes the Neighbourhood, (above) p.124]

 

Andat the China/Pacific conference last year in Apia, Professor Wesley-Smith spokealso of an “unpopular aid-leveraged regional reform agenda” being pushed byAustralia especially.  [Wesley-Smith ReorderingOceania: China’s Rise, Geopolitics, and Security in the Pacific Islands in Chinaand the Pacific: The View from Oceania  Michael Powles (ed), VictoriaUniversity Press, Wellington, 2016, 98-110, p.103]

 

Itcan seem strange that donors concerned about standards of governance in thePacific do not focus more on encouraging wider acceptance of aspects ofindigenous culture and tradition which do favour practices which many wouldrecognise as “good governance”.

 

ProfessorJohn Overton, at the same Apia conference, described disapprovingly, the “retro-liberalchange in donors’ thinking in the Pacific which gives a more commercial oreconomic purpose to aid than it had had before the Global Financial Crisis of2007-08.” [John OvertonThe Context of Aid in thePacific – and Its Effectiveness, in China and the Pacific … p.166]

 

Aidfrom other sources has also caused some problemsin the region, particularly the cheque-book diplomacy practiced in thecompetition between China and Taiwan for diplomatic recognition a few yearsago. It involved the blatant bribing of politicians and caused predictablepolitical harm in already-fragile states. The region clearly has a stronginterest in the maintenance of an equilibrium between China and Taiwan.

 

Onthe other hand, the aid scene has changed significantly as new donorshave emerged. A new freedom of choice exists because China, the largest newdonor, does not seek to make its aid conditional in the manner of Westerndonors. (It is understood, rather than specifically stipulated, that China’said partners will not play diplomatic games with Taiwan.)

 

Insome circumstances therefore, Island countries today have a new element ofchoice. This development led to a light-hearted exchange at the finaldiscussion session of the Apia conference I’ve mentioned. One participant hadreferred to the possible need to “feed and tame the dragon” (the Chinesedragon, of course) now that it’s in the pacific. Another Pacific participantresponded that, no, the dragon should be “trained to tame the kiwi, thekangaroo and the bald eagle”, which nicely captures the sense of new optionsbrought by China’s growing involvement in the region and also the increasedconfidence of many in the Pacific.

 

However,the new option provided by China’s presence and its aid doesn’t create a whollynew situation. If a story about the founding of the National University ofSamoa in the 1980s is true, Japanese aid in the Pacific has on occasionprovided new options to Pacific Island countries. It’s said that when Samoadecided it should have a National University it approached Australia and NewZealand for the capital investment needed. Both declined, on the ground thatthey believed that the University of the South Pacific should be the onlyuniversity in the region and aid resources should be focussed there. So Samoaapproached Japan and, despite Australian and New Zealand representations inTokyo, Japan agreed. So Japan became the first, and crucial, donor to theNational University of Samoa.)

 

Otherchanging features of today’s Pacific include, first and foremost of course, risingocean levels as a result of climate change. Attention is increasinglyfocussed on damage prevention or ameliorative measures in vulnerable areas andon the awesome challenges when resettlement is necessary. Clearly there will behigh expectations of foreign powers newly involved in the region andassumptions that traditional partners will both provide substantial assistanceand resettlement where that is needed.

 

Acontinuing element of change in the region continues the early search by,particularly, Polynesian seafarers who sailed into the Pacific searching fornew homes. Successive generations have made their own journeys ofexploration, so much so that most major cities around the Pacific rim nowhave substantial Pacific Island populations.  Indeed, Auckland nowcontains more Polynesians (including New Zealand Maori) than any other city inthe world. (Coincidentally, Auckland also contains one of the highestproportion of ethnic Chinese people in the English-speaking world.)

 

Whilesome Pacific leaders have worried about “population flight”, the lateEpeliHau’ofa, quoted earlier, argued that the movement of Pacific peoples inand around their ocean should be viewed more positively:

 

“The new economicreality [since the end of World War II] has made nonsense of artificialboundaries, enabling people to shake off their confinement and they have since moved, by the tens of thousands doing what their ancestors had donebefore them, enlarging their world as they go. Everywhere they go, toAustralia, New Zealand, Hawai’i, mainland USA, Canada, … they strike roots innew resource areas, securing employment and overseas family property, expandingkinship networks …

The world ofOceania may no longer include the heavens and the underworld, but it certainlyencompasses the great cities of Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Canada. Andit is within this expanded world that the extent of the people’s resources mustbe measured.”  [Hau’ofa, above]

 

NewZealand and then Australia have created worker schemesfor  PacificIslanders, enabling them to come to these two countries to work, mostly in theagriculture sectors on a seasonal basis. Many hope this could be a forerunnerto significantly freer movement of peoples around Pacific Islandcountries, including Australia and New Zealand.

 

Nothingmuch has changed in recent years in the field of decolonisation. Mostformer Australian, New Zealand and British colonies have all achievedindependence or self-government. But the French territories of FrenchPolynesia, Wallis and Futuna, and New Caledonia remain, essentially, colonies,as do the American territories of American Samoa and Guam.

 

Somecountries continue to press for self-determination for these remaining coloniesbut decolonisation is no longer a preoccupying issue. New Zealand and Australiaused to be strong supporters of self-determination, along with all members ofthe Pacific Islands forum. However, Australia observed recently that it would beguided by Paris in making policy in this field. This would have beenunthinkable a decade ago. And I would like to believe that it would beunthinkable for New Zealand today.

 

Lookingfurther ahead, special challenges are faced by the small independent orself-governing countries of the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau,Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, and Niue, all of which have full or partialrights for their citizens to live and work in their former administeringpowers. Population flight and uncertainty make thriving prosperoussocieties difficult to sustain. Further constitutional changes are possible butrestricting the travel rights of their peoples is likely to be unpopular andtherefore politically difficult.

 

Changesare taking place in the framework of regional institutions through whichthe countries of the region collaborate and cooperate, and exchange views, onglobal and region-wide affairs.

 

Theregional framework is currently headed by the Pacific Islands Forum (formerlyknown as the South Pacific Forum) in which the heads of all member governmentsmeet annually. It is supported by a Secretariat headed by a Secretary-General.The Forum was created in 1971 after most Island states had achievedindependence or self-government. Its membership comprises these states plusAustralia and New Zealand.

 

Ithas continued formally unchanged for several decades. For some time, however,many in the region have felt that it no longer fully meets their needs.

 

Thefirst significant change to the regional architecture in the Pacific Islandsregion  was made in 1988 when the Melanesian Spearhead Group, orMSG, was established to better meet the needs of the region’s Melanesianstates, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, and also New Caledonia’spro-independence movement, the FLNKS. Indonesia was granted observer status in2011, controversially, and the WPNCL or West Papua National Council forLiberation has been seeking membership for some time.

 

TheMelanesian countries making up the MSG membership contain a very highproportion of the population of the whole Pacific Islands region and a similarproportion of the region’s land-based resources. The MSG is the most active ofthe three sub-regional groupings but moves to re-invigorate the MSG couldstimulate increased activity on the part of its Polynesian and Micronesiancounterparts.

 

Initially,it was feared that the members of the new Melanesian Spearhead Group wouldbreak away from the Pacific Islands Forum, with disastrous consequences for theregion as a whole. However, the MSG leadership emphasises that it is notseeking a break with the Forum or to compete with it in any way. The MSG doessupport several economic activities and it has a department of peacekeeping toencourage and facilitate members’ involvement in UN peacekeeping operations.(Fiji, of course, is currently a significant contributor to UN peacekeepingoperations.)

 

Imentioned earlier the positive view the late former Secretary-General had takenof political, sometimes messy, changes occurring within Pacific Island states“as people try to redefine what it will take to run their countries into thelong-term future”. The same argument clearly applies to the politicalarchitecture of the region itself. As I’ve suggested, perhaps in the future wewill see more politically active Polynesian and Micronesian sub-groupings.

 

Meanwhile,the Pacific islands Forum itself has become the focus of considerableattention. The suspension of Fiji from membership of the Forum in 2009, aresult of the Bainimarama government’s failure to meet a Forum prescribedtimetable for the holding of general elections, had significant ramificationsfor the region’s diplomatic architecture, some of which are continuing today.

 

Notsurprisingly, following its suspension from the Forum, Fiji gave new emphasisto the Melanesian Spearhead Group, pushing for its re-invigoration. Fiji alsoadopted a more activist foreign policy generally.  

 

Twoacademic observers, Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte, in a comprehensive publicationearlier this year (The New Pacific Diplomacy, Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte(eds), ANU Press, Canberra, 2016) detailed several new Fiji foreign policyinitiatives aimed at circumventing its isolation in regional and globaldiplomacy:

 

·        that Fiji should garner and represent aPacific voice that could be heard in global forums,

·        that Fiji should promote itself as the hubof the Pacific and as a leader of Pacific Island states,

·        that it should engage in south-southcooperation in the Pacific and the wider world,

·        that regional diplomacy and regionalinstitutions should be firmly controlled by Pacific Island states and notconstrained by metropolitan powers, and

·        that the Pacific should be better organisedto engage in global diplomacy

 

 

Fijiexpressed these ideas in a series of major initiatives:

 

·        leading a renaissance for the MelanesianSpearhead Group,

·        creating the Pacific Islands DevelopmentForum (PIDF) to be located in Suva, and

·        leading a change to the presentation ofPacific views at the United Nations  [TheNew Pacific Diplomacy, above]

 

Acentral feature of Bainimarama’s initiatives involved removing Australia andNew Zealand from a position from which they could dominate or easily influencethe making of Pacific policy. Bainimarama called for their removal from thePacific Islands Forum itself, although this has not happened. The new PIDF doesnot of course include Australianand New Zealand, and they would no longer bepart of a Pacific voice at the United Nations.

 

Itis not at all clear what the outcome of all these initiatives will be. Thoselooking back at the history of Pacific regionalism will be interested in thetrenchant criticism the late Ron Crocombe (himself a long-term Fiji residentand a founding pillar of the University of the South Pacific) of Fiji’sattempts to hijack, as he put it, the region’s institutions for its ownbenefit. This was in the 1970s and 1980s. Crocombe described the background toFiji’s search for regional leadership:

 

“Last century [the19th century] the centre of gravity in the Islands was in Polynesia,where centralised governments were established in the 1800s. It moved [to Fiji]at the end of the century when Fiji became the centre of Britain’s Pacificempire, with a consequent centralisation of trade, higher education and theadministrative elite. This accident of colonial history gave Fiji greatadvantage in regional politics after independence.”  [TheSouth Pacific, Ron Crocombe, University of the South Pacific Press, 2001,p.612]

 

Irepresented New Zealand in Fiji in the early 1980s and observed this earlyregional concentration of activity there. My impression was thatRatuKamisese Mara and his government in Fiji simply assumed, in theconfident spirit of their recent colonial governors, the British, that the casefor Fiji leadership of the region was so obvious that it didn’t requireexplanation. In 1981 when Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada (the first PrimeMinister Trudeau) came to Suva and opened a new building on the University ofthe South Pacific campus for which Canada had been a minor contributor, PrimeMinister Mara spoke of his gratification that the international community wasrecognising Fiji’s leading role in the region.

 

Hefollowed that with a public observation to the effect that even New Zealandwould accept that point one day and then he added in a private comment to me,as New Zealand’s representative, that at least we understood the region, “unlikeothers”.

 

Ofcourse, internal problems in Fiji (due at least in part to inexplicablemaladministration by the colonial power and to the failure of Fijians, led byRatu Mara, to seek equitable political representation for Indo-Fijians as wellas indigenous Fijians); these internal problems led to the gradual decline inregional regard for Fiji leadership. The nadir was probably Fiji’s suspensionfrom the Pacific Islands Forum in 2009.

 

Today,in 2016, Fiji is clearly seeking to regain its former regional leadership.

 

Arearrangement of the political architectureas proposed by Prime MinisterBainimarama, downgrading New Zealand’s role, would be a serious blow for NewZealand. That’s especially so because, unlike Australia, New Zealand is verymuch a part of the Pacific Island community. We give a high priority to ourmembership of the Pacific Islands Forum and to our relations with the PacificIsland states of our neighbourhood – although demonstrably not a high enoughpriority to cause us to part company with Australia and move significantlytowards the Island states on the climate change issues which top Island states’priority lists. Moreover, according to Fry and Tarte the disagreement onclimate change issues came after quite a period of unhappiness with Australiaand New Zealand:

 

“… the dominantmanagerial style of Australia and New Zealand has contributed to the buildingresentment that the Forum is no longer a place where the Pacific diplomaticvoice can be developed and promoted.”[The New PacificDiplomacy (above)],

 

Onlytime will tell how these issues will be resolved; some Island countries,probably the Polynesian members, would be reluctant to see New Zealand go.

 

Ifthe observations of Fry and Tarte are correct - and there is no evidence todispute their judgements – New Zealand at least seems to have shot itself inthe foot, diplomatically.  This may have been building for some time.Over a decade ago, not long before his death, Greg Urwin, thenSecretary-General of the Forum, commented to me that there was one change inPacific diplomacy which, even as an Australian, he regretted very much. In the past, he said, when Australian diplomats or officials had been tooaggressive or shown too little empathy, New Zealand officials would often takea softer line that would often prevent or repair the damage. But more recently,New Zealand officials had begun instead to echo their Australian counterpartsand parrot the Australian line. Urwin commented, and I think this is why I’veremembered his remarks, that in the Pacific New Zealand did not seem to be thesame country that had been both generous and empathetic in its dealings withits own indigenous peoples.

 

Thesituation might improve if we took more notice of recent remarks by a formercolleague of mine:

 

“New Zealand has,through the Treaty of Waitangi process, placed reconciliation at the heart ofour democracy in ways that the other English-speaking democracies have not.That process presents a veritable national challenge and it is oftencontroversial, but it must influence the conduct of New Zealand’s externalrelations.” [Terence O’Brien, New ZealandInternational Review, November/December 2014]

 

Iwould add simply – especially in the Pacific.

 

Ifwe can take more account of this background, that could match indications fromthe Forum’s new Secretary-General, Dame Meg Taylor of Papua New Guinea, thatshe envisages changes which could rectify what are seen to be some of theForum’s current shortcomings. Fry and Tarte say that Dam Meg is stressingthe need for greater inclusivity and making the Forum more fit forpurpose.  Also, the Forum has begun to define its mandate to include jointdiplomacy rather than just integration and cooperation as in the recent past,and has made new claims to diplomatic agendas which it had seemingly abandonedin the previous decade. [The New PacificDiplomacy (above)] Perhaps overall there areat least some slight grounds for tentative optimism.

 

Evenin the climate change debate, there is one aspect on which New Zealand (andAustralia) could easily make a significant policy change which would be in theinterests of several smaller Pacific Island countries, especially. New Zealandministers and other politicians have spoken positively about the likelihood of “climatechange refugees” from the Pacific Islands (meaning people forced from theirhomes by rising ocean levels who do not, of course, qualify as refugees underthe old Refugee Convention) being allowed to migrate to New Zealand. This needsto be formalised into a clear policy sooner rather than later.

 

Anothersensitive issue on the regional diplomatic agenda is decolonisation. Thedecolonisation of colonies and territories in the Pacific has long beensupported strongly by Island countries and by New Zealand. (Australia hassupported decolonisation in the past but has indicated recently that it wouldnot go against the wishes of France, today the largest colonial power in thePacific.)

 

Decolonisationis likely to remain high on the regional agenda with particular regard NewCaledonia and French Polynesia; but even in the American territories ofAmerican Samoa and Guam there has been increasing discussion of possible stepstowards a form of decolonisation.

 

Relevantto the debates on both decolonisation and the future of the Pacific IslandsForum is the current bid by French Polynesia to become a full member of theForum. Acceptance of the bid would involve a reversal of the practicefollowed ever since the Forum’s creation in 1971 that only fully independent orself-governing countries are eligible for membership. Of course, admission tothe Forum of French Polynesia could influence both Paris and Papeete towardsincreased decolonisation and it could be argued that the change could providesome re-invigoration of the Forum. On the other hand, until French Polynesiandecolonisation is complete, such a step could have the risk of giving Paris asay (through Papeete) on sensitive Pacific issues, even includingdecolonisation itself.

 

 

Anotherchanging factor in the Pacific Islands region has been the introduction of workschemes under which Pacific Islanders come Australia and New Zealand towork seasonally in the agriculture sectors. These schemes were a New Zealandinnovation. Together with the ongoing flow of Pacific Islanders to New Zealand,and steps to admit Pacific climate change refugees, the region moves a littlecloser to the Pacific-wide freedom of movement that existed before colonisersarrived centuries ago.

 

Afeature of the Pacific Islands region today which foreigners seekinginvolvement will encounter, is the increasing confidence of PacificIsland leaders in dealing with the outside world.

 

Thissignificant change on the part of Pacific Islanders has become apparent inrecent years and it was particularly clear at the conference which I’vementioned in Apia last year on China and the Pacific. [Chinaand the Pacific: The Voice from Oceania (above)] Inthe discussion on the last day of the conference, this new confidence wasexemplified in a light-hearted remark by a Pacific Island participant. Hereferred to earlier discussion about the need for the Pacific Islands to “tamethe (Chinese) dragon”. But he then went on to say that the dragon didn’t justneed to be tamed, “it needed to be trained to tame the kiwi, the kangaroo, andthe bald eagle”, nicely capturing the new confidence of the Pacific with thenew freedom and wider options that China’s increasing role in the region wasbringing. [China and the Pacific: The Voice fromOceania (above) p. 265, 267]

 

Iwould like to conclude by mentioning some of the fields and ways in which thisnew Pacific confidence is evident and will be significant to newcomers in theregion. Before doing so, however, I should emphasise that an accurate pictureof the Pacific today would include significant concerns and uncertainties.

 

Confidencein dealing with foreigners may suggest otherwise, but an underlying sense of apprehension,sometimes combined with a justified suspicion, is an inevitable consequence ofhistories of colonial exploitation, maladministration inSamoa a significant proportion of the population died during the 1918 influenzaepidemic as a result of a New Zealand quarantine blunder. And racism – I wellrecall the embarrassment I felt as a 14 year-old when a Samoan school friendwas barred from a “Europeans Only” municipal swimming pool in Fiii on the wayto Samoa.

 

Inrecent years, the region has had its share of bullying foreigners and crookedforeign businessmen and these have left inevitable scars. Today some peoplecomplain of Chinese criminal gangs in the Pacific. I’ve always felt it would behard to beat the cheek of some Americans I met in Tuvalu.  It was in 1980and I was there to present my credentials as New Zealand High Commissioner. Theonly other guests at the Funafuti Hotel were three Texans. They told me quiteopenly that they were members of the Ku Klux Klan, and were in Tuvalu topersuade the Finance Minister to invest Tuvalu’s financial reserves with themin Texas. Needless to say, the Finance Minister was a little smarter than theywere.  Organised crime in the Pacific will always require attention but mypoint is that it’s unhelpful to suggest, as some have, that it is a new andrecent phenomenon.

 

Todaythere is particularconcernon two aspects of foreign involvement in theregion.

 

First,the danger of small Pacific countries becoming tooindebted to foreigndonors (hardly the right word) whose soft loans have been irresistible to smallPacific states in urgent need of capital aid. [SeeChina and the Pacific: The Voice from Oceania (above) p.139-142]

 

Second,as the nationals of foreign countries, particularly China, come to live in thePacific – to run businesses, to work on development projects, and simply tomake a new life – social tensions can be significant. One of the thingsto come out of the 2015 Samoa conference was that while descendants of theearly Chinese migrants, some coming nearly a century ago, have become valuedand respected citizens in several modern Pacific communities. The new migrantshave not adjusted as well, and problems have resulted. [SeeChina and the Pacific: The Voice from Oceania (above) p.260]

 

Despiteall this, the sense of confidence I’ve described is there. It is likely to beasserted in several areas:

 

·        development cooperation:whereas Chinese aid has been criticised in two particular respects (design anddecision-making in China rather than in the region and the use of Chineselabour when local labour could be available) Pacific Island participants in theApia conference recounted increased Chinese flexibility on these particularissues of recipient concern and they clearly indicated a determination that inany development relationship, their governments’ requirements needed to bemet  [China and the Pacific: The View fromOceania (above) p.161-208, 270-273]

·        intergovernmental dealingsgenerally: foreign governments’ engagement generally with Pacific Island statesis likely to encounter the kind of confidence which is evident in developmentrelationships

·        the ocean and its resources:at the Apia conference on China and the Pacific, there was discussion of thenotion that the Pacific was “big enough for all” and criticism of the sensethat the Pacific was like a bountiful feast with sufficient for all comers toshare; more specifically, Pacific states are naturally jealous of their rightsunder the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to the resources oftheir Exclusive Economic Zones and seabed. The first senior Chinese leader topay a visit specifically to Pacific Island states was Premier Wen Jiabao in2006. He announced significant aid and that received substantial publicity. Healso affirmed China’s recognition of the rights of Pacific Island states underthe Law of the Sea Conventionto adjoining ocean and seabed resources. Thatreceived no publicity but was possibly more significant. The late EpeliHau’ofa,whom I quoted earlier, would undoubtedly agree. But he would go further andclaim a Pacific interest in all the resources of the Pacific ocean. Not perhapsto legal ownership in the modern sense, but an interest nevertheless. In fact,Pacific leaders agreed in 2014;

o   “Pacificpeoples are the custodians of the world’s largest, most peaceful and mostabundant ocean, its many islands and its rich diversity of cultures.”[Chinaand the Pacific: The Voice from Oceania, (above) p. 274]Foreigners in the region will be expected to respect this.

·        Pacific security:Pacific leaders and their advisers understand the freedom of navigation by rightsof foreign powers under the UNCLOS treaty, but their interest as “custodians”of the ocean has security as well as resource implications. Some of history’smost notable naval battles have occurred in the Pacific and, more recently,particular islands and societies have been devastated as global powers soughtto perfect their nuclear weaponry. Today in the Pacific the rule of lawregarding use of the ocean and the exploitation of its resources, as enshrinedin the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, is regarded vitally important.

 

 

Therole of foreign countries in the region will be shaped, first, by their ownperceptions of their national interests. But it will also be shaped by thepriorities of Pacific Island countries and the confidence with which they areprepared to assert those priorities. Where the interests of both sides coincide, as seems currently to be the case between thePacific countries and China, which has been generous with its aid and specificin its recognition of Pacific Island states’ rights under the Law of the SeaConvention, mutually beneficial partnerships are achievable.

 

Moreover,increased trade and investment will be important to Pacific Island states. InChina’s case, the One Belt One Road initiative has the potential to meetkey Pacific development and infrastructural needs and, handled correctly, tostimulate new creative ideas and enhance China’s standing in the region.

 

 

 

 



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