U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit: Geopolitics trumps development

It is unsurprising that a country which boasts nearly three times as many military bases as embassies and consulates would see the signing of an agreement by a state falling within its sphere of influence with a counterpart major power through the lens of geostrategic competition. To a hammer, everything looks after all like a nail.

And so it was when the Solomon Islands signed a security cooperation agreement with China earlier this spring to permit Chinese law enforcement forces to support the Solomon Islands’ national police force to protect Chinese investment projects on the islands, as well as facilitate rest and replenishment for Chinese naval vessels at port. The agreement was smeared by Washington as an example of “chequebook diplomacy” and the replenishment facility mischaracterized as a naval base that would host a permanent military presence. It bears noting in this regard also that the Solomon Islands capital city Honiara, in November 2021, was witness to some of the worst rioting seen in many years, despite decades of (clearly sub-par) police forces training by Australia’s Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) under the Solomon Islands-Australia security treaty.

In the months since, the Joe Biden administration has invigorated its own diplomatic outreach, sending official delegations to the Pacific Island countries, announcing plans to open embassies in the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Tonga, and hosting a “Partners in the Blue Pacific” event with “like-minded” mini-lateral partners on the sidelines of the recently concluded UN General Assembly(UNGA) session. The cherry on the cake so far is the first U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit, being hosted by the White House on September 28 and 29.

At the first U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit, the discussion focuses on both the security and non-security challenges facing these small island states. In keeping with past form though, the security component and the “small clique” minilateralist impulse overshadow the summit’s other outcomes. From a security perspective, the U.S.’s goal is to enhance the maritime domain awareness capabilities of the Pacific Island nations – lest Beijing step up and provide this capability! 

And from a technology and connectivity perspective, the goal is to increase the Pacific Island nations’ communications links with the U.S.’s regional allies and partners (Japan, Australia, New Zealand and India) by way of undersea cables – lest Beijing build out these data and connectivity linkages. The Pacific Island nations’ telecommunications needs are also sought to be provided though “friendly” vendors.

All told, the first U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit is shaping up to be not so much an effort by Washington to engage these island states on their key development and non-conventional security challenges, such as climate change, as much as counter Beijing’s growing regional influence and lock these states within the Western sphere of influence. Geopolitics masquerading as development is primarily on the agenda. 

And given these Pacific Island states’ geographic remoteness, plus the range of the U.S.’s existing global commitments and Washington’s inability to compete one-on-one with Beijing for the loyalties of these states from an economic and development perspective, the plan is to “crowd-in” a coterie of “like-minded” countries to strategically coordinate assistance to these island states in the face of competition with China. Hardwiring dependence on the West among these strategically located “second island chain” countries in the Western Pacific, rather than listening closely to their development aspirations, is Washington’s agenda.

As Retno Marsudi, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister and host of this year’s G20 summit observed in her UNGA plenary session remarks earlier this week, mini-lateral groupings in the Asia-Pacific have ceased to serve as a building block of peace and stability and have instead become a tool of containment and alienation. The “Partners in the Blue Pacific” grouping and the impulse behind the first U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit falls within this category of activity. Regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific region will be poorer off as a result.

Should an American president of an “America First” as well as climate change denial persuasion ascend to office in 2024 or 2028, it is hard to argue that this level of attention and engagement will be sustained. 

As for China, rather than waiting interminably for a win-win opportunity to work together with Washington in the South Pacific, it should tease out defined areas of collaborative climate change and conservation project-related cooperation with the Labor governments in Australia and New Zealand.

This commentary was originally released on CGTN on September 30, 2022.