{"id":41287,"date":"2018-08-09T10:35:54","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T00:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=41287"},"modified":"2018-08-09T11:30:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T01:30:15","slug":"pivoting-to-the-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/pivoting-to-the-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"Pivoting to the Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Over the past year, there\u2019s been a frenzy of public interest\u2014in Australia and beyond\u2014in the Pacific region. The concern has, of course, been focused on China\u2019s growing activities in the Pacific islands. All of the sudden, it has become a hotly contested geopolitical space. Conventional partners are reacting. Australia is \u2018stepping up<\/a>\u2019. New Zealand is \u2018resetting<\/a>\u2019. The UK is opening<\/a> new diplomatic posts in the region. France wants to \u2018pivot<\/a>\u2019 back to the region. The US is taking a more active interest.<\/p>\n

Close watchers of the Pacific are scratching their heads asking, why now? The growing presence of China in the Pacific has been well documented for some time, and indeed the roots of Chinese engagement in many parts of the region date back generations. Michael Powles was writing<\/a> about it in 2007. Graeme Smith was talking<\/a> about China in the Pacific in 2011. Books have been written<\/a> and a number of PhDs have been completed on the subject. In 2015, the Lowy Institute released its map of Chinese aid in the Pacific<\/a>, which received significant attention for being the first to quantify the size and reach of China\u2019s aid program in the region.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, the pin has clearly dropped in the past year.<\/p>\n

Before China\u2019s engagement in the Pacific, geopolitics in the region had been relatively benign\u2014a point the 2013 PNG defence white paper<\/a> acknowledged, and Greg Colton examines in his recent Lowy Institute paper<\/a>. Thanks to China, the Pacific has been empowered with options beyond its traditional partners of Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United States. In response to this, along with upping their own games, Australia and New Zealand are actively recruiting \u2018traditional\u2019 partners to get back into the game. But what would a \u2018Pacific pivot\u2019 from more \u2018like-minded\u2019 or \u2018traditional\u2019 partners look like?<\/p>\n

Since China has used its aid program as a vehicle to spread into the region, we\u2019ll focus on the role of development assistance. This is only one part, and in many cases a minor one, of broader diplomatic and geostrategic relations. But, for many donors, the aid relationship remains a critical component of interaction with Pacific island nations.<\/p>\n

Over the past 18 months, we have also been developing a tool\u2014the Lowy Institute Pacific Aid Map<\/a><\/em>, launched today\u2014that will make analysis of foreign assistance in the Pacific far more comprehensive. The map is an interactive, multi-faceted platform that contains data on close to 13,000 projects in 14 Pacific countries from 62 donors (new and old) from 2011 onwards. With the primary objective of enhancing aid effectiveness in the Pacific by improving coordination, alignment and accountability of foreign aid, it is the most comprehensive data-collection effort of aid in the Pacific that has ever been undertaken.<\/p>\n

The Pacific Aid Map also illustrates how far these partners will have to go to increase their presence on the ground.<\/p>\n

\n