{"id":47325,"date":"2019-05-06T06:00:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T20:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=47325"},"modified":"2019-05-05T18:30:58","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T08:30:58","slug":"the-destiny-and-duty-of-the-pacific-pivot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-destiny-and-duty-of-the-pacific-pivot\/","title":{"rendered":"The destiny and duty of the Pacific pivot"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Australia\u2019s new South Pacific policy is set in place, no matter which side wins the election on 18 May.<\/p>\n

Labor and the Coalition entered the election with a unity ticket on Papua New Guinea, the Pacific islands and Timor-Leste that ASPI calls the Pacific pivot.<\/p>\n

The policy consensus draws on Australian ideas about destiny, duty, denial and desire.<\/p>\n

Destiny<\/em> refers to an obsession with the island arc that helped create the Commonwealth in 1901, and the South Pacific\u2019s special place in Australia\u2019s constitution.<\/p>\n

Duty <\/em>reflects the security guarantee Australia offers the islands, and Canberra\u2019s determination to be the region\u2019s \u2018principal security partner\u2019.<\/p>\n

Denial <\/em>describes Australia\u2019s instinct of strategic denial in the South Pacific. The China challenge<\/a> has reawakened Australia\u2019s fear of external powers gaining a hold in the islands.<\/p>\n

Desire <\/em>is what Australia, and New Zealand, want to do with the South Pacific, the ambitious offer of economic and security \u2018integration\u2019 to uphold the region by holding it closer.<\/p>\n

Those thoughts are explored in my new ASPI special report: Australia\u2019s Pacific pivot: destiny, duty, denial and desire<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The report looks closely at how Australia\u2019s instinct of strategic denial in the island arc has been roused by the challenge from China. As a companion or counterpoint to the challenge perspective, see Richard Herr\u2019s special report on Chinese influence in the Pacific islands<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Date the pivot from the Coalition government\u2019s 2017 foreign policy white paper<\/a>, which promised \u2018more ambitious engagement\u2019 and offered the new vision \u2018to integrate Pacific countries into the Australian and New\u00a0Zealand economies and our security institutions\u2019. Integration is described as \u2018essential to the long-term stability and economic prospects of the Pacific\u2019, a region of \u2018fundamental importance to Australia\u2019.<\/p>\n

Integration is a confronting idea for the identity and independence of proud island nations. That\u2019s why Prime Minister Scott Morrison has shown political and diplomatic smarts by talking often about Australia as part of the \u2018Pacific family<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

The family imagining offers much, not least a lens to widen Australia\u2019s understanding of the pivot\u2019s two dimensions: power and people.<\/p>\n

Power is about Australian policy\u2014diplomatic, defence, trade, aid, business<\/a>, communications and international broadcasting<\/a>\u2014driven by our strategic denial instinct. The power questions for Australia are about our interests and influence, but also about our values.<\/p>\n

The people dimension is about our values meeting the values and needs of the diverse members of the South Pacific family.<\/p>\n

Family is the badge for the pivot, complementing New Zealand\u2019s Pacific\u00a0\u2018reset\u2019<\/a>. It\u2019s an explanation of belonging and responsibility\u2014an imagining that offers more equality than talk of \u2018our patch\u2019 or \u2018our backyard\u2019.<\/p>\n

The South Pacific hasn\u2019t shown much enthusiasm for integration. The anti-Oz line is that integration is colonialism redux\u2014a polite term for dominance\u2014and that Canberra\u2019s focus is all about China, not the islands.<\/p>\n

The family discussion gets a warmer response, although, as in any family, the disagreements wound. Australia\u2019s stance on climate change and the \u2018Pacific solution\u2019 of sending boat people to Nauru and Manus Island eat away at our standing.<\/p>\n

Canberra can\u2019t assume that its good intentions are automatically accepted. The Oz hegemon isn\u2019t always benign\u2014we have form as a selfish bully.<\/p>\n

Integration is a good idea that\u2019ll gain ground slowly and that\u2019s subject to how we act more than what we say. Integration asks the South Pacific to compromise a level of sovereignty\u2014to trust and benefit from Australia\u2019s economic and security opportunities and leadership.<\/p>\n

Integration rests on a simple, obvious idea: a stronger South Pacific is in Australia\u2019s interests. Stronger island nations are better able to serve their own interests and identities. It\u2019s not contradictory to say that those South Pacific interests and identities will be helped by getting closer to Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Independence is based on strength, not weakness. The integration offer is about helping the islands build their future, not binding their options.<\/p>\n

In talking up integration, I\u2019ve been struck by how my strongest line hasn\u2019t been Australia\u2019s good intentions but the example of New Zealand.<\/p>\n

New Zealand will be central in setting the ambition and the limits of integration. Wellington must play the special role it claims for itself in the Pacific as the essential Kiwi.<\/p>\n

New Zealand knows all the benefits of alliance with Australia, and free movement of goods, services and people. New Zealand has been integrating with Australia for 200 years, yet this embrace of the kangaroo has never hurt Kiwi identity or sovereignty (or changed the way they do their vowels).<\/p>\n

New Zealand is proudly itself, while prospering from the kangaroo partnership. The Kiwi integration experience is a positive model for a Pacific community. If the Kiwis can do it, so can the rest of the South Pacific.<\/p>\n

Responding to all the economic, social and security needs of the South Pacific, the pivot rests on a renewed political consensus in Canberra\u2014plus the help and example of the essential Kiwi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s new South Pacific policy is set in place, no matter which side wins the election on 18 May. Labor and the Coalition entered the election with a unity ticket on Papua New Guinea, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":47333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,294,73,2160,99],"class_list":["post-47325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-diplomacy","tag-new-zealand","tag-pacific-islands","tag-south-pacific"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe destiny and duty of the Pacific pivot | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-destiny-and-duty-of-the-pacific-pivot\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The destiny and duty of the Pacific pivot | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Australia\u2019s new South Pacific policy is set in place, no matter which side wins the election on 18 May. 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