{"id":58853,"date":"2020-09-07T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2020-09-06T20:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=58853"},"modified":"2020-09-06T18:24:54","modified_gmt":"2020-09-06T08:24:54","slug":"happy-fourth-birthday-pacific-step-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/happy-fourth-birthday-pacific-step-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy fourth birthday, Pacific step-up"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

On Wednesday, Australia\u2019s South Pacific \u2018step-up\u2019<\/a> reaches its fourth birthday as an ambitious work in progress.<\/p>\n

History and geography command commitment. Commitment generates cash. Cash is as vital as vision because neighbourhood needs press. Strategy begets kit and defence engagement. And the new bit galvanising Canberra: China challenges<\/a> Australia\u2019s traditional place as the pre-eminent South Pacific power.<\/p>\n

The step-up was born on 9 September 2016 at the 47th Pacific Islands Forum, in Micronesia, when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a \u2018step-change\u2019<\/a> in relations with the islands.<\/p>\n

Political language depicts, defines and directs, and much of Canberra didn\u2019t like the \u2018change\u2019 part of Turnbull\u2019s step-change. Change suggests a break with the past or even past failure.<\/p>\n

Rather than change, we\u2019d do more of what we\u2019d been doing and do it better. Turnbull\u2019s step-change was christened the \u2018step-up\u2019. New Zealand soon joined <\/a>\u00a0with a South Pacific \u2018reset\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The origin story from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade<\/a> emphasises continuity, not change. Since decolonisation, DFAT says, Australia has had \u2018over half a century of sustained engagement, responding to the region\u2019s priorities\u2019, because of our \u2018abiding interest in the\u00a0sovereignty, stability, security and prosperity\u00a0of our region\u2019.<\/p>\n

The policy rests on those two legs: the South Pacific\u2019s needs<\/a> and Australia\u2019s abiding interests<\/a>. We act not just because we should but because we must.<\/p>\n

In his memoir<\/a>, Turnbull muses: \u2018Australian leaders have often called the Pacific \u201cour backyard\u201d. That\u2019s not the right term: it suggests we own it and take it for granted. The Pacific rather is our neighbourhood, and while vast, it\u2019s one in which we have special responsibilities and opportunities.\u2019<\/p>\n

The step-up was a key objective of the 2017 foreign affairs white paper<\/a>. Launching the document, Turnbull talked of \u2018an irreversible and permanent<\/a> step-up in our commitment\u2019 to the South Pacific.<\/p>\n

When Scott Morrison took over as prime minister, he embraced \u2018a new chapter in relations with our Pacific family\u2019 in a speech<\/a> to troops at Queensland\u2019s Lavarack Barracks in November 2018: \u2018This is our patch. This is our part of the world. This is where we have special responsibilities. We always have, we always will. We have their back, and they have ours. We are more than partners by choice. We are connected as members of a Pacific family.\u2019<\/p>\n

Some distrust the emotion and ambition of Morrison\u2019s \u2018Pacific family\u2019. I reckon it\u2019s goddamn genius<\/a>, not least because family reflects his life and faith.<\/p>\n

Through their church, Morrison\u2019s family has made many trips to the South Pacific. Personal experience of normal Pacific life makes Australia\u2019s 30th prime minister somewhat unique, as a fine Oz scribe, Mary-Louise O\u2019Callaghan<\/a>, explains: \u2018Morrison is likely the first prime minister since Federation to bring to the office such personal insight and real affinity for our island neighbours. When Scott Morrison speaks of the Pacific being family he actually means it.\u2019<\/p>\n

Turnbull and Morrison offer versions of the step-up as an expression of Australia\u2019s interests, influence and values. Turnbull does traditional duty by pointing to opportunities and responsibilities. Morrison accepts that strategic base, then reaches to shared beliefs\u2014the conversation must be more than transactional.<\/p>\n

The step-up has bipartisan consensus. Labor claims continuity by pointing to the Rudd government\u2019s \u2018new<\/a> era<\/a> of cooperation<\/a>\u2019, the Port Moresby declaration<\/a> and the Pacific partnerships<\/a> for development<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Invoking family and history is part answer to island cynicism that the step-up is just Canberra panicking about China\u2014although the China panic<\/a> has concentrated minds wonderfully in many dimensions of Oz policy.<\/p>\n

A panicked Canberra pushed Beijing aside to build a fibre-optic cable from Honiara to Sydney, and then committed to build a similar cable network around Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n

Australia wanted to ensure, Turnbull writes, \u2018that critical communications infrastructure didn\u2019t fall under the control of China or any other country whose interests may not always be aligned with our own, let alone the values of Pacific island nations\u2019.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much else Australia doesn\u2019t want to fall under China\u2019s sway.<\/p>\n

Responses range from the creation of the Office of the Pacific<\/a> to the $2 billion<\/a> infrastructure facility for the South Pacific and Timor-Leste.<\/p>\n

The 2020 defence strategic update<\/a> mentions the \u2018step-up\u2019 seven times (the same number<\/a> of times it names China). The step-up aligns with the update\u2019s stress on Australia shaping its strategic environment: \u2018Australia must be an active and assertive advocate for stability, security and sovereignty in our immediate region.\u2019<\/p>\n

Kevin Rudd says the coalition under Tony Abbott, and then Turnbull and Morrison, \u2018opened the door\u2019<\/a> to Chinese influence in the\u00a0South Pacific\u00a0by slashing aid and retreating on climate change action.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s international aid budget has, indeed, suffered what the Lowy Institute\u2019s Jonathon Pryke calls a \u2018dramatic contraction\u2019<\/a>. Stephen Howes of the Australian National University dubs our aid policy \u2018incoherent\u2019<\/a> and points to an \u2018unprecedented divergence\u2019<\/a> between spending on defence and aid.<\/p>\n

Canberra hasn\u2019t quite lost sight of the truth\u2014best deployed against hard heads and cynical \u2018realists\u2019\u2014that aid is the soft end of the defence budget.<\/p>\n

South Pacific aid was quarantined by not being savaged. Australia can still proclaim itself the top aid partner in the islands. The dollar figure for the islands trends up: $1.1 billion in 2017\u201318, $1.3 billion in 2018\u201319, $1.4 billion in 2019\u201320.<\/p>\n

On origins and parentage on this fourth anniversary, note the claim by the ebullient former defence minister Christopher Pyne<\/a>: \u2018I created the Pacific Step-up to support Australia\u2019s strategic position in the South Pacific.\u2019<\/p>\n

Pyne says the comprehensive policy is more than any other country has committed to the region. He offers this conclusion about what\u2019s changed in Canberra\u2019s mindset on the islands: \u2018The days where Australian government policy appeared to rely on the adage \u201clet virtue be its own reward\u201d were over. We were stepping up and stepping out!\u2019<\/p>\n

Using the success-has-many-fathers measure, Canberra thinks and hopes and trusts and prays that the step-up is working. Happy birthday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, Australia\u2019s South Pacific \u2018step-up\u2019 reaches its fourth birthday as an ambitious work in progress. History and geography command commitment. Commitment generates cash. Cash is as vital as vision because neighbourhood needs press. Strategy …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":58855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,89,294,2281,99],"class_list":["post-58853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-dfat","tag-diplomacy","tag-scott-morrison","tag-south-pacific"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHappy fourth birthday, Pacific step-up | 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\/happy-fourth-birthday-pacific-step-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Happy fourth birthday, Pacific step-up | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Wednesday, Australia\u2019s South Pacific \u2018step-up\u2019 reaches its fourth birthday as an ambitious work in progress. 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