{"id":74059,"date":"2022-07-25T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2022-07-24T20:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=74059"},"modified":"2022-07-24T20:34:32","modified_gmt":"2022-07-24T10:34:32","slug":"south-pacific-vexed-by-climate-change-covid-19-and-china-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/south-pacific-vexed-by-climate-change-covid-19-and-china-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"South Pacific vexed by climate change, Covid-19 and China contest"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

\u2018Brothers and sisters\u2014our region has not faced a more vexing set of circumstances for decades. The triple challenges of climate, Covid and strategic contest will challenge us in new ways. We understand that the security of any one Pacific family member rests on security for all.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2014 Foreign Minister Penny Wong, speech<\/a> to Pacific Islands Forum secretariat, Suva, Fiji, 26 May 2022<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As ever, the South Pacific islands know they need Australia\u2014although, as ever, that doesn\u2019t mean the islands have to like that need. Or be happy about the central role Australia must play as times get tougher.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s sharper focus on what it needs in the South Pacific is partly matched by the region\u2019s apprehensive understanding of what it faces.<\/p>\n

Since being sworn in as foreign minister on 23 May (two days after the election), Penny Wong has crisscrossed the South Pacific\u2014Fiji<\/a> twice, Samoa and Tonga<\/a>, New Zealand and Solomon Islands<\/a>. On her third day in the job, her first major speech<\/a> was to the secretariat of the Pacific Islands Forum.<\/p>\n

No previous Australian foreign minister has spent so much time in the islands in their first two months. Wong\u2019s travels represent a diplomatic duel with China\u2019s foreign minister, Wang Yi, who had just done his own trek through the islands. The Pacific is now a place for active and direct strategic competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Six years as the opposition\u2019s shadow foreign minister gave Wong a close view of those \u2018vexing\u2019 forces (synonyms: troublesome, disturbing). Australia\u2019s Pacific step-up<\/a> reaches its sixth birthday in September<\/a>, so a lot has happened during Wong\u2019s watch as shadow minister. Now she gets to run the mechanism of a major Australian policy response that\u2019s still an ambitious work in progress.<\/p>\n

History and geography are at the heart of the step-up, even as it\u2019s driven by the duel. Canberra commits greater attention along with increasing amounts of cash. The galvanising element is China\u2019s\u00a0challenge<\/a>\u00a0to Australia\u2019s traditional place as the pre-eminent South Pacific power.<\/p>\n

The step-up has two drivers: the many things the islands need and the need to respond to China\u2019s expanding power.<\/p>\n

In setting out the three vexing challenges, Wong can tell a different story on how the new Labor government will deal with climate change. That\u2019s made a significant difference to the atmospherics and the substance of discussions with the islands. At the summit of the Pacific Islands Forum, Australia and New Zealand could play their traditional role<\/a> of good cop and good cop.<\/p>\n

In her first-up Pacific speech and during the summit<\/a>, Wong played climate as a trump card and a symbol of Australia\u2019s role\u2014a major point of regional agreement rather than difference:<\/p>\n

As Australia\u2019s first-ever climate minister, I know the imperative that we all share to take serious action to reduce emissions and transform our economies. Nothing is more central to the security and economies of the Pacific.\u00a0I understand that climate change is not an abstract threat, but an existential one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On Covid and contest, Wong can deploy another c-word: continuity. Labor picks up much of the previous government\u2019s Pacific language, and not just the \u2018Pacific family<\/a>\u2019 usage.<\/p>\n

Symbolism and substance came together during the forum summit with the announcement that Australia\u2019s Telstra had finalised the acquisition of Digitel Pacific<\/a>, serving Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Nauru.<\/p>\n

In a break with the \u2018privatisation\u2019 orthodoxies of the past 40 years, Scott Morrison\u2019s Coalition government bought Australia a Pacific phone company. Anthony Albanese\u2019s government nods at a sound piece of policy, even with a hefty price tag. The China contest will cost lots of cash.<\/p>\n

Foiling any Digicel flirtation with China cost the equivalent of A$2.1 billion. Canberra threw in\u00a0US$1.33 billion<\/a>, via the federal government\u2019s Export Finance Australia. Telstra put in\u00a0US$270 million<\/a>\u00a0but gets 100% of the equity. Telstra got the gift; Canberra pays<\/a>. Government documents on the Digicel deal suggest a\u00a0frantic on\u2013off<\/a>\u00a0effort at whacking that China mole.<\/p>\n

Wong\u2019s use of the phrase \u2018strategic challenge\u2019 is merely a polite framing of China. And Wong\u2019s description of what Australia can do with the island amounts to a compare-and-contrast<\/a> damning of what China offers:<\/p>\n

Australia will remain a critical development partner for the Pacific family in the years ahead. We are a partner that won\u2019t come with strings attached, nor impose unsustainable financial burdens. We are a partner that won\u2019t erode Pacific priorities or institutions. Instead we believe in transparency. We believe in true partnerships. We will respect Pacific priorities and Pacific institutions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The climate\u2013Covid\u2013contest list of vexations can be an alliterative nod to the notion of the South Pacific as an \u2018increasingly crowded and complex region<\/a>\u2019\u2014the phrase used in the forum communiqu\u00e9 in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The communiqu\u00e9 this year<\/a> reflected on 50 years of regionalism, highlighting that \u2018the Pacific Islands Forum stands at a critical juncture in its history\u2019, amid \u2018intensifying geostrategic interest\u2019. The range of challenges \u2018exacerbate the region\u2019s existing vulnerabilities and dependencies\u2019:<\/p>\n

Leaders noted that the region continues to be a highly contested sphere of interest, in a wider geopolitical setting with external powers seeking to assert their own interests. In the current strategic context, Leaders recognised the importance of remaining unified as a Forum family to address common challenges and to capitalise on key opportunities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

China makes ambitious offers to South Pacific states. Australia\u2019s great counteroffer is to South Pacific people<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The political strength of the Australian offer is that it\u2019s the bipartisan consensus of Labor and the Coalition. The dollars going to the South Pacific express the sense<\/a> of the Canberra consensus. And Australia\u2019s understanding of what\u2019s going to be a long strategic contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Brothers and sisters\u2014our region has not faced a more vexing set of circumstances for decades. The triple challenges of climate, Covid and strategic contest will challenge us in new ways. We understand that the security …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":74061,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,2160,717,2323,99],"class_list":["post-74059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china","tag-pacific-islands","tag-pacific-islands-forum","tag-penny-wong","tag-south-pacific"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSouth Pacific vexed by climate change, Covid-19 and China contest | 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\/south-pacific-vexed-by-climate-change-covid-19-and-china-contest\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"South Pacific vexed by climate change, Covid-19 and China contest | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u2018Brothers and sisters\u2014our region has not faced a more vexing set of circumstances for decades. 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