{"id":74690,"date":"2022-08-24T11:00:24","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T01:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=74690"},"modified":"2022-08-24T11:19:08","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T01:19:08","slug":"australia-and-the-pacific-now-for-the-hard-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/australia-and-the-pacific-now-for-the-hard-part\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia and the Pacific: now for the hard part"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australia\u2019s new government has made a strong start in the Pacific islands since its election in May. Early visits by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to the Pacific Islands Forum, and bilateral visits by Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy, have laid the foundation for strong personal connections over coming years.<\/p>\n

The government has actively sought to contrast itself with its predecessor in its approach to the region. At a rhetorical level, there has been a strong emphasis on \u2018listening\u2019, which has been well received. And the government has come to power with new policies that will be welcomed. These include, inter alia, promises of additional aid, a new domestic climate-change commitment and a new program for permanent migration from the Pacific.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, though, the Albanese government\u2019s approach is likely to represent an evolution, not a revolution. Indeed, in many areas we should expect to see strong continuity from the Scott Morrison era. We are yet to see a strategic-level statement of the government\u2019s intent in the Pacific along the lines of the 2017 foreign policy white paper; it would be especially good to know if the Albanese government sees continued integration between Australia and the Pacific as a primary policy objective.<\/p>\n

Even so, speeches and official statements to date are a reminder that a change in tone isn\u2019t necessarily the same thing as a change in strategic direction. In practical terms, the aid and defence cooperation programs\u2014with some tweaks\u2014will remain key policy tools in pursuit of Australia\u2019s objectives; support for Pacific regional institutions will remain a priority; and labour mobility will continue as a growing element in economic integration and people-to-people links.<\/p>\n

The Albanese government may not use the Morrison-era term \u2018Pacific step-up\u2019, but it has wholeheartedly adopted Morrison\u2019s use of the term \u2018Pacific family\u2019 to describe Australia\u2019s relations with its Pacific neighbours. Indeed, in her inaugural message to the Pacific\u2014issued the day she was sworn in\u2014Wong used the phrase \u2018Pacific family\u2019 no less than five times in a two-minute video.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, the results of Australia\u2019s 2021 census suggest that there\u2019s now slightly more substance to the language of \u2018family\u2019; the proportion of the Australian population claiming Pacific islands ancestry has doubled since 2006, albeit off a very low base and still only representing just over 1% of the total.<\/p>\n

If climate change represents the key point of contrast between Australia\u2019s new government and its predecessor, the question of China in the Pacific is the area of strongest continuity. The government faces serious challenges on both fronts.<\/p>\n

Wong\u2019s description of the China \u2013 Solomon Islands security agreement as \u2018the worst foreign policy blunder in the Pacific since the end of World War II\u2019 sets a high bar for the government\u2019s management of the China challenge in coming years. It is helpful, from Australia\u2019s point of view, that China seems to have overplayed its hand in the Pacific over recent months, not only in the Solomons agreement but also in its unsuccessful attempt to corral the region into signing up to a \u2018common development vision\u2019. The communiqu\u00e9 issued by Pacific Islands Forum leaders at their meeting in July, which stated in part that \u2018leaders reaffirmed the concept of regionalism and a family first approach to peace and security\u2019, was an encouraging sign of what might be an emerging regional consensus on how better to manage regional security cooperation. But it is hardly definitive.<\/p>\n

It is of course wishful thinking to hope that China will desist from attempts to entrench itself in the region, and to disrupt traditional relationships. Nor, in the case of Solomon Islands, should the government draw any comfort from Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare\u2019s repeated reassurances that his relationship with China is entirely benign. The government will need to find ways of building on the momentum of the positive Pacific Islands Forum outcomes at both a bilateral level and a regional level.<\/p>\n

The climate-change challenge is of a somewhat different order. While Pacific leaders prefer Australia\u2019s new domestic climate targets to those of the previous government, a gap remains between Australia\u2019s position and the aspirations of Pacific island countries. Pacific views on this question align most closely with those of the Australian Greens. Only time will tell how much this gap will remain an irritant in relations. Beyond adjusting Australia\u2019s domestic settings, there\u2019s work to be done to ensure that Australia\u2019s aid program in the Pacific reflects the government\u2019s aspirations on climate change. Given the multiple demands on the aid program, that may not be easy. The government also is likely to face increasing calls to develop policy in anticipation of climate-induced migration.<\/p>\n

Development challenges remain serious across the region, including because several tourism-dependent countries are suffering from particularly bad Covid-19 hangovers. Australia\u2019s aid program is not a panacea, but these are issues Australia cannot afford to ignore. With democratic practice and accountability (an open media, free and fair elections, the rule of law, independent judiciaries) weakening in several countries, the government may need to confront the extent to which values matter in our relationships in the region.<\/p>\n

Problems of governance and effective institutions remain particularly acute in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. The former faces an existential challenge over the future of Bougainville, which voted 97.7% in favour of independence in late 2019. It\u2019s hard to envisage any national government in Port Moresby agreeing to a complete separation, just as it\u2019s hard to envisage any Australian government breaking ranks with Port Moresby on this question. The problem is wicked: Bougainville\u2019s independence would risk removing one source of instability in the immediate region only to replace it with another. Quite apart from its impact on Papua New Guinea itself, an independent Bougainville could seriously exacerbate entrenched tensions between the national and provincial governments in neighbouring Solomon Islands. And regardless of the fate of Bougainville, Solomon Islands is likely to experience further turmoil.<\/p>\n

The broader policy challenge for the Australian government is to integrate aid and non-aid instruments so that they are mutually reinforcing. The latter include defence cooperation (which isn\u2019t counted as aid), expanding labour mobility and migration policies, and soft-power initiatives including a credible \u2018First Nations diplomacy\u2019\u2014whatever that might look like in practice.<\/p>\n

Renewed interest in the region by friends and allies is of course welcome but presents another set of challenges. Working in concert, countries like Australia, New Zealand, the US, Japan, France and the UK all theoretically reinforce each other\u2019s efforts. In practice this is not always the case, or not as much as one would hope. National systems can be very different, and the US in particular seems to find it difficult to work at the granular scale required in the Pacific. The recently announced Partners in the Blue Pacific initiative\u2014combining Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the UK and the US\u2014commits its members to work better together in responding to Pacific priorities, but it remains unclear whether this is anything more than well-meaning rhetoric.<\/p>\n

Morrison set a historically high bar for prime ministerial engagement in the Pacific, and it paid dividends: we don\u2019t know yet whether Albanese will continue that pattern. Wong and Conroy will do a lot of good together, but they can go only so far in fostering relationships with heads of government. Within the public service, the government will soon be making some key appointments, not least new Australian high commissioners to Solomon Islands and to Fiji. Both are challenging and influential positions. In Canberra, the indefatigable Ewen McDonald has presided over the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade\u2019s Office of the Pacific since its establishment in early 2019; while there\u2019s no time limit on this position, he can\u2019t be expected to stay in the role indefinitely.<\/p>\n

The Albanese government is enjoying something of a honeymoon in the Pacific, and deservedly so. But it\u2019s unlikely to last. Formidable challenges loom, and the inbuilt structural imbalance between Australia and its smaller neighbours will inevitably give rise to tensions and disappointments. That\u2019s not the end of the world. Indeed, historically it\u2019s par for the course. So far, so good: now for the hard part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s new government has made a strong start in the Pacific islands since its election in May. 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