{"id":81938,"date":"2023-08-28T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2023-08-27T20:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=81938"},"modified":"2023-08-25T16:14:16","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T06:14:16","slug":"what-australias-indo-pacific-aid-policy-tells-the-pacific-about-its-priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/what-australias-indo-pacific-aid-policy-tells-the-pacific-about-its-priorities\/","title":{"rendered":"What Australia\u2019s \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019 aid policy tells the Pacific about its priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

It will surprise some, and disappoint others, that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade\u2019s new policy statement<\/a> on international aid has drawn so little apparent interest from its intended beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s Pacific neighbours should have a keen interest in any statement on this, given Australia\u2019s position as the region\u2019s most significant source<\/a> of official development assistance. Foreign Minister Penny Wong has been a frequent visitor<\/a> to the Pacific to demonstrate the government\u2019s elevated interest in the region and to assure the region that she has been listening to criticisms of the previous government\u2019s approach to aid policies, which were seen as tight-fisted<\/a> and misdirected.<\/p>\n

Aside from a desire to demonstrate that there was a new game in town, in a decade characterised by changing trade patterns, Covid-19 and its impacts, demographic change and rapidly evolving geostrategic dynamics, a comprehensive review of Australia\u2019s aid priorities is timely.<\/p>\n

So, why has the document generated so few ripples across the Pacific?<\/p>\n

There are several reasons.<\/p>\n

From the perspective of the Pacific island regional states, one of the more important signals in Australia\u2019s international development policy may be in its subtitle, which reads, \u2018For a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific\u2019.<\/p>\n

This choice reinforces the perception that Australia sees its relationship with the Pacific islands firmly from a security perspective\u2014and as just one part of an increasingly consistent Indo-Pacific strategy.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little appetite among Pacific island countries for blurring the boundaries of their unique regional identity, especially by being absorbed into an area of focus that includes more than half of humanity.<\/p>\n

Since \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019 became a term of art in global geopolitics, Pacific island countries have had legitimate concerns about the idea marginalising them and their interests. Their small size and strategic importance make them vulnerable to manipulation, and they risk seeing their needs subsumed by the great-power security concerns this new mega-region\u2019s conception alludes to.<\/p>\n

Basically, for the Pacific island countries the idea of the Indo-Pacific carries considerable baggage, securitises discussion and invokes fear of Chinese influence and related global security tensions.<\/p>\n

The strengthening of regional security arrangements<\/a> such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the AUKUS agreement and the recent trilateral ties<\/a> brokered between Japan, South Korea and the US only serve to fuel these concerns.<\/p>\n

Referencing AUKUS particularly, Meg Taylor, a former secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, underlined<\/a> the region\u2019s wariness about the Indo-Pacific concept, saying that the Pacific \u2018should have paid much more attention to the Indo-Pacific strategy as it emerged\u2019.<\/p>\n

The focus of Australia\u2019s new aid policy appears to continue a trend where the Pacific region\u2019s traditional Western friends seek to promote their Indo-Pacific security agenda through development assistance\u2014the Partners in the Blue Pacific<\/a> initiative was one example of this.<\/p>\n

Another example emerged this month when Ely Ratner, the US assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs, celebrated<\/a> the reopening of the USAID office in Suva, Fiji, by referencing the same defence initiatives raised by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in his address<\/a> at the 2023 Shangri-La Dialogue.<\/p>\n

Apart from the region\u2019s caution towards the Indo-Pacific concept and securitisation, it can also reasonably doubt that the concept is a useful way of scaffolding the delivery of development assistance to the Pacific islands. But this appears more confected than substantive.<\/p>\n

DFAT\u2019s aid policy document regularly refers to the Indo-Pacific broadly as \u2018our region\u2019, but the development needs of Southeast and South Asian states require solutions that are impracticable in the Pacific island states.<\/p>\n

This inherent diversity is clear from the document\u2019s reference to working with and through \u2018regional architecture\u2019 even though there\u2019s no inclusive and coherent Indo-Pacific regional framework. Instead, there are separate sets of regional architecture in the Pacific islands, Southeast Asia and South Asia which, to some extent, will be competing for Australian assistance.<\/p>\n

Another key reason for the policy\u2019s failure to make a big splash is the aspirational nature of the announced policy changes.<\/p>\n

Informal feedback from island sources, while approving of the policy\u2019s general objectives, questioned how commitments to priorities such as climate change, gender equality and public-sector collaboration will be translated into concrete actions with specific strategies and targets.<\/p>\n

The document isn\u2019t intended to be specific. Nevertheless, it does raise eyebrows over how its new policy settings will appear on the ground. The devil will always be in the detail and some examples of implementation imps are already visible.<\/p>\n

For instance, the Pacific Australia\u00a0Labour Mobility<\/a> scheme is justly touted as a game-changer in Australia\u2019s Pacific relations. It has made a huge difference to regional relations by providing Pacific workers access to employment in Australia. Building on the scheme makes great practical and diplomatic sense.<\/p>\n

However, changes to the scheme to make it more worker-friendly have already generated pushback from agriculturalists on the grounds that they will force unworkable conditions<\/a> on the Australian participants.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the policy document\u2019s assertion that Australia \u2018will strengthen trade and business ties with the region, including through Australian banks\u2019 raises questions as to how much influence the government can wield in the private sector.<\/p>\n

A 2022 analysis<\/a> found that Australian banks had largely abandoned the region, with only one of the four major banks, ANZ, retaining a physical presence in many Pacific island states. It\u2019s hard to see Canberra having the levers to reverse this trend.<\/p>\n

Locating Australia\u2019s new development assistance policy in the Indo-Pacific concept probably won\u2019t be a significant impediment to pursuing the positive policy goals of joining the regional consensus on climate change, embracing the Pacific\u2019s 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent<\/a>, and making Australian aid easier to access.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s also unlikely to advance Pacific island countries\u2019 acceptance of the Indo-Pacific as a regional identity, especially one that\u2019s relevant to solving their problems and meeting their national needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It will surprise some, and disappoint others, that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade\u2019s new policy statement on international aid has drawn so little apparent interest from its intended beneficiaries. Australia\u2019s Pacific neighbours should …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":81940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[416,123,285,56,2160],"class_list":["post-81938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australian-government","tag-development-aid","tag-foreign-policy","tag-indo-pacific","tag-pacific-islands"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Australia\u2019s \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019 aid policy tells the Pacific about its priorities | 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\/what-australias-indo-pacific-aid-policy-tells-the-pacific-about-its-priorities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Australia\u2019s \u2018Indo-Pacific\u2019 aid policy tells the Pacific about its priorities | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It will surprise some, and disappoint others, that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade\u2019s new policy statement on international aid has drawn so little apparent interest from its intended beneficiaries. 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