How Pacific Regionalism Fell Apart

As if by some conspiratorial design to cover up the diplomatic rifts, COVID-19 and the unfolding climate crisis have overshadowed the shimmering tectonic fractures caused earlier this year by disputes over the selection of a new secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). The forum consists of 18 countries: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. The five northern Pacific island states of Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau and Republic of Marshall Islands  (commonly referred to as “Micronesia”) were not happy with the chosen candidate and decided to exit the PIF in protest against what they thought was an unfair selection. This threw Pacific regionalism into political disarray.

More poignantly, it has thrown into serious question the values of Pacific consensus and collective trust, which have framed the normative basis of Pacific regionalism since the organization was set up in 1971.

The breakup of the PIF sits on top of other significant issues such as big power geopolitics, the climate emergency, the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, as well as turmoil in another major regional organization, the University of the South Pacific.

Racialized Subregional Framing Tectonic Shifts?

Pacific regionalism as a post-colonial construction evolved in different ways since the 1970s. The euphoria of independence of the Pacific island states between 1960 and 1980 naturally created the need for a unifying ideology to provide a platform on which they could articulate a common voice and deal with the rigors of global politics, trade, and manage a collective regional agenda. A number of regional organizations were set up. Today there are nine such organizations which make up the Council of Regional Organizations of the Pacific (CROP); along with the PIF, these include the Forum Fisheries Agency, Pacific Aviation Safety Office, Pacific Power Association, Pacific Islands Development Program, Pacific Community, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program, South Pacific Tourism Organization, and the University of the South Pacific (USP). While one would think of these organizations as part of a regional family, ironically, there is a certain degree of territoriality and competition over resources and agendas among them as they are often funded by the same donors.

There are also deeper complications that are not often understood, especially how Eurocentric cultural framing has, in subconscious ways, shaped the constructed political terrains in the region.

In the broader anthropological sense, Pacific societies are part of the Austronesian cultural system, which spans the oceanic Southeast Asian region and across the western, central, and eastern Pacific as far east as Rapanui (Easter Island), as far south as Aotearoa New Zealand, and as far north as Hawaii.

Early Austronesians went as far as South America, from which they brought back sweet potato (kumala in Fijian and Tongan, umala in Samoan, uala in Hawaii, and kumara in New Zealand Maori) before Columbus ever set foot on the landmass. The Pacific navigators traversed the region for trading, settlement, and other purposes using the most sophisticated navigational technology known to humanity at the time.

Things changed dramatically with the arrival of Europeans and colonialism not only in terms of land grabbing and imposition of political rule, but also in terms of human framing and classification, an obsession of European scholars since the so-called period of European Enlightenment in the 18th century. The European imagination of “lower races” inspired writers of the time to frame the Pacific peoples as “noble savages” or “ignoble savages.” In the 1830s, a French explorer, Jules Dumont d'Urville, drew arbitrary lines across the Pacific and created three human categories: Melanesians (black people), Micronesians (small people), and Polynesians (many peoples). Despite research showing the complex genetic and cultural admixtures across the Pacific, these artificial categories were reproduced in writings, academia, and social discourses and Pacific peoples unconsciously assimilated them as part of their new forms of identities.

The racialized d’Urville classificatory lines were used as a basis for the three subregional groupings in the form of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) (Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, and Fiji), the Micronesian Chief Executive Summit (MCES) (Kiribati, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam) and the Polynesian Leaders Group (PLG) (Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, and Niue). The nexus between racialized Eurocentric framing, localized parochial political identification, and geographical subregionalism shaped  the tectonic plates on which Pacific regionalism sat.

It was almost inevitable that political fractures would emerge when the circumstances were right. The February voting for the PIF’s secretary general followed more or less the same pattern of racialized alignment as the d’Urville classification, with the six PLG leaders all voting for the Cook Island prime minister and five of the MCES voting for the Marshallese candidate, along with three from the MSG. The deciding votes of Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand went along with the PLG votes.

This manifested one of the dilemmas of the PIF. On one hand it operates on the basis of cultural pretention by advocating a reimagined form of Pacific “cultural consensus,” and on the other hand it claims to be a modern regional organization. This hybrid strategy has created a number of challenges in the operation of the organization. For instance, the selection of the secretary general is often based on consensus and it was assumed that the leaders were going to endorse the Marshallese candidate, but this was thwarted by power politics as forum leaders horse-traded and conspired to outmaneuver each other’s candidate.

From a total of five candidates, three dropped out and two, Marshall Islands Ambassador to the U.S. Gerald Zackios and Henry Puna, the Cook Islands prime minister, were left to contest for the position. The latter won by nine votes to eight. This was actually the first time ever that a vote took place, a result of how consensus was being undermined by political interests. This speaks to a broader issue of how “consensus” can be manipulated as a means of projecting an image of being culturally authentic, to conceal the undercurrents of political gamesmanship and realpolitik.

In threatening to leave the PIF, the MCES leaders had a point. Under the informal “gentleman’s agreement” between the leaders, there was meant to be a rotational system among the three groups and 2021 was supposed to be the MCES’ turn to hold the secretary general post. The idea of regional rotation, as used in various international agencies and organizations, is to ensure diversity, fairness, and equity in representation. Unfortunately for the PIF, subregional self-interest and territoriality overshadowed this and this led to disastrous consequences.

The issue here is that, for as long as subregional fragmentation exists in its current institutionalized forms, regionalism as a unifying ideology will continue to be under constant threat. Thus it is time to seriously rethink the idea of subregional grouping by firstly de-colonizing the three Eurocentric categories that have divided the people of the Pacific for over a century and substituting them with a unifying Pacific identity on which we can build a strong regional foundation.

The tension in the PIF was closely linked to the simultaneously unfolding crisis at the University of the South Pacific (USP), another regional institution. One of the main protagonists in the USP saga is Fiji, which has been pushing for the removal of the university’s Canadian vice chancellor, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, who wrote a report on the mismanagement of the institution by the previous vice chancellor and the current pro-chancellor, both of whom have close ties with the Fiji government. This pitted the Fiji government against other members of the USP Council, who were supportive of Ahluwalia, led by the University Chancellor and President of Nauru Lionel Rouwen Aingimea, who is also leader of the MCES bloc. This inevitably led to tension between the president of Nauru and the Fiji government and may have influenced Fiji’s decision to vote against the MCES candidate for the PIF secretary general.

Small Powers, Big Powers

Another major issue that obfuscates regionalism is the ambivalent relationship between national sovereignty and regional interests. The individual island states have found themselves preoccupied with internal political and economic issues and often the bigger regional agenda is perceived as too distant. In many cases the resolutions and declarations by the PIF leaders are not actively implemented at the national level, and this puts a lot of pressure on regional organizations to make the connections between regional discourses and local activities. This has been exacerbated by COVID-19, which has forced many countries to exert most of their energy on domestic issues to ensure survival.

The two big regional powers, Australia and New Zealand, have often been criticized for using their economic and political influence as donors to sway decisions in their favor, either as leverage against China or to deepen their strategic stance on behalf of Western interests generally. Despite the rhetoric of generosity, more than 80 percent of the aid by Australia and New Zealand to the Pacific remains in their respective countries because the contractors hired are largely domestic in origin.  Aid is often used as a tool to buy political loyalty.

Outside of the major powers, Fiji has, over the years, been using the anti-Australia and anti-New Zealand card to conceal, although not very well, its ambitions as a subregional hegemon through control or excessive influence of key regional institutions and organizations such as Air Pacific (which was unilaterally transformed into Fiji Airways), the University of the South Pacific, and other regional entities. This too has threatened regionalism as other small island states see Fiji as the major beneficiaries of regionalism since it is host to most regional institutions.

The other smaller island states often see the PIF as providing a parental role in forging solidarity against external powers. But this is made more complex by the fact that the very structure of the PIF allows for big powers to be part of the PIF process as forum dialogue partners. These countries include Canada, China, Cuba, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Other countries, like Norway and Chile, have been trying to become members. While officially the role of the dialogue partners was to “participate in a dialogue with Forum Members… to build understanding, support and action on the Forum’s regional priorities,” the political dynamics have become much more multifarious over the years, with only some fulfilling the expectations of the forum while some use the PIF as a fulcrum to serve their regional strategic interests. Some of these countries have used their dialogue partner status to lobby and mobilize support for such things as membership in the United Nations Security Council and other international organizations.

While the dialogue partners idea had a noble intention, it has led to a situation of implicit power disequilibrium and manipulation, in which big countries use it as a Trojan horse to extend their tentacles into the heart of Pacific politics and development. The relationship between the PIF countries and the dialogue partners is based on the donor vs. recipient dichotomy. This unequal relationship reinforces the dependent development thinking and strategies of individual countries and further strengthens the stranglehold of donors in the region.

China has used its membership in the dialogue partners group to pursue its interests in earnest. As part of its Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese have been active regional lenders and in doing so have challenged the monopoly of Australia and New Zealand in terms of the amount of money they provide in the region. This has created geopolitical tension and again, as in the Cold War period, small island states find themselves sandwiched between contesting big powers. But many have strategically used their size and smart political leveraging to maneuver their way between contending big powers to maximize benefits for themselves. For instance, despite its very close political, military, and economic ties with China, Fiji has been able to revive close economic, political, and military ties with the Australians (who imposed sanctions on Fiji after the 2006 coup) through its vuvale (family) concept. A deciding moment in this relationship was in August 2018, when Australia won the bid over China to upgrade Black Rock, a Fiji military base in Nadi. The Chinese would certainly not have been amused by this.

Pacific island states know that to maximize their interests, it would not be a good idea for them to put all their eggs in one basket. They are also able to observe, as well as play on, the different approaches made by the big powers. One of the differences between Chinese projects and those by Australia and New Zealand is that the latter two tend to focus more on policy, institutional reform, or capacity building projects, and contractors, largely from these countries, are deployed to carry out projects. This means that most, if not all, the money remains in the country from which it originated. Thus, aid outcomes are often invisible, nebulous, and over the years, there have been questions raised in relation to their actual impact on the ground.

On the other hand, Chinese aid is infrastructure-based in the form of public buildings, roads, and wharves and is thus very “visible.” The visibility of aid makes a lot of difference to local community perceptions. However, over the years, the reputation of Chinese aid has been tarnished by the poor quality of technical work, a tendency to ignore local building codes, insensitivity to environmentally destructive practices, an aggressive and manipulative style of negotiation with local authorities (including bribes), and the debt-incurring nature of Chinese “soft loan” projects. Australia in particular has been using concerns over Chinese aid to frame its Sinophobic narrative around a possible Chinese takeover of the region.

The Climate Emergency

The climate emergency has been a major regional agenda of the individual Pacific island states, PIF, and other regional institutions. The northern island states of the MCES, notably the Marshall Islands, have been at the forefront of the global climate crisis campaign, energized by the fact that many Marshallese were victims of nuclear testing by the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. In 2018, PIF leaders adopted the Boe Declaration, which stated that “climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific.”

However, despite agreeing to this resolution, Australia’s position on climate change has been lethargic as their right-wing government is closely connected to the powerful mining lobby and the anti-climate stance held by Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, which has been fanning the global narratives of doubt and opposition to the climate movement. Australia’s limited commitment to reducing its carbon footprint is a major disappointment to the small island states and certainly to the world generally.      

Because of the diminutive size of atolls, seasonal cyclones, the direct impact of sea erosion, coral bleaching and intrusion of sea water into water sources, and limited available soil, the Pacific islands are probably the most exposed to the calamities of the global climate crisis. This works both ways. Not only does it directly affect their wellbeing and capacity to survive, on the other hand, it contributes to building their sense of resilience and ability to adapt against all odds. The oceanic cultures that Pacific communities have developed over the centuries are based on their connection with the surrounding ocean, which they rely on for transportation, food, and a sense of identity and connections with the ancestral world. Responses to the climate crisis need to be built on an understanding of the indigenous and community modes of resilience and how these can be strengthened further.

The COVID-19 Scourge

The COVID-19 crisis has impacted the region in significant ways. The market economies have virtually collapsed due to the loss of tourism jobs and income, and people are resorting to traditional means of survival through the use of exchange, kinship reciprocity, and traditional farming. COVID-19 has impacted regional communication and rendered the PIF almost dysfunctional as leaders are unable to meet in person. Even newly appointed Secretary General Henry Puna has not been able to travel to Fiji due to the high incidence of the Delta variant in the country. The PIF Secretariat officials in Suva, Fiji’s capital, are forced to work at home as their offices are closed and some have been evacuated overseas. The daily regional work of the PIF has been hindered, including any attempt to initiate face-to-face discussions with the MCES leaders regarding reconciliation. COVID-19 has simply accentuated pre-existing challenges and made them even more difficult to manage, let alone overcome.

The dual impacts of COVID-19 and the climate crisis will change the Pacific region forever, especially as they will force the island states to think long and hard about alternative economic strategies for the future. The pandemic wiped out not only the basic foundation of regional tourism and aid-dependent, market-based economies, it has also led to a rethink of strategies for survival using traditional social and solidarity economies, and cultural systems of reciprocity and kinship links as social protection mechanisms to sustain wellbeing. The region’s communities have witnessed first-hand the downside of total reliance on a fragile neoliberal system, and the need to anchor regional markets on a strong and resilient community-based production system, which can withstand the onslaught of external forces.

The economic challenges faced by Pacific island states has compelled many to seek alternative economic resources. Looming large in this quest is seabed mining. Nauru, which has formed a partnership with Deep Green, a mining company, has called on the International Seabed Authority (ISA) of the United Nations, the body responsible for the ocean floor, to speed up the deep sea mining regulations. By June 2021, ISA has already granted 19 exploration contracts, 17 of which are in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the eastern Pacific region. A number of countries that are close to the CCZ, such as the Cook Islands, Tonga, and Kiribati have signed contracts with companies to carry out explorations.

The threat this will pose to the fragile Pacific oceanic ecosystem can be enormous, apart from potential disputes over the island states’ 200 mile EEZ borders, which may lead to more regional instability.

Incomplete Decolonization

One continuing issue is decolonization, especially in relation to West Papua, an Indonesian colony and the French colonies of Kanaky (New Caledonia), French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna. Indonesia’s diplomatic overtures in the Pacific have to some degree stifled the enthusiastic support for the West Papua freedom movement among the Pacific island states, despite the increasing human right abuses by the militarily powerful Southeast Asian state. The MSG, for instance, is now divided, with Fiji and PNG both toeing the Indonesian line, leaving Vanuatu as the main pro-independence voice in the organization. The application for full membership in the MSG by the West Papua Liberation Movement has not been resolved yet, despite the fact that its New Caledonian counterpart, the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), joined in 1989.

New Caledonia itself has gone through two referendums over independence, the first in 2018 and the second in 2020 under the Noumea Accord, a 1998 agreement with the French Republic for a 20-year transition toward greater autonomy. The “No” vote won on both occasions with 56.7 percent and 53.26 percebt respectively. A third referendum is due in December 2021.     

The Future?

Despite the challenges of subregional fractures, regional power disequilibrium, the climate emergency, COVID-19, and incomplete decolonization, the Pacific peoples themselves have proven to be resilient and highly adaptable in times of crisis. As oceanic people, resilience is in their cultural DNA after centuries of living in high-stress environments and crossing the great ocean using the most sophisticated navigational tools known to humanity at the time. It is that resilience, that sense of community affirmation, and the use of social and solidarity mechanisms for survival, which could form the basis for facing up to future challenges.

Rethinking a new decolonized regional order devoid of the subregional groupings based on a 19th century racialized Eurocentric view of the Pacific is a necessity. It is a way of conquering the colonial ghosts of the past as the region looks forward to the promises of the future.