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ID:
186115
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article explores the geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean, with a focus on independent Pacific island states. In narratives of great power politics, Pacific island countries tend to be portrayed as small, isolated, and vulnerable. In recent times, however, Pacific states have asserted an alternative narrative of their place in the world. Drawing on cultural and economic connections with the ocean, they have sought to reframe their identity as large ocean states with sovereign rights over a huge swathe of the earth’s surface—an area they have labelled the ‘Blue Pacific’. Island leaders have also expressed a willingness to pursue collective diplomacy in the face of challenges like climate change and ocean management. This article also considers the role of Australia in the region. Australia is the largest member of the Pacific Islands Forum, yet remains an ambiguous actor in the Blue Pacific. Australian engagement is ultimately driven by a desire to maintain influence and to deny the islands to other powers. Concerned about a more powerful China, and with an eye to the developments in the broader Indo-Pacific region, Australia has launched a Pacific ‘Step Up’ intended to reaffirm Australia as a security partner of choice for Pacific island states. Australia’s approach is problematic as it tends to prioritise Australia’s own security interests, and comprises for the most part unilateral initiatives developed in Canberra. These concerns notwithstanding, if Australia is to achieve its security ambitions in the region, policymakers will need to better understand and take seriously the Blue Pacific narrative and the security agenda it sets out.
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ID:
186114
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| Summary/Abstract |
Prevailing narratives of security in the Pacific have been framed as a contest between the so-called Indo-Pacific security narrative with its China-threat focus and the human-security and environment focus of the so-called Blue Pacific narrative. The main purpose of this article is to explore areas of convergence as well as divergence in these regional security narratives. The question posed is how the Pacific’s regional security priorities on climate change can be advanced alongside the geopolitical and geostrategic priorities of the region’s major external powers. Past examples of security cooperation in the Pacific point to the way different security narratives and agendas can come together to deliver outcomes probably acceptable to all parties. With this background, the possibilities of cooperation arising from the Boe Declaration on regional security, adopted by the Pacific Islands Forum in 2018, are examined. The article suggests that the current geopolitical environment provides opportunities for Pacific states to drive their agenda by leveraging the complementary security interests of major external powers in the region. However strategic competition between the major powers could in the long term be counterproductive to achieving the region’s climate change goals and ambitions.
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