X-Post: Inside Story- Stopping The Cheques.

Nauru’s president Baron Waqa with prime minister Tony Abbott at this month’s CHOGM meeting in Colombo.
Robert Schmidt/ AFP

Source: Inside Story

STANDING on the podium in Warsaw this week, president Baron Waqa of Nauru wasn’t mincing his words. “Many of the countries most responsible for climate change are retreating from their moral responsibility and obligation to act,” he said. “Consequently, we are lacking the urgent ambition required to lower emissions in the short time we have to avert catastrophe.”

This year’s global climate negotiations haven’t gone well. The Alliance of Small Island States, or AOSIS, is angry that many developed nations are abandoning pledges to provide financial support for the most vulnerable islands affected by global warming. Speaking on behalf of this forty-three-member bloc, Waqa stressed the vital role of climate finance in responding to the climate emergency. “We are missing the all-embracing idea of human solidarity that underpins the concept of ‘loss and damage,’” he said, referring to the devastation to land, water supply, agriculture and infrastructure caused by delays in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the failure to fund the necessary adaptation.

Leading the retreat at Warsaw is the Australian government. In December last year, the Coalition’s shadow climate minister, Greg Hunt, said that an Abbott government would not give a “blank cheque” to cover loss and damage. Now, as federal environment minister (“climate” having been removed from the title), Hunt has refused to attend the Warsaw negotiations and is making good on his pledge to stop the cheques.
At this month’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka, the Abbott government ditched Australia’s pledge to contribute to the Green Climate Fund, an innovative new funding mechanism for dealing with the effects of climate change.

In their final communique, the CHOGM leaders “recognised the importance attached to both the operationalisation and the capitalisation of the Green Climate Fund.” But a footnote recorded that “Australia and Canada had reservations about the language of paragraphs 18, 19, 20 and 21 and indicated that they could not support a Green Capital [sic] Fund at this time.”
Hunt made clear in December last year that the Coalition wouldn’t support this multilateral body. “This is not a fund which we support. We have no control over where the money goes, no control over how it’s used, no control over how much we pay and this is something which we clearly, simply, categorically reject.” At the time, international observers were astounded by the chutzpah of this statement. Australia had played a central role in the creation of the fund, with AusAID’s deputy director-general, Ewen McDonald, appointed co-chair of the Fund’s board for its first year of operation. Australian officials have played a crucial role in determining the Fund’s mandate, operations and policies.

In Warsaw, Australian negotiators also disrupted talks on the “loss and damage” agenda, leading to a walkout by the “G77 plus China” delegates, the 132-member bloc currently chaired by Fiji. As noted climate researcher Saleemul Huq told the Guardian, “Discussions were going well in a spirit of cooperation, but at the end of the session on loss and damage Australia put everything agreed into brackets, so the whole debate went to waste.”
At a time of diplomatic turmoil with Indonesia, these attacks on climate finance, coupled with recent cuts in the aid program, will have long-term strategic implications for Australia’s relationship with Pacific island neighbours. Although Australia remains the major provider of aid, trade and military cooperation in the Pacific islands region, the days when it could use aid to call the shots are long gone. The old relationship is no longer the only game in town: in the same month that Canberra overturned Australia’s policy on climate finance, China announced US$1 billion in concessional loans for the Pacific islands.

Alongside China’s increasing diplomatic influence in the Pacific, a range of other players – from Cuba, Russia and Indonesia to unexpected actors like the United Arab Emirates – are complicating policy in the islands for the ANZUS allies. With larger countries like Papua New Guinea and Fiji taking more assertive regional and international roles, many Australians underestimate the rapidity of change in our region. The latest cuts in aid and climate finance can only accelerate that process.

SINCE Copenhagen in 2009, OECD nations have pledged funds for adaptation and mitigation initiatives in the developing world. Thirty billion dollars was committed for fast-start financing in 2010–13, and the agreed target for 2020 is an annual US$100 billion of public and private funds.

But many obstacles already stand between these funds and the most vulnerable communities, including the inadequacy of funding pledges, the balance between money allocated for adaptation or mitigation, a lack of donor coordination, the complexity of funding mechanisms and the special vulnerability of small island developing states and least-developed countries – countries that barely contribute to global greenhouse emissions.

“Approved [climate] finance for projects in the region’s most vulnerable countries, particularly the small Pacific island states, has been modest,” reports the Overseas Development Institute. “Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu cumulatively receive only 4 per cent (USD $83 million) of the total amount approved in the Asia-Pacific region, mostly for adaptation activities.” Funding cuts will just make the shortfall more serious for countries like these.

The cuts can’t be justified by arguing that small island states have a limited capacity to manage aid flows. Australian officials and non-government organisations have been working with the Pacific Islands Forum to establish systems to manage resources effectively and avoid corruption and mismanagement. The Forum secretariat has completed a major study on climate funds in Nauru and published reports on better practice in the region, and last year Oxfam published a report (on which I was the lead researcher) examining regional efforts to strengthen governance of climate adaptation finance.

Beyond this, many of the problems in accessing climate finance lie with the practices of key donors and multilateral organisations. Acknowledging this problem, a June 2012 World Bank report pointed out that “the institutional rigidity of donor organisations makes cooperation and partnership more difficult… Joint programming of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction activities by donors and implementing agencies is not widespread.”

Nic Maclellan

" Alongside China’s increasing diplomatic influence in the Pacific, a range of other players – from Cuba, Russia and Indonesia to unexpected actors like the United Arab Emirates – are complicating policy in the islands for the ANZUS allies. With larger countries like Papua New Guinea and Fiji taking more assertive regional and international roles, many Australians underestimate the rapidity of change in our region. "

Since 2010, Australia’s fast-start funding for climate adaptation and mitigation has been drawn from the aid budget. With the aid program expanding in those years, and a bipartisan commitment to increase official development assistance to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015, Pacific governments have been reluctant to criticise Australian policy. (Island officials believe, for example, that climate financing was supposed to be “new and additional” to resources allocated for addressing poverty, health, education and women’s empowerment, but they haven’t chosen to make an issue of the fact.)

The decision to abandon the 2015 aid target began under the Gillard government. Labor foreign minister Bob Carr diverted $375 million of aid funds in 2012–13 – funds for humanitarian and emergency responses, women’s programs, agriculture and rural development – to pay for asylum seeker processing. But the Abbott government is going further and faster. Since coming to office, the Coalition has made three key changes to the aid program: cutting $4.5 billion over four years by reversing planned increases in the aid budget; abolishing the aid agency AusAID as a statutory agency and merging its functions into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; and proposing cuts in the number of experienced staff charged with making sure taxpayer funds are well spent.

Under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, Labor met its target of A$599 million of fast-start climate finance in 2010–13. But our fair share of the global target of US$100 billion by 2020 is estimated at $2.4 billion a year, an amount that would require a dramatic shift of attitude within the Coalition.

RECENT announcements about aid and climate finance come at a time when Pacific regionalism is being transformed. Australia’s long-held influence in the Pacific Islands Forum is being eroded by new trends in aid, trade and investment. Pacific governments are diversifying their political and economic links beyond the regional groupings that dominated islands politics throughout the cold war years.

Today, Forum countries are showing growing interest in South–South cooperation and engagement with new partners. Fiji’s coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama has been a key player in this regional realignment. Bainimarama has argued that Pacific nations need an independent grouping outside the Pacific Islands Forum. “We must insist that our voice be heard and heeded,” he has said. “We will dine at the table; we will not be content to pick at the crumbs that remain on the table cloth after the decisions are made and dinner is over.”

With Fiji suspended from Forum and Commonwealth activities since 2009, Bainimarama initiated the “Engaging with the Pacific” meetings in 2010 as a counterpoint to the Forum. In August 2013, these meetings morphed into the Pacific Islands Development Forum, a new regional summit which provides both a mechanism for debate about sustainable development and an alternative meeting place for governments, business and civil society. Over time, the new grouping may evolve into a venue for inter-island dialogue without Forum members Australia and New Zealand in the room.

These trends are also evident globally, reflecting the growing links between the Forum’s island countries and Asian powers. As relations with Canberra and Wellington have soured since the 2006 coup, Fiji has joined the Non-Aligned Movement, established diplomatic relations with a range of key developing nations, and opened new embassies in Brazil, South Africa, Korea and Abu Dhabi.

In 2011, the Asia Group within the United Nations formally changed its name to the Group of Asia and the Pacific Small Islands Developing States. (With Tony Abbott stressing Australia’s links with Anglosphere partners in Washington, Wellington and Ottawa, it’s worth remembering that Australia is part of the UN Western European and Others Group, rather than the Asia-Pacific group.)

The Bainimarama regime’s repression of trade unions, limits on political parties and delays in constitutional and electoral reform have not hampered Fiji’s regional and international influence. This year, Fiji has served as chair of the G77 plus China grouping in the United Nations, an unprecedented role for an islands nation. As Fiji’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Peter Thomson, said in May, “The G77 is the most appropriate international grouping for countries such as Fiji, Kiribati and other PSIDS” – Pacific Small Island Developing States – “to advance the development of their economic agendas in the global context.”

Papua New Guinea is also playing a more independent role in regional politics, reflecting its size as a dynamic, populous nation near the borders of Asia. It is the only Pacific island nation in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping, or APEC, and is seeking full membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. With major reserves of timber, fisheries and minerals and new projects to export oil and liquefied natural gas, Papua New Guinea has the potential to influence neighbouring atoll nations.

Attending the Pacific Islands Forum in Majuro last September, PNG prime minister Peter O’Neill said his country will embark on a program of regional assistance with various countries in the Pacific. From next year, the PNG government will introduce a special budget allocation to fund a regional development assistance program. In Majuro, O’Neill increased climate funds to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Kiribati, and pledged funds for Fiji’s 2014 elections.

Seizing the moment, China is using loans and investment to expand its diplomatic influence in the region, erode longstanding island ties to Taiwan and blunt US regional influence. According to China’s foreign ministry, “developing friendly cooperation with the Pacific island countries is part of the long-term strategy guideline of China’s diplomacy” and “a role model for South–South cooperation.”

Meeting Pacific leaders in Guangzhou on 8 November, the Chinese government announced a range of loans, grants and scholarships for island nations. Vice-premier Wang Yang announced that China will provide US$1 billion in concessional loans for Pacific island nations to support construction projects. (A loans facility will especially benefit Papua New Guinea and Fiji, where major oil, gas and seabed mining projects are proposed.) A further $1 billion in non-concessional financing would be made available by the China Development Bank.

At a time when Australia is abandoning increases in overseas development aid, the Chinese government is stressing its diplomatic commitment to the region: “China is a reliable and sincere friend and a dependable cooperative partner of the Pacific island countries.” It will build medical facilities and send medical teams to island nations, as well as investing in green energy projects. Beijing will also provide 2000 scholarships over four years to add to the 3600 Pacific officials and technicians who have already received training in China in recent years.

Canberra’s fixation on the carbon tax and domestic climate policies, meanwhile, is overshadowing these regional and international developments. Although Australia remains the largest aid donor in the islands region, the Coalition government is fundamentally transforming our capacity to deliver development assistance in ways that address core regional concerns over poverty, infrastructure, water and food security. And as we move towards a global climate treaty and a summit to replace the Millennium Development Goals in 2015, there are plenty of other players who are stepping up to engage with our island neighbours. •


Nic Maclellan works as a journalist and researcher in the Pacific islands, and is a correspondent for Islands Business magazine.

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Fiji Defense Officials In China Visit.

Fiji's Minister for Defense,National Security and Immigration, Joketani Cokanasiga is currently on an official visit to China , along with the RFMF Chief of Staff, Brigadier-General Mohammed Aziz and the Navy Commander, John Fox, in addition to other Government officials, as reported by Fiji TV One news segment (video posted below) and corroborated by Fiji Sun article.

The visit to China, is a follow up to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for Defense Closer Cooperation and Technical Assistance, jointly signed by People's Republic of China and Republic of Fiji Military Forces (RFMF) in late August 2013.

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Fiji Foreign Minister Hints Of Not Returning To The Commonwealth.

 
Fiji's Foreign Minister, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola hinted at Fiji's intent, with regards to returning to the fold of the Commonwealth Group of nations. In a response to the statement by the Commonwealth Heads Of Government (CHOG), regarding Fiji's continued suspension, Kubuabola stated in a Fiji Sun article, “Fiji does not need the Commonwealth because it is irrelevant.”

Although, the CHOG leader's statement pledged “unwavering solidarity with the people of Fiji and their expectation of Fiji's reinstatement as a full member of the Commonwealth family”, the caveat in the CHOG statement was explicit in that, reinstatement would only occur, "through the restoration of constitutional civilian democracy and the rule of law and human rights”.

Kubuabola mentioned, “We are really not over eager to go back to the Commonwealth and we're not asking to go back to the Commonwealth." Fiji's reluctance to be re-admitted to the Commonwealth closely follows in the wake of Gambia's withdrawal from the Colonial era institution.

The Gambian Government's statement  of withdrawal was scathing: "[The] government has withdrawn its membership of the British Commonwealth and decided that the Gambia will never be a member of any neo-colonial institution and will never be a party to any institution that represents an extension of colonialism." Whether Fiji shared Gambia's view of the Commonwealth is another question worth considering.

In the African Review article, Trevor Analo highlights the growing perception about the Commonwealth:

“Many people have derided the Commonwealth as an out-dated institution that has no role to play in the modern world. It is seen as an ineffective, powerless and expensive talking shop that does nothing useful except pass resolutions on democracy and human rights.”

American Street News analyst Sam Phatey, explained what the Gambia's withdrawal from the Commonwealth means and what the tangible benefits being a member of the Commonwealth really offers:

“ The recent withdrawal of The Gambia from the Commonwealth of Nations will not only affect The Gambia but has an impact on the Commonwealth has a whole. It is a call for the Commonwealth of Nations to look at its standing in the international community. The commonwealth is looked at more as a rotary club instead of an international institution. But if one asks, “What are the benefits of being a Commonwealth country or what has my country gained from being part of the Commonwealth?” It becomes highly debatable with most people strongly emphasizing that they have not benefited from this community of 52 nations. On so many forums I came across in my research, people in Commonwealth countries including Nigeria have firmly argued that they as Commonwealth citizens have no benefits.” 

The people of Fiji would certainly share the sentiments of the lack of citizen benefits, of being in the Commonwealth. Apathy seems to describe Fiji Government's current perception of the Commonwealth. This statement from Fiji's Foreign Minister is indicative that, the ranks of Gambia might be soon be growing. The number of cracks emerging from fallen masonry in the vestibule to the Commonwealth, could inevitably threaten the structural integrity of the edifice.




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X-Post: Gateway House - India’s Strategic Imperative in the South Pacific.

Source: Gateway House

This summary is a part of the larger paper, titled ‘India’s Strategic Imperative in the South Pacific,’ authored by Tevita Motulalo, Senior Researcher, Gateway House. 


Full report available here


Summary:

As the global centre of gravity shifts to the Indo-Pacific, triggered in part by Chinese expansion and the U.S.’s Pacific “rebalancing,” an expanding Indian engagement with the South Pacific becomes a geoeconomic and geostrategic imperative. The South Pacific sits at the “pivot” of the Pacific rebalancing.

It is a largely stable region with a relatively small population; it has abundant resources (the Exclusive Economic Zone of the country of Kiribati alone is 3.5 million square kilometres, greater than the total land and maritime EEZ area of India); it is at the crossroads of vibrant and growing maritime trade routes; and it is increasingly strategically located.

Under the “one country, one vote” rule of most international fora, the 14 Pacific Island Countries (PICs) play a significant role in deciding international institutional legitimacy, which is increasingly important for India as it seeks a greater role in global affairs.

There is enormous scope for closer economic, political, and strategic ties between India and the South Pacific. Ties between the two are already friendly and age-old, with myriad cultural compatibilities. But if India continues to neglect the region, it will become increasingly difficult for India to maintain, or to regain, a toehold, while other powers like China manoeuvre for, and establish, entrenched positions.

Just one example of India’s low-key engagement in the region: it has only two High Commissions in the 14 PICs. One is in Fiji, because of its sizable Indian diaspora, the other is in Papua New Guinea, because of trade and minerals. India routinely goes unrepresented at regional meetings held in the other 12 PICs. In contrast, China has a major diplomatic mission in almost every PIC.

India and the PICs are natural partners which only need to 6 build the right bridges to come together to make the South Pacific and thereby the greater Indo-Pacific more economically, politically, and strategically secure. Others have already realised the region’s potential and are moving fast. The question is: Will India catch the South Pacific wave, or be washed over by it?

Dimensions

1. Changing geopolitics: The South Pacific was, until recently, a western backwater “managed” by Australia and New Zealand (NZ). However, the growing economic and strategic importance of the area, combined with regional dissatisfaction with Australia and NZ, have opened up the PICs to other direct bilateral partnerships that bypass Australia and NZ. New (or renewed) players include China, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates.
2. China’s role in the PICs: China’s involvement in the PICs is widespread. This includes visits by the navy of the People’s Liberation Army; exchanges of high-level delegations; abundant soft loans; copious Chinese scholarships for PIC students; and ethnic Chinese controlling about 80% of the retail sector in countries like the Kingdom of Tonga. However, in many PICs, there is a deep suspicion of the recent surge in Chinese immigration and of the role China is playing in the region.
3. Duelling trade deals: After long years of neglect of the region, in 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama announced a “pivot”to Asia. Part of that plan is moving 60% of the U.S. Navy into the Pacific. Another element of U.S. re-engagement is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), a proposed free trade initiative currently consisting of 11 countries (and excluding China), with a collective GDP of around $25 trillion. In part to counter this, China is involved in another proposed regional deal, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). The RCEP will cover a population of over 3 billion people, around 27% of global trade, and around $21 trillion, but it does not include the U.S. India is taking a balanced approach, hoping to capitalise on both.
4. India and Fiji: India’s ethnic-Indian Fiji-focused policy for the South Pacific has been limiting – even counter-productive – for India, both in Fiji and in the wider region. It has given the other PICs the impression that India is mostly focused on ethnic Indians in the region, rather than on true nation-to-nation engagement. China, conversely, has engaged broadly in Fiji, and now is more influential in Fijian policy-making than India. Broad partnerships with the PICs will not only give India more leverage when lobbying on behalf of the diaspora, it will also create wider economic and political benefits for India and the region.
5. Trade not aid: The region is naturally rich and getting comparatively richer. However, both Australia and NZ play up the “aid” narrative in the PICs. The two countries use aid for leverage, for example by gaining preferential access to resources in the PICs like fisheries and minerals, while at the same time flooding the PICs with Australian and NZ goods and services, and protecting their own markets from competitive PIC products. The PICs are presented as net aid recipients. However, they contribute far more to the economies of Australia and NZ than they receive in aid. The PICs don’t want aid, they want trade: access to competitively priced, reliable products (such as products from India) and market access for their products.
6. Scope for economic engagement: The small-scale economies and societies in the Pacific are compatible with the Indian models of village-scale economies and societies. The scope for Indian businesses in the domestic and industrial markets in the PICs is significant. For example, most of the consumer goods in the PICs are either low-cost and low-quality Chinese goods or high-cost Australian and NZ products. In Tonga, a used 14-year-old Toyota costs US $7000. A brand new Tato Nano from India costs half that amount. Across the board, there is a wide opening for reasonably priced, rugged, Indian goods and services, including transportation, information technology and communication hardware and software, agricultural equipment, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, telemedicine, and tele-education.

The way forward

1. The South Pacific is ripe for “long-tail” economic engagement, in which profits are made by selling a small amount of a large number of unique products. It will benefit India and the PICs to create a “long-tail” consortium of Indian goods and services providers. The consortium could have one or more agents in each PIC, representing the products locally, giving microfinance services for the purchase, and providing after-purchase care. The shipping and handling costs would be minimised by the consortium sharing shipping space and the services of the local agent to handle customs and other formalities. Increased political engagement will follow increased economic engagement.
2. A good testing site for this model is the Kingdom of Tonga, a stable, well-educated, English-speaking parliamentary monarchy. Tonga was never colonised and, as the last Kingdom in Polynesia, has informal, but deep, sway in the region. The royal family also provides Tonga with unusual access to key decision-makers outside the region, as it has long-standing, and often personal, ties with other royal families, for example in Japan, Thailand, and Britain. Tonga’s role as a regional leader is increasingly being recognised. In May 2013, for example, Tonga hosted the inaugural South Pacific Defence Meeting, which included New Zealand, Australia, and Chile. In doing this, Tonga led the region in working towards greater security cooperation. Each in their own spheres, India and Tonga have both successfully been at the forefront in drawing the model for emerging sustainable economies and democracies.
3. Once tested in Tonga, the long-tail economic model, dovetailing with long-tail Indian diplomacy (such as appointing more representatives to the region), can be rolled out throughout the South Pacific. Eventually, the model can be expanded to other previously overlooked, but increasingly important, long-tail environments such as the Caribbean and parts of Africa

Related reading:

1. India-Tonga: Old friends, new engagements
Gateway House published this Op-Ed, by Tevita Motulalo, on 29 May, 2012. He analyses whether India, an old friend of Tonga, can fit into the increasingly important Pacific region by building on traditional ties with the island-nation

2. The geo-strategic Pacific Islands
Gateway House published this Op-Ed, by Tevita Motulalo, on 27 May, 2012. He analyses how the need for resources, and the geopolitical shift towards Asia-Pacific have prompted nations to realize that the small island states in the South Pacific control large resource-rich ocean areas and are increasingly geostrategic.

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The New Battle for the Pacific: How the West Is Losing The South Pacific To China, The UAE, And Just About Everyone Else.

Far from being small island states, Pacific Island countries are showing themselves as large ocean states, with vast fisheries, potential seabed resources, and increasingly important geostrategic positioning - as the range of military bases dotted throughout the region can attest.

However, just as the region is showing its importance, Western influence is waning. When the larger Western powers pulled out of the region following the end of the Cold War (the United Kingdom, for example, closed three South Pacific High Commissions in 2006), they turned to Australia and New Zealand to "manage" the area for the West. Ms. Cleo Paskal discusses how and why this happened and what are the options for the West in this new battle for the Pacific.

Ms. Cleo Paskal is an Associate Fellow in the Energy, Environment and Resources department at Chatham House, London, and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Geopolitics, Manipal University, India. 

Recorded at the East-West Center office in Washington, D.C., October 3, 2013

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X-Post : Geopolitics of Racism: The NSA and the 'Five Eyes' Network.

Source: Huffington Post

Nikolas Kozloff

Posted: 11/02/2013 10:03 pm

As Edward Snowden's disclosures continue to reverberate, the racist contours of geopolitics are becoming ever clearer. According to recent reporting, the Anglo, English-speaking countries of the world, including the U.S. and its allies Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, jointly participate in a spy group called the "Five Eyes" network. Though the classic age of imperialism has long since ended, revelations from the National Security Agency (NSA) scandal suggest that whiter nations of the world continue to harbor a deep and abiding distrust of poorer nations and people of color.