| The New Players in the Region | |
Pacific diplomacy boosts links with new friends
Nic Maclellan Pacific nations are largely reliant on aid, trade and investment from traditional partners like Australia, New Zealand, United States, France and Japan. But in recent years, there has been increasing interest in finding new sources of development assistance, economic and political support. Pacific governments have been diversifying their political and economic links beyond the old regional groupings—led by France, United States and Australia/New Zealand—that dominated islands politics throughout the Cold War years. In the mid-1980s, PNG’s then Prime Minister Paias Wingti talked of a ‘Look North’ policy for his country, to extend relations beyond the old colonial ties with Australia. Today, Pacific Islands Forum countries are looking north-west, north-east and to other points of the compass. There is a growing interest in South–South cooperation and new countries are seeking the status of Post-Forum dialogue partner with the Pacific Islands Forum. This trend is driven by a more co-ordinated and assertive diplomacy on the international stage by island ambassadors at the United Nations such as PNG’s Robert Guba Aisi, Fiji’s Peter Thomson, Solomon Islands’ Colin Beck and former Vanuatu Prime Minister Donald Kalpokas. Currently, Nauru’s UN Ambassador Marlene Moses is the chair of the Alliance of Small Islands States (AOSIS) while Samoa’s ambassador Ali’ioaiga Feturi Elisaia represented Small Islands Developing States on the Transitional Committee for the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The post-coup rift between Canberra, Wellington and Suva has accelerated these existing trends in regional policy. Under the Bainimarama administration, Fiji is broadening its international links by opening embassies in Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia. Addressing the UN General Assembly in September 2010, Commodore Bainimarama stated that “this significant shift in foreign policy direction heralds the globalisation and maturity of Fiji. It demonstrates Fiji’s intention to become a good and engaged global citizen. Accordingly, over the past year, Fiji has formalised diplomatic relations with many countries with which no ties previously existed. In addition, Fiji has sought membership of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)”. Fiji was formally admitted to NAM in April 2011, becoming the second islands member alongside Vanuatu. Fiji’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, told Radio Australia last year that joining NAM would help refocus Fiji’s relationships away from its traditional partners Australia and New Zealand and allow Suva to pursue its ‘Look North’ policy, through direct engagement with ASEAN countries and strengthen ties to Beijing.
China’s increasing interest in the
region is provoking a re-engagement by the United States, highlighted by
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2010 visit to the region and new
military deployments in Guam and Australia announced last year by
President Obama. Beijing is active on a range of fronts: investment
in the Ramu nickel project in PNG’s Madang province; the provision of
aid and soft loans worth US$206 million in 2010; increased fisheries and
construction programmes around the region and support for agencies such
as the South Pacific Tourism Organisation. But increasing islands ties
with China are just part of the picture. Around the region, there are a
range of new players that are complicating life for the ANZUS
allies—from Cuba, Russia, Timor-Leste and Indonesia to unexpected actors
like the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Luxembourg.
From Havana to Honiara Cold War paranoia about the Russian threat in the Pacific lost force after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Once scorned as a Soviet proxy in the islands, Cuba has improved relations with the Forum islands nations over the last decade.
Solomon Islands and Cuba established diplomatic relations in December
2002 and Havana opened a resident mission in Kiribati in 2006. Honiara then signed a development co-operation agreement with Cuba on March 6, 2007. Other countries expanded ties after a September 2008 Cuba-Pacific
summit in Havana, attended by Kiribati President Anote Tong; then Tuvalu
Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia; and other Pacific foreign ministers and
officials.
In early 2009, Cuba established formal diplomatic relations with Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. Since then, there has been increased diplomatic contact with Cuba on issues like development, decolonisation and climate change, through common membership of AOSIS and the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation.
This South-South link has focused on the health
sector. Cuba currently supplies medical staff to Kiribati, Tuvalu,
Solomon Islands, Nauru, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, while students
from these countries study medicine and primary healthcare in Havana. In Solomon Islands, for example, Cuba has agreed to send 40 doctors and
offered scholarships for Solomon Islands students to study medicine in
Cuba. Solomon Islands announced in March 2011 that it would
establish an embassy in Havana—partly in reaction to complaints by
Solomons’ medical students that they were not getting the financial and
pastoral support they had been promised.
From Russia with love
Russia continues to have small but influential ties in the region, with
proposals for investment in PNG’s Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) industry and
recent provision of ‘humanitarian’ aid to Nauru. Last year, on the
fringes of the UN General Assembly in New York, Russia’s Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov met with a range of Pacific leaders and foreign
ministers.
Then Lavrov visited the region earlier this year, with stops in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. After courtesy calls on Prime Minister Bainimarama and Foreign Minister
Kubuabola, Lavrov joined regional delegates at the Sofitel Fiji Resort
in Nadi on February 1 for the ‘Russian Federation and Pacific Islands
Countries meeting’.
The Russian minister gained Suva’s agreement to
develop a treaty for visa free travel between Russia and Fiji, and
Lavrov expressed his government’s interest in co-operating with Pacific
states on investment, minerals, energy, tourism, education and medicine. One unspoken element in the dialogue is Moscow’s concern about Beijing’s small but growing influence in the region.
Another of Russia’s interests is winning recognition for two breakaway
regions of Georgia—the states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In
2009, Nauru was one of only four UN member states to grant this
recognition, later joined by Vanuatu and Tuvalu who recognised the
Russian-backed regions.
Relations with Russia have not gone
smoothly. As everyone should remember—when you’re out and about and
tempted to dance with a new partner, think about the reaction of those
you’ve left at home.
In February, Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Peter Shanel Agovaka and Permanent Secretary Robert Sisilo met bilaterally with the Russian Foreign Minister to discuss the formalisation of Solomons’ diplomatic relations with Russia next October. However, on his return to Honiara, Shanel was sacked by Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo who stated: “As a developing country, Solomon Islands should continue to strengthen our ties with traditional partners before pursuing new diplomatic groupings.” Shanel’s foreign secretary was also reshuffled and is now the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Services. Support for Russia’s policy has also been contested in Port Vila, with attempts to reverse the initial decision on Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Vanuatu’s media have raised concern about the role of Mrs Thi Tam Goiset, the country’s first Roving Ambassador to Russian and the Eastern Countries. Luxembourg and the United Nations
According to the Vanuatu Daily Post, the Ambassador’s contract includes
a 15% entitlement to any money secured in the name of the Republic of
Vanuatu. For many years, islands governments often paralleled ANZUS
policies on many international issues, except where there are clear
issues that affected the region. Small Islands States governments like
Tuvalu and Kiribati have fought hard against the US, Australian and
Canadian coal lobby in international climate negotiations, while Tonga,
Samoa and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) nations have consistently
voted for nuclear disarmament initiatives at the United Nations, in
sharp opposition to Canberra and Washington.
Although constrained by the high cost of attending international meetings and maintaining overseas embassies, Pacific governments have been willing to use their vote as a diplomatic bargaining tool. A solid (and potentially growing) bloc of islands votes is a major resource when it comes to decisions in UN agencies or the regular votes for rotating seats on the UN Security Council (UNSC).
Alongside the UNSC permanent members
(USA, UK, France, China and Russia), there are 10 non-permanent seats
which rotate among the regional blocs that group UN member states—and
people are eager to woo islands votes. Last September, the Asia
Group within the United Nations formally changed its name to the ‘Group
of Asia and the Pacific Small Islands Developing States’, a reflection
of the Pacific’s new diplomatic vibrancy and growing links between Forum
Islands Countries and Asian powers.
One of the legacies of colonialism is that Australia and New Zealand are members of the ‘Western European and Others Group’ (WEOG), rather than the Asia-Pacific group.
For the 2013-14 UNSC term, Australia is competing with
Finland and Luxembourg for the two seats as part of the WEOG group at
the high table. This competition explains the entry of the latest
player into Pacific politics—the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Luxembourg
has a population the size of Solomon Islands, but it’s one of the
richest European states, home to tax havens and extensive private
banking.
Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has been actively lobbying for the rotating UNSC seat, travelling to the 2011 NAM meeting in Bali and wooing Fiji and Vanuatu. Prime Minister Bainimarama invited a representative from Luxembourg to attend the March 2011 MSG summit as a ‘special guest’, and both Luxembourg and Finland sent delegations to the 2011 Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Auckland to lobby on the sidelines. So far, this diplomacy hasn’t borne results. In Auckland, Forum leaders (minus Fiji) reaffirmed their “strong and unanimous support” for Australia’s bid for the UNSC seat in 2013-2014 and New Zealand’s bid for 2015-2016 (Stay tuned for October to see if Fiji can woo any islands state to switch their vote from Australia at the last minute!) Beyond support for the two largest Forum members, the 2011 leaders’ communique also noted “the importance of Pacific representation on the UN Security Council (UNSC) in ensuring the UNSC remained informed on international issues of concern to the region.” This suggests that the island bids for representation on the UNSC may be in the wind in the coming years. Fiji considered a bid for one of the Asia-Pacific group’s rotating seats in 2012, but agreed to defer its candidacy in favour of Pakistan, which went on to win the seat. Suva may expect the favour returned for 2015-2016, if national elections go ahead as scheduled in 2014 and Fiji is welcomed back into the arms of the ‘international community’. Nic Maclellan "The post-coup rift between Canberra, Wellington and Suva has accelerated these existing trends in regional policy [...] NAM would help refocus Fiji’s relationships away from its traditional partners Australia and New Zealand and allow Suva to pursue its ‘Look North’ policy, through direct engagement with ASEAN countries and strengthen ties to Beijing [...] Around the region, there are a range of new players that are complicating life for the ANZUS allies—from Cuba, Russia, Timor-Leste and Indonesia to unexpected actors like the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Luxembourg." United Arab Emirates (UAE)
In the 1980s, the Kingdom of Tonga was one of the brokers of Libya’s
engagement with the islands region. Today, Nuku’alofa has opened the
door for another Middle East power—the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
As part of its shift towards renewable energy, Tonga has been a key Pacific player in the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which was officially established in January 2009 to “promote the widespread and increased adoption and sustainable use of all forms or renewable energy”. After ratifying the IRENA Statute in November 2009, Tonga became one of the first countries in the world to be a full member of the new agency. Tonga has been elected to the IRENA Council, which administers decisions of the agency’s global assembly.Through IRENA, successive Tongan governments have built links with the UAE. The then Prime Minister Feleti Sevele led a Tongan delegation to the UAE in January 2010 for the Third IRENA Preparatory Commission meeting.
On January 18, in Abu Dhabi, the MASDAR renewable energy company signed
an MOU with the Government of Tonga to build a 500- kilowatt solar
photovoltaic power plant in Vava’u, funded by a grant from the Abu Dhabi
Fund for Development, an agency controlled by the UAE government.
The following month, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan toured the Pacific in a private Boeing 737 800, leading a delegation for courtesy visits to Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, and Palau (UAE is now supporting Palau’s dugong protection programme).
In Nuku’alofa, Tonga’s Crown Prince
Tupouto’a-Lavaka signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UAE
Foreign Minister on February 9, 2010 and His Royal Highness has been
named as the Ambassador Designate to UAE. The UAE has now launched a
US$50 million “UAE and Pacific Islands Partnership Programme” to be
overseen by the UAE Foreign Ministry and managed by the government-owned
Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.
Seeking AOSIS goodwill as one of
the world’s highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases, UAE was
also looking for support for their 2010 bid for a seat on the UN
Security Council rather than Canada (Canada lost). Canada and the
UAE had a long-running dispute over access for Emirates airline to
Canadian airports, and the issue of airline access resonates in the
Pacific.
At a time Qantas is looking at its major shareholding in Air Pacific, improved ties to the Emirates airline could be important for Fiji, which has hundreds of nationals serving in Middle East peacekeeping operations. These links with the UAE opened the way for a June 2010 meeting between Pacific countries and the Arab League, hosted by the UAE Foreign Minister in Abu Dhabi. The ‘Prospects of Cooperation between Arab countries and the Pacific Islands conference’ started discussions on aid and political co-operation and even proposed opening an Arab League office in the islands. At the meeting, “the Pacific Small Islands Developing States noted the concern of Arab states regarding the conflict in the Middle East, in particular in Palestine. The Pacific Small Islands Developing States undertook to give appropriate consideration to the Arab Peace Initiative, recognising that the views of the Arab States were crucial to a just, comprehensive and permanent peace in the Middle East.” The meeting communique agreed to support international efforts to establish a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East (with an international conference on weapons of mass destruction in the region scheduled for late 2012). In the coming months, Pacific governments will be lobbied extensively on Iran’s nuclear programme and Israel’s arsenal, estimated at 80-200 nuclear weapons. Middle East politics
As with the China-Taiwan dispute, the Arab-Israeli conflict will force
Pacific islands to juggle allegiances. The 2010 meeting with the Arab
League sparked concern amongst the ANZUS allies and Israel, as some
participants started to draw away from US-Israeli positions on
Palestine. The United States and Israel are lobbying Pacific states
against support for Palestinian statehood and, as always, existing aid
and trade relations come into play. In December last year, Vanuatu was
one of only 15 countries that opposed Palestine’s application to join
the United Nations Economic Scientific and Cultural Organisation(UNESCO).
As the only Pacific country receiving US funds through its
Millennium Challenge, Vanuatu’s Education Minister Marcellino Pipite
told Vanuatu’s Daily Post that “prior to the UNESCO conference, I met
USA officials and presented a request for the second Millennium
Challenge Funds and did not want to jeopardise this with voting against
Israel.”
Under their Compacts of Free Association, FSM, Marshall
Islands and Palau have regularly voted with the United States and Israel
against the international consensus on Palestinian rights. But
solidarity with the United States comes at a cost. After the Marshall
Islands opposed statehood for the Palestinians by abstaining in a 2011
UN General Assembly vote, Marshalls’ Foreign Minister Phillip Muller
complained: “We were then told in a diplomatic note from the UAE that we
were no longer eligible to participate in the renewable energy
fund.We’ve been penalised for being friends with certain countries and
no one is stepping up to fill the void.” Other countries with strong
ties to Australia, like Solomon Islands, have also developed new ties
with non-traditional partners in recent years. Honiara has been building
diplomatic links with Iran and has joined Vanuatu to call for an end to
the US embargo of Cuba.
In 2008, Solomon Islands’ then Foreign
Minister William Haomae met his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki
in New York to discuss formalising diplomatic relations. Haomae then led
a Solomon’s delegation to Tehran and the two countries signed a
Cooperative Memorandum to explore development cooperation agreements. At
the time, the Solomon Islands government rejected criticism from Israel
over alleged Iranian influence, with an official stating: “We have no
enemies, and therefore, we will be friends to all the nations, including
both Israel and Iran.”
Israeli officials travelled to Honiara in
2009 to lobby the Sikua government over perceived policy shifts on
Middle East affairs. In November 2009, Solomon Islands was the only
Pacific islands nation to vote in the UN General Assembly in support of a
resolution calling for independent investigation of allegations of war
crimes documented in the Goldstone report (a study by a leading South
African jurist which criticised human rights violations by Israel and
Hamas during the Israeli invasion of Gaza in early 2009). Australia,
Nauru and the US Compact states all voted to reject the report, with
other Forum members abstaining.
In response to this increasing Pacific dialogue with the Arab world, Israel is increasing its regional lobbying.
In January 2010, FSM President Emanuel Mori and Nauru’s then President Marcus Stephen travelled to Israel, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman and President Shimon Peres. In April 2011, the speaker of Israel’s Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, visited Tonga to improve relations between the two countries, while last August Israel’s President Shimon Peres offered Nauru support for desalination projects.
Tel Aviv has approved new aid programmes
through MASHAV (Israel’s International Development Cooperation Agency).
TAG International Development will implement development assistance
programmes in Solomon Islands, with visiting delegations investigating
agricultural projects in Malaita. Israeli experts are also looking at a
hydroelectricity project in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea.
Timor-Leste and Indonesia Closer to home, independent Timor-Leste gained Special Observer Status at the Pacific Islands Forum in 2002. Even though Timor-Leste is still primarily looking west to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Dili is co-operating with the Melanesian Spearhead Group on trade, climate change and other issues.
In early 2011, MSG member
states agreed to allow Indonesia and Timor-Leste to attend the March
2011 MSG leaders’ summit as observers. In September 2011, Timorese
Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão visited the MSG Secretariat in Port Vila
(the first visit by an overseas head of government since the secretariat
was opened in 2008) and Timorese officials announced a US$500,000 grant
for salaries and projects.
For many years, Indonesian diplomats
have lobbied the islands region from embassies in Canberra, Wellington,
Beijing and Tokyo but now Jakarta is seeking more links on the ground.
Indonesia’s observer status at the March 2011 MSG summit was followed
the next month by the opening of its new embassy in Suva. The Kilman
government in Vanuatu too is moving closer to Indonesia, with the
December 2011 signing in Jakarta of a Vanuatu-Indonesia Development
Co-operation Agreement. These moves have dismayed the West Papua
National Council for Liberation (WPNCL), which has an information office
in Port Vila (especially as the new co-operation agreement stresses
Indonesian territorial integrity, sovereignty over West Papua and
prohibits Vanuatu from interfering in Indonesia’s “internal affairs”).
Indonesia’s MSG observer status was a sharp blow for the West Papuan
nationalist movement, which has been lobbying for that status for many
years.
Indonesia is not alone as an active regional player from Asia. Malaysian corporation Naim is building roads across Fiji, Rimbunan Hijau dominates PNG’s forestry sector while Korea’s POSCO has struck a major nickel deal with the FLNKS-dominated northern province in New Caledonia. In 2011, Korea tripled its development aid to the islands region from US$300,000 to $US1 million as part of the Lee Myung-bak government’s “New Asia Diplomacy” initiative. Last June, Korean diplomats and representatives of 14 islands nations gathered in Seoul for the first ever Korea-Pacific summit (by coincidence, Korea is bidding for one of the rotating Asia-Pacific seats at the UN Security Council in 2013-14!). Canberra’s dilemma
Some Australian officials have expressed concern that the islands’
diversifying diplomatic links are simply a matter of chequebook
diplomacy. But there are also some fundamental policy differences
between Pacific states and Canberra, Washington and Paris. Some
islands leaders increasingly attracted by economic models from Asia that
involve capital controls, government intervention and reliance on
state-run enterprises, rather than the Washington consensus of trade
liberalisation and privatisation. At a time when Canberra backs
France’s ongoing colonial role in the South Pacific and maintains a
paltry 5% target for greenhouse emissions cuts by 2020, it’s hardly
surprising that Pacific nations are looking to new friends. The new
role of the Pacific Small Islands Developing States (PSIDS) grouping
within the United Nations is causing debate in Australia.
A 2011 report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) notes: “The importance of PSIDS for Australia’s regional position is that, to some extent, the group demonstrates our alienation from the FICs. The Pacific Islands Forum has had observer status in the General Assembly since 1994. The increased prominence of PSIDS derives from the FICs’ preference for a form of engagement that excludes Australia and New Zealand, which would be included in any discussions under the PIF banner. The PSIDS feel very satisfied with their inclusion in the UN’s Asia Group, especially under its new name.” With former NSW Premier Bob Carr taking over from Kevin Rudd as Foreign Minister and initiating talks with New Zealand about new policies towards the Bainimarama administration, there are signs that Canberra is starting to respond to the new regional dynamic. Sept 2012: Russian s ready to land
By Davendra Sharma
If Russians have yet to make a mark on the Pacific, just wait until September 2012 when Moscow hosts the region’s most powerful meet—the Asia Pacific Economic Community Summit. Already eyes of the regional superpowers like Australia and the United States are on Russia as it prepares to host the influential meeting of leaders from the two regions, Asia and Pacific. They will be keen to study how Moscow will enhance its regional profile and gain an opportunity to establish itself in the region. Since the visit last January by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov to Australia, Fiji and Kiribati as part of his five-nation tour, the European country has been accused of chequebook diplomacy. But economic deals are not only interests Moscow has in the Pacific, it also has military and political intentions as the former Soviet power embraces the Pacific region. In a report, The phantom of the Pacific: Reconsidering Russia as a Pacific power prior to APEC–2012, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) argues that increased Russian diplomacy in key parts of Asia and Oceania is driven by “economic, political and military strategic considerations”. It said that the economic driver to Russia’s re-engagement in the Asia Pacific region is also to expand and find markets for its burgeoning energy industry. Russia has been able to woo support at the UN for recognition of its disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia—the scene of Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia. While the region’s biggest aid donor, Australia, accuses Russia of “exploiting” some of the world’s smallest economies like Kiribati, Tuvalu, Nauru, Vanuatu and Fiji, Russia is marching on and forging ties with whichever countries it can in the Pacific Islands Forum region. Russia is said to have poured tens of millions of development aid to these five countries in return for their acknowledgement of the Russian puppet states. The former phosphate-rich Nauru, which now relies on foreign remittances and assistance on living expenses, was reportedly given US$50 million. The new ASPI report also questions Russia’s political intentions as Moscow increases its presence in Oceania which it says “provides the nation with both a challenge and an opportunity, because it allows Russia a platform to display its restored military power to potential allies and friends, including through military exercises and out-of-area deployments. Kiribati deal
Russia it seems is taking a leaf out of China’s policy book as it
pursues economic deals and assistance in the Pacific islands. China also
launched a campaign in the Oceania region in the early 1990s as it
competed with Taiwan over recognition by Forum members like Kiribati,
which has very limited natural resources and significant lag behind
other Forum countries. But to Russia’s surprise, the governments in
Tarawa over the last 20 years have had a long standing patterns of
creating ties with new economic powers in the Pacific—be it Australia,
China, Taiwan, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany or Cuba.
Russia is just another new player.
For years it was China versus
Taiwan. While China helped build the main infrastructure in Kiribati as
well as supply specialist and skilled workers like doctors, Taiwan built
a A$8 million stadium. And now it is Russia versus Georgia—both
former members of the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991. As one
regional Auckland-based commentator puts it, “It all depends on how much
the latter and its Western backers would be willing to donate to this
cause.”
And so as Australia’s parliamentary secretary for the
Pacific islands affairs, Richard Marles argues that while competition
benefits consumers the most, the resource-poor islands countries can
only win here at the expense of the regional superpowers like Australia
and New Zealand watching from the sidelines.
While long-time major donors accuse Russia of pressuring the islands countries of trading their sovereignty, the deals actually end up benefitting the poor countries in Oceania. "This kind of cheque-book diplomacy undermines development assistance in the region," said Marles. Fiji When Lavrov decided a stopover in Fiji to meet military strongman, Commodore Bainimarama, Australia and New Zealand were left wondering how much deeper could Russia penetrate into relations with Oceania. Like Kiribati, Suva under Bainimarama has stepped up ties with China and Russia. Shunned by New Zealand and Australia, Fiji has moved swiftly in 2012 to also reaffirm closer relationship with the United States and other Asian democracies like Japan. The Australian thinking however is that Russia has more military and strategic considerations than any other agenda as it pierces through the Oceania region. “More traditional geostrategic factors are also driving the Russians to give the Pacific greater prominence in the coming decade,” noted the ASPI report. Russia’s military potency second to none
It asserts that the Russians are concerned that on one hand Washington
is talking up downsizing its military might, it is still pouring
millions into its Pacific allies and territories like Guam, American
Samoa, FSM and the Northern Marianas.
Russia is only second to the
US in terms of being the world’s most potent military power and it also
the world’s sixth largest economy. Russia is a permanent member of the
UN Security Council, where Australia aspires to be in years to come. Russian interests in the South Pacific could also extend to mining as
that country has the world’s third largest gold reserves. Mining of gold
is a major source of employment in PNG and Fiji, where Australian
companies are predominantly engaged.
Russia also enjoys an average
annual growth of over 4%, one of the highest in modern-day Europe, most
of which is slowly recovering from the three-year recession. The
report forewarns that renewed Russian interest in the Pacific region
should not been taken lightly by existing economic powers. “Russia’s
long-term economic agenda and its clear interest in cooperation rather
than confrontation drive this comeback. Its intention to rebuild a
credible military capability in the Pacific is driven not by threat
perceptions alone, but by a pragmatic need to protect its national
economic and political interests,” it said.
Further reading: http://stuckinfijimud.blogspot.com/2012/03/x-post-from-island-business-new-era-of.html |
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