X- Post: The Strategist - Suva Comes In From The Cold – But Canberra Feels The Chill

Source: The Strategist

30 Nov 2012

By Richard Herr

 

A

special meeting in Port Moresby on Wednesday has ended Fiji’s exclusion from the deliberations of the Pacific group of the European Union’s ACP (Asia Caribbean Pacific) association. That mightn’t sound like the biggest news story around, but it was front-page news in Suva. It scarcely rated a mention in Australian newspapers but it was bad news for Canberra, whatever the government might try to make of our neighbours’ action.

The Pacific Island states agreed to shift the secretariat functions on trade negotiations for the Pacific ACP group from the Pacific Islands Forum to Papua New Guinea. The decision weakens both the Pacific Islands Forum and the influence that Canberra has long enjoyed through it. Since early 2009, Australia and New Zealand have used their influence in the Forum to extend Fiji’s exclusion from important regional affairs like the Pacific ACP meetings, manoeuvring to deem Fiji’s suspension from the Forum to include joint activities with the Forum, even where the corresponding body had imposed no such sanctions on Fiji.

We need to be careful to avoid looking like the South Pacific is an afterthought to Australia’s broader strategy. While Canberra continues to talk of the ‘Asian Century’, the Pacific Islanders are certain that it is an ‘Asia–Pacific Century’.

Our Pacific Island neighbours know that their place in evolving global geo-politics depends on effective relations with Asia. That’s why they’re extending and expanding these relationships while strengthening compatible traditional arrangements. The ACP group has been important for trade and aid relations with all the EU member states’ former dependencies. It has become critical as the EU and the ACP states adjust to changing global economic conditions.

Richard Herr

" Our Pacific Island neighbours know that their place in evolving global geo-politics depends on effective relations with Asia [...]

The Forum does vital work for the region and is much valued for that but it is verging on a crisis of legitimacy. By entangling sanctions and its wider program of work, it has overplayed its hand politically. "

Australia is a foundation member of the Forum but isn’t a member of the ACP; a point unlined by the Fiji Sun in its editorial on the Port Moresby decision. Managing elements of these ties for the Pacific group through the Forum had been a significant gesture of faith in the Forum as well as a useful connection for Canberra. But Australia was outflanked when PNG took the Forum Secretariat out of the regional game by offering to host and to pay for the Pacific ACP group’s secretarial functions on trade negotiations.

Fijian Interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama wasn’t alone in seeing the PNG gesture as working to build up the Melanesian Spearhead Group’s (MSG) influence within the region at the expense of the Forum. This plays to Fiji’s advantage, which is why it has been active in promoting the MSG (which includes neither Australia nor New Zealand) over the Forum. This play was made possible by the ill-advised use of the Forum as a vehicle for sanctions. The MSG member states—Fiji, PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu—comprise the largest and most significantly resource rich part of the Pacific Islands region. It is by far the area of most interest to Asia.

Others have lined up to support this move. Solomons’ Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo described the decision in Port Moresby to establish a Pacific ACP secretariat in Papua New Guinea as a major breakthrough. This is part of a trend. Since the Bainimarama coup in December 2006, various Australian governments have also watched impotently as Australia’s Pacific Island neighbours have moved away from the Forum towards the Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) group, which has taken on the role of regional leadership at the United Nations. These states, all members of the Forum, have done so on the same grounds as the Pacific ACP leadership. Like the MSG, PSIDS excludes Australia and New Zealand and has been accepted by many UN member states as the more authentic face of the Pacific Islands.

The Forum does vital work for the region and is much valued for that but it is verging on a crisis of legitimacy. By entangling sanctions and its wider program of work, it has overplayed its hand politically. Virtually all the blame of this can be laid at the doorstep of Canberra and Wellington. For example, the failure to readmit Fiji at this year’s Forum Leaders Meeting was a serious error of judgment. Foreign Minister Bob Carr’s view of ‘too soon’ contrasts glaringly with President Obama’s recent remarks in Myanmar. Obama didn’t say that his visit was ‘too soon’, but that it was intended to strengthen the return to democracy in a country that reportedly still has hundreds of political prisoners.

The Pacific ACP decision is a direct consequence of Canberra’s timidity and hesitancy with regard to Fiji. This continues to work against our own regional interests and those of our neighbours, at a serious cost to our place amongst them in the Forum.

Richard Herr is an honorary research associate at the University of Tasmania’s School of Government.

 
Further Reading:

• Pacific ACP Leaders Meeting on Fiji

Club Em Designs

Papua New Guinea in the Asian Century - Peter O'Neill, PNG Prime Minister

PNG Attitude covers Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill's speech at the Distinguished Speaker Lecture aptly titled "Papua New Guinea in the Asian Century" hosted by the Lowy Institute.

Full audio of speech (Click here)

PNG Attitude describes O'Neil's speech:

In his quiet, understated way he showed not only a firm grasp of the demands of political leadership and how they must be met, but also a sophisticated understanding of the geo-strategic position of Papua New Guinea and what it will take to steer a steady course towards the nation’s goals.

Jenny Hayward Jones also briefly covers the contours of the speech, in a recent post in The Interpreter.

Club Em Designs

Pacific ACP Leaders Meeting on Fiji.

Club Em Designs

X-Post- PNG ATTITUDE: Foreign policy, strategic policy & electoral politics

FRANCIS HUALUPMOMI / China

FOREIGN POLICY AND STRATEGIC (SECURITY/MILITARY) policy usually play an important role in election campaigns. 

However, these policies feature much less in Papua New Guinea’s political parities and candidates’ political manifestos. Foreign policy and strategic policy of states are two of the most important elements that define or determine a state’s coexistence and sustainability in the international system. Both feature predominantly in almost all political parties or candidates’ campaigns around the world.

Foreign policy is an explicit policy defining how a state should interact with others (state and non-state actors) in the international system to pursue its national interest. This interaction could be undertaken at bilateral or multilateral level where economic and security assume dominant roles. The strategic policy explicitly defines the national security of the state. Security and survival of state are fundamental. A state without a defensive system expressed in terms of military power is more vulnerable to external and internal threats.The defence/military power projection of state ensures protection of sovereignty and people from foreign invasion or other threats securitized as potential or real.

Both foreign policy and strategic policy are not the same but are closely interrelated. Foreign policy defines how a state should strategically interact to ensure peace and stability regionally or globally. For instance, PNG’s recent UN peacekeeping contribution to Sudan demonstrates the strategic dimension of foreign policy - how our foreign policy is achieved through defence force.

The question one should be asking now is how effective is PNG’s foreign policy and strategic policy in addressing national development? What is PNG’s role in an increasingly complex web of interdependent and globalized world? How can PNG rationally position itself in the region and globally given its growing economic power consistent with Vision 2050? These are some of the basic but fundamental questions political parties and candidates should be highly considering or addressing during campaigns. Since independence less or if not almost all parties and candidates calculate foreign policy and strategic policy as low key issues.

Interestingly, one would find that political manifestos are mostly centred on economic, political and social dimensions, especially on leadership, good governance, corruption, law and order, economic governance and management, and social welfare; however less is featured on how they should manage foreign relations and national security.

This behaviour strongly suggests that their political advisers or strategists may have lacked understanding on these areas or are simply too ignorant. On some extreme cases, one would find that even in Parliament session, there is hardly any critical discussion or debate on certain foreign and strategic policy issues. The moot of discussions feature political attack and point scoring, and economic and social issues of interest.

This is the missing link in electoral politics discourse. The central argument that can be posited is that domestic politics is a reflection of external politics. What it simply means is that global politics affects the organizing principle of domestic politics either directly or indirectly.

For instance, in the regional or global economy, international politics shapes economics or vice versa in ways that can affect national economy. PNG is now an emerging economic power in the region driven by energy resources and economization of these resources will depend on how it rationally plays her economic diplomacy in world economy. Moreover, the capitalist mode of international economy suggests that developing countries are structurally organized in an exploitative principle where they will continue to be an extractive source of great powers’ interest. This syndrome is most common in developing countries where it is politically engineered by capitalism - developing countries are entrapped in a complex web where they cannot easily escape.

In addition, global economic problem of resource scarcity, especially with geo-economic and geo-strategic resources such as minerals, and oil and gas also suggests that competition between great powers and emerging powers will increase exponentially as demand increases. Intrinsically, it would be more rational should parties or candidates consider constructing equilibrium between economic and strategic imperatives in its strategic calculus (policy model). What it implies is that parties or candidates should try to balance national interest between national/domestic policy and foreign policy in a cascading logic.

A coherent policy framework delineating their plausible and trajectories to manage the nation is necessary – a map that shows how they can manage national economy while playing diplomacy with regional and global economic and political powers. Parties and candidates should be concerned about how they should rationally manoeuvre or navigate PNG through uncertain environment.

On strategic front, PNG’s defence force is currently in a weak state that requires boosting through modernization to guarantee security and survival. We are living in world of anarchy where there is no one world government with laws (international law may not necessarily guarantee security) to regulate (rogue) state behaviours therefore states will constantly compete to survive.

Conflict, fear and mistrust are permanent features of world politics. The downsizing of PNGDF with the advice from Australia is an unwise strategic choice. Continuous border incursion from Indonesia, maritime security such as transnational crimes and energy security suggest military modernization and power projection.

As far is national security is concerned, Australia’s important traditional tie with PNG may not necessarily guarantee our national security at some point. Simple economic logic suggests that there will come a peak point in future when Australia’s geo-economic interest and geo-strategic capability to sustain its partnership with PNG will diminish.

The recent minor decrease in Australia’s foreign aid to PNG may perhaps suggest this scenario. Although this may not be likely at this stage given PNG’s geo-strategic significance, it would be more rational for PNG to be prepared to stand on its own feet and should be more assertive in assuming regional leadership.

Should parties or candidates are concerned about future of PNG to become a “Harmonious, Prosperous and Healthy Society by 2050” investing in strategic dimension is one of the important pillars of development.
The world is increasingly and constantly changing and therefore if parties or candidates do not understand dynamics of global politics and national security, they may also find it quite difficult to manage politics in global and domestic environments.

This argument does not necessarily isolate important policies such as social welfare, education, health, law and order, and others. What is suggested is that foreign policy and strategic policy should be part of the overarching policy framework for parties and candidates.

The author is a geopolitical strategist and analyst: francishualupmomi270@gmail.com or fhdrake83@yahoo.com

Club Em Designs