Regional Politics in Oceania: From Colonialism and Cold War to the Pacific Century (LSE International Studies) 100942761X, 9781009427616

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Regional Politics in Oceania

Stephanie Lawson’s book is by far the most comprehensive study of regional politics in Oceania produced to date. Drawing on a range of interdisciplinary sources, she provides a systematic account of major issues facing the region and presents conceptual and theoretical issues in a sophisticated but accessible manner. She traces the trajectories of regional politics from the earliest human settlements to European exploration and colonization, the period of formal regionalization in the post-war period, decolonization, the Cold War and key geopolitical developments in the post–Cold War period. She also focuses on identity politics, manifest at various levels from the local through to the national, subregional and regional, as well as broader configurations around the West/non-West divide. This book will be of interest to anyone engaged with the history and politics of Oceania or comparative regional studies, especially given the relevance of themes to Asian, African and Latin American contexts. Stephanie Lawson is Professor Emerita of Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University, Honorary Professor in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University and Senior Research Associate in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg. She is a past president of the Australian Political Studies Association, a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and the current president of the Pacific Islands Political Studies Association. Her first book, The Failure of Democratic Politics in Fiji (1991), won the Australian Political Studies Association’s Crisp Medal.

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LSE International Studies Series Editors Stephen Humphreys (Lead Editor) Department of Law, London School of Economics Kirsten Ainley Department of International Relations, Australian National University Ayça Çubukçu Department of Sociology, London School of Economics George Lawson Department of International Relations, Australian National University Imaobong Umoren Department of International History, London School of Economics This series, published in association with the Centre for International Studies at the London School of Economics, is centred on three main themes. First, the series is oriented around work that is transdisciplinary, which challenges disciplinary conventions and develops arguments that cannot be grasped within existing disciplines. It will include work combining a wide range of fields, including international relations, international law, political theory, history, sociology and ethics. Second, it comprises books that contain an overtly international or transnational dimension, but not necessarily focused simply within the discipline of International Relations. Finally, the series will publish books that use scholarly inquiry as a means of addressing pressing political concerns. Books in the series may be predominantly theoretical, or predominantly empirical, but all will say something of significance about political issues that exceed national boundaries. Previous books in the series: Culture and Order in World Politics Andrew Phillips and Christian Reus-Smit (eds.) On Cultural Diversity: International Theory in a World of Difference Christian Reus-Smit Socioeconomic Justice: International Intervention and Transition in Post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina Daniela Lai The World Imagined: Collective Beliefs and Political Order in the Sinocentric, Islamic and Southeast Asian International Societies Hendrik Spruyt How the East was Won: Barbarian Conquerors, Universal Conquest and the Making of Modern Asia Andrew Phillips Before the West: The Rise and Fall of Eastern World Orders Ayşe Zarakol The Counterinsurgent Imagination: A New Intellectual History Joseph MacKay Capitalism, Jacobinism and International Relations: Revisiting Turkish Modernity Eren Duzgun Dying Abroad: The Political Afterlives of Migration in Europe Osman Balkan

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Regional Politics in Oceania From Colonialism and Cold War to the Pacific Century Stephanie Lawson Macquarie University

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Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009427616 DOI: 10.1017/9781009427609 © Stephanie Lawson 2024 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. First published 2024 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lawson, Stephanie, author. Title: Regional politics in Oceania : from colonialism and Cold War to the Pacific century / Stephanie Lawson. Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2024. | Series: LSE international studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023034041 | ISBN 9781009427616 (hardback) | ISBN 9781009427609 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Regionalism – Oceania. | Geopolitics – Oceania. | Oceania – Politics and government. Classification: LCC JQ3995.A38 R435 2024 | DDC 320.1/20995–dc23/eng/20231214 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023034041 ISBN 978-1-009-42761-6 Hardback ISBN 978-1-009-42763-0 Paperback Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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For James, Richard, Katharine, Elizabeth, Liisa, Jimi, Thomas, Annabel, Kaito and Mina

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Contents

Preface page xi Acknowledgements xv A Note on Sources and References xviii List of Abbreviations xix 1 Oceania and the Study of Regions 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

The Idea of Regions Regions and Regionalization Regionalism and Regional Identity The Concept of Regional Society Area Studies, the Modernization Paradigm and Regions as Culture Areas 1.6 Framing the Analysis 1.7 Conclusion

2 Demarcating Oceania 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5

Near and Remote Oceania Naming the ‘Pacific’ and ‘Oceania’ The Tripartite Division of the Island Pacific Melanesia and Polynesia as ‘Political Types’ Conclusion

3 Colonizing Oceania 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6

European Exploration and Imperialism The British Ascendancy The Western Pacific High Commission The Persistence of Imperial Rivalries A Nascent Regional Consciousness? Conclusion

4 Regionalizing Oceania 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6

Prelude to the South Pacific Commission The ‘Problem’ of Politics in Regional Affairs Establishing the South Pacific Commission The South Pacific Conference Indonesia, West Papua and the Redefinition of Region Conclusion

1 3 5 8 17 20 23 31

33 34 37 43 50 55

57 60 71 74 77 81 85

87 88 96 98 100 104 110

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viii Contents

5 Transformations in Regional Organization 5.1 Reforming Regionalism 5.2 The Political Agenda 5.3 The Move to Political Regionalism 5.4 The South Pacific Forum 5.5 Conclusion

6 Regionalism the ‘Pacific Way’ 6.1 Ratu Mara and the Pacific Way 6.2 ‘Crocombe’s Way’ 6.3 Consensus Politics the Pacific Way 6.4 Comparative Perspectives 6.5 Conclusion

7 The Politics of Subregional Identity 7.1 The Melanesian Way and Kastom Discourses 7.2 The Melanesian Spearhead Group 7.3 The Polynesian Response 7.4 A Micronesian Way? 7.5 Conclusion

8 The Forum in Regional Politics 8.1 The Early Years of the Forum 8.2 The Forum vis-à-vis the South Pacific Commission 8.3 A Single Regional Organization? 8.4 Subregional Dynamics 8.5 France in Regional Politics 8.6 Decolonization and Regionalization in Micronesia 8.7 Conclusion

9 Democracy and Culture in Regional Politics 9.1 Democracy, Governance and the Politics of Culture 9.2 Decolonization and Constitution-Making 9.3 The Fiji Coups 9.4 Regional Responses to Coup Crises 9.5 Democracy, Culture and Gender 9.6 Conclusion

10 The Spectre of Regional Intervention 0.1 1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6

Bougainville and East Timor The Arc of Instability, Africanization and Failed States The Aitutaki and Biketawa Declarations Intervention in Solomon Islands Regional Politics after 2006 Conclusion

11 The Political Economy of Regionalism 1.1 1 11.2 11.3 11.4

Globalization, Development and the Neoliberal Agenda The Political Economy of Aid The Pacific Plan The Pacific Islands Development Forum

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112 113 121 125 132 140

142 143 155 159 167 170

172 173 182 186 190 196

198 199 206 209 211 215 223 229

231 232 236 245 251 255 259

261 262 265 268 272 283 289

292 293 297 307 314

Contents ix 1.5 The Framework for Pacific Regionalism 1 11.6 Conclusion

12 Geopolitics in the Pacific Century 2.1 1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6

Indonesia and the Internationalization of the West Papua Issue China in Oceania China and the Geopolitical Balance ‘Rebalancing’, ‘Stepping Up’ and ‘Resetting’ The Indo-Pacific Concept Conclusion

13 Conclusion 3.1 1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5

The Legacies of History A Divided Oceania? The Pacific Way Revisited Hegemonic Regionalism and Indigenous Agency Conclusion

317 324

326 327 338 343 349 354 359

361 362 364 367 369 375

Select Bibliography 378 Index 420

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Preface

This book seeks to provide an historically informed and politically attuned analysis of regional politics in Oceania – a region defined as encompassing the Island Pacific (including the three geocultural subregions of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia) as well as Australia and New Zealand. This follows a standard physical geographic definition of Oceania as well as reflecting its contemporary political geography, encompassing as it does the main actors in the principal regional institutions, although, as with almost any definition, it is not without controversy. The significant historical depth provided in this study is not just as a matter of passing interest. The analysis of contemporary regional politics is inextricably related to events and developments that have occurred over centuries, commencing with the earliest human settlements and continuing through to European exploration and colonization, the period of formal regionalization via the colonial South Pacific Commission in the post-war period, decolonization, the Cold War and the emergence of political regionalism in the form of the Pacific Islands Forum (previously the South Pacific Forum, and hereafter ‘the Forum’) as well as subregional organizations. Chapters 10–12 chart key developments in the post–Cold War period revolving around security, political economy and geopolitical dynamics. Developments in Oceania are therefore set against background conditions in the broader global sphere and these also inform the analysis throughout much of the book. The coverage makes this a comprehensive study, enhanced by attention not only to important aspects of international history but to interdisciplinary sources, including relevant literature in anthropology, history, geography and archaeology. It also includes much archival material that appears not to have been referenced in other studies dealing, in particular, with the emergence of the Forum and developments in its early years. A principal focus of the book, around which the analysis and key arguments are developed, is on identity politics as implicated in three sets of tensions in regional relations. xi

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xii Preface

The first derives from the historic legacies of colonialism involving a number of European powers as well as Australia and New Zealand, although forms of imperialism pursued by Japan and Indonesia are important too. Further complexities in regional development and intraregional relations involved Cold War dynamics that interacted with those of the decolonization movement. From the 1970s the colonial legacy came to play a key role in strengthening notions of a ‘Pacific Way’, a unifying pan-Pacific discourse that evolved to assert a distinctive Indigenous Pacific identity and diplomatic style vis-à-vis the West in general and Australia and New Zealand as major proximate actors. The second set of tensions emerges from the Melanesia/Micronesia/ Polynesia divide. Although problematic in ethnographic terms and generating many ambiguities, this divide has given rise to the assertion of robust subregional identities among Pacific Island actors reflected in the Melanesian Spearhead Group and the Micronesian Presidents’ Summit, together with the Micronesian Chief Executives’ Summit and the Polynesian Leaders’ Group. A third set of tensions has been generated by the increasing presence of new actors in the region, particularly China, a presence that has implications for both broader regional and subregional politics. China poses particular challenges for Pacific Island countries as well as for Australia and New Zealand, the latter two in their roles as both major donors and full members of the major regional organizations. These challenges also play into broader geopolitical issues encapsulated in the recent reformulation of the wider strategic regional nomenclature that has seen the older composite term the ‘Asia-Pacific’ replaced by the ‘Indo-Pacific’, at least in geopolitical discourses. The subtitle of this book, however, avoids both of the composite terms, preferring to place ‘the Pacific’ – the great ocean bearing this name – at the centre of analysis. Also figuring in the geopolitical scenario, albeit at a different level, is the internationalization of the Indonesia/West Papua issue that is also a product of colonial and Cold War developments. Manifestations of identity politics appear at various levels from the local through to the national, subregional and regional as well as broader configurations around the West/non-West or North/South divides, and notions of South–South cooperation. This has a number of implications for regional politics in Oceania, given its location in the global South, albeit with two ‘Western’ countries situated physically in the region and playing a role as both full members of the major regional organizations and donor countries in the North/South context. The West/non-West or North/South cultural, political and economic divide, along with issues of colonialism, neocolonialism and ‘hegemonic

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Preface xiii

regionalism’, therefore feature as themes at various points throughout the book. However, the analysis of these issues, and arguments arising from the analysis, do not take a conventional postcolonial approach but rather adopt a critical perspective on how this approach often simply accepts, and indeed depends on, the very same ‘imperial philosophy of difference’ long established in Eurocentric scholarship. The analysis also tests common assumptions concerning the role of Australia (and to a lesser extent New Zealand) in the Forum, where there has been a tendency to portray the metropolitan countries as hegemonic powers manipulating the smaller, vulnerable Pacific Island countries, as if they lacked any agency of their own in contemporary regional politics and beyond. Given the prima facie power imbalances, this is an easy narrative to push but, as the discussion shows, there are good reasons to challenge this view and associated assumptions. The analysis and lines of argument taken in the book also unsettle some of the assumptions about a pan–Pacific Islander identity, which has often been posited under the rubric of the ‘Pacific Way’. Similar expressions of pan-regional identities have been prominent elsewhere. In Southeast Asia, for example, where regionalization has produced the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), an ‘ASEAN Way’ has been formulated as embodying a set of cultural values that are distinctively ‘Asian’ and that are taken to inform political and diplomatic practice generally. One such value, emblematic of both the Pacific and ASEAN Ways, is said to be expressed in a mode of consensus politics derived from local values and that (apparently) stands in very distinct contrast with the adversarial style of politics said to be practised in the West. Again, this study subjects these claims to critical scrutiny while illuminating the power relations that underscore manifestations of ‘consensus politics’ in the local political settings in which they are said to have arisen. In addition, although the analysis will not lapse into a series of comparisons with the EU – which is often invoked as the prime example of Western-style regionalism and held out as a model for effective regional integration, Brexit and other populist movements notwithstanding – the extent to which consensus rather than adversarial politics actually operates within that sphere is highlighted as an antidote to some of the more simplistic images of ‘Western politics’ that regularly appear in cultural and political discourses configured around the West/non-West divide. The critique of the Pacific Way also brings into focus the politics of subregional identity as configured around the Melanesia/Micronesia/ Polynesia divide and that further unsettles assumptions about a pan– Pacific Islander identity. The argument here is that despite the racialist

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xiv Preface

prejudices on which the European tripartite division was originally based, Pacific Island actors have made the categories their own, investing them with considerable significance and constructing substantive subregional organizations based precisely on the tripartite division of the Island Pacific. Identity politics based on the three subregional groupings has played into regional affairs for some time. The Melanesia/Polynesia divide has often been vexed while a robust Melanesianism is also implicated in West Papuan claims vis-à-vis Indonesia, claims that have attracted much sympathy and support from both politicians and civil society organizations in the region, although some Pacific leaders have been more concerned to placate Indonesia. A common Micronesian identity has never been as strongly expressed, but has recently come to the fore and, for a time, presented a major challenge to regional unity and the Pacific Way in Forum politics. Among other things, this has ensured a more prominent place for Micronesia in Oceanic political studies. The approaches outlined here underscore the main arguments of the book, providing an analysis that moves away from some of the more simplistic (and sometimes romantic) images associated with the region and presents a more critical and nuanced approach. The substance of these arguments is supported by an extensive body of research that draws on a variety of sources, including key historical and anthropological works, as indicated earlier. But although the analysis draws on interdisciplinary sources, it is nonetheless a political study. It also traverses boundaries within political studies, incorporating insights from International Relations, comparative politics and political theory as well as security studies, political economy and political geography, all of which contribute essential elements to the study of any given region, and especially one as complex as Oceania.

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Acknowledgements

In the eight years or so since I started this project I have accumulated debts to many people in many different places. I owe much to the public figures around the region who allowed me to interview them, either formally or informally. They include Feleti Teo, François Martel, Neroni Slade, Dame Meg Taylor, Jioji Kotobalavu, Sitiveni Rabuka, Tupeni Baba, Joe Natuman, Barak Sope, Jeremiah Manele, Aumua Amata, Daniel Aga, Larry Sanitoa, Aiono Mose Sua, Leiataua Dr Kilifoti Eteuati, Roch Wamytan, Philippe Germaine, François Bockel, Judith Won Pat, Cameron Diver, staff at the Delegation of the European Union for the Pacific (Suva) and others who did not wish to be named. There are many other Pacific Islanders from all walks of life, from bus drivers, cleaners, hospitality staff and market and street vendors to civil servants, teachers, students, trade unionists, small business people and so on – the ‘ordinary’ people of the region for whom the regionalist project is meant to deliver basic benefits. Their willingness to share their views informally, and their insights into many different aspects of life in the Pacific Islands, have helped immensely. As always, friends and colleagues at the University of the South Pacific (USP) have ensured that I have had a congenial base in Suva when needed. Sandra Tarte, Vijay Naidu and Morgan Tuimaleali’ifano have been especially helpful over the years during my visits there. USP staff in Port Vila also kindly assisted in providing office space while I was visiting. Staff at the Melanesian Spearhead Group Secretariat and members of the Malasitapu Presbyterian church, both in Port Vila, provided much valuable information, while USP Honiara organized a seminar which enabled very useful conversations with a wide range of people. I am especially grateful to Kesa Vilsoni, at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in Suva, for her friendly and generous assistance in accessing the library collection there. Similarly, Stephanie Watt at the Pacific Community’s library in Noumea was enormously helpful in locating material and making my stay there such a productive one. xv

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xvi Acknowledgements

In New Zealand, I benefitted from the collegiality and hospitality of many people, including Jon Fraenkel at Victoria University of Wellington, Michael Powles also in Wellington and Heather Devere, Kevin Clements and Jacqui Leckie at the University of Otago where I spent a sabbatical period as a visiting professor; Steve Ratuva at the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury; and Ian Campbell and Valerie Campbell, also in Christchurch. In Apia, Malama Meleisea and Penelope Schoeffel at the National University of Samoa were helpful in every respect. In Pago Pago, Tofa Sualauvi Sui enabled a highly productive visit and I cannot thank him enough for his generous hospitality. Staff at the National Library of Australia, the National Archives of Australia, Archives New Zealand, the Alexander Turnbull Library (National Library of New Zealand) and the Nelson Memorial Public Library in Apia have also been most helpful. I am especially grateful to the National Library of Australia for the award of a Harold White Fellowship in 2011, which enabled me to make a start on the original research proposal for the project and to collect a great deal of key material. I have benefitted enormously from the dedicated work of Elizabeth Hagan Lawson who, as research assistant, collected and collated a very significant amount of the material used in this book and also co-authored a paper on chiefly politics in Fiji. I am fortunate to have been an honorary professor in the Department of Pacific Affairs (previously the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia project) at the Australian National University (ANU) for the duration of this project, for which thanks is due largely to Nicole Haley. I am also grateful for the collegiality of others there, especially James Bately, who kindly read the original research proposal as well as several draft chapters of the book. Many thanks are due also to Karina Pelling and Jenny Sheehan of CartoGIS Services at ANU for providing the map of contemporary Oceania. A sabbatical period at the Cairns Institute, hosted by Stewart Lockie, provided another opportunity for stimulating interactions with fellow scholars. Richard Herr of the University of Tasmania has also been very generous over many years, taking time to answer any number of queries. My colleagues in Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University, as well as in the Faculty of Arts research office, have, as always, been very helpful and supportive. To all those who have contributed to the ongoing life of two key organizations – the Pacific History Association and the Pacific Islands Political Studies Association – a special acknowledgement. These have both been incredibly important venues for the exchange of ideas over many years.

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Acknowledgements xvii

The award of a grant by the Australian Research Council (DP140101227) enabled the basic research to be carried out, supported by Macquarie University’s outside studies program. And this book would not be appearing in the Cambridge/LSE International Studies series had it not been for the encouragement of George Lawson (no relation!). Thanks also to the anonymous readers for Cambridge University Press for the major effort required to review such a lengthy manuscript as well as their encouraging and helpful comments. Although the research and writing of this book has been made possible by the assistance, in one way or another, of all those mentioned earlier, responsibility for the content and analysis remains mine alone. Acknowledgement is due also to Taylor and Francis and Cambridge University Press for permission to excerpt material from previously published journal articles and book chapters. Where this occurs, the relevant publication is indicated in the footnotes. Many thanks as well to the staff at Cambridge University Press for their helpfulness and professionalism. The time invested in a book of this length invariably takes a toll on those close to the author. My immediate family – and especially my own descendants – have lived with this book for a long time. To James, Richard, Katharine and Elizabeth, as well as Liisa, Jimi, Thomas, Annabel, Kaito and Mina (the latter having practically grown up with it), my appreciation of their constant support is reflected in the dedication. Finally, I must add a formal acknowledgement of the traditional custodians of the land on which most of this book has been written – both the land occupied by Macquarie University as well as the land on which I reside in Sydney – the Wallumattagal clan of the Dharug nation. I pay my respects to the Elders, past, present and future, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

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A Note on Sources and References

In researching this book, I have consulted numerous different sources, both primary and secondary, gleaned from a variety of places: libraries, archives, online, and so on. All of the secondary and most of the primary sources are listed in the bibliography. However, due to their complexity, the archival sources from both the National Archives of Australia and Archives New Zealand appear only in the footnotes (where full source information is given) but not in the bibliography, which is therefore a ‘select bibliography’. Also, given the chronic instability of URLs, and the fact that many sources appear as extraordinarily long and complex URLs, I have not copied these into the footnotes or bibliography and have simply indicated that the relevant sources were obtained online, noting that most online sources also do not have page numbers. Readers who wish to follow these sources up are advised to enter the author/title of any of these documents into their preferred search engine (I have mainly used Google) and, on almost every occasion, the original source or document should come up at the top of the list. All online sources were tested in May 2023, and all appeared as per this method. But, as any experienced researcher will know only too well, this is no guarantee that they will remain available in this way indefinitely.

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Abbreviations

AACC ACP ADB ANU APEC APIL ArchNZ ASEAN BRI CNMI CPTPP CROP CSOs CTBT ECAFE ECOSOC EPG EU FLNKS FOIP FSM GCC GDP ICTs IMF IPR MCES MEF MOU MPS MSG

Anglo-American Caribbean Commission African, Caribbean and Pacific Asian Development Bank Australian National University Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Association of Pacific Island Legislatures Archives New Zealand Association of Southeast Asian Nations Belt and Road Initiative Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Partnership Council of Regional Organizations in the Pacific civil society organizations Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East UN Economic and Social Council Eminent Persons’ Group European Union Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste Free and Open Indo-Pacific Federated States of Micronesia Great Council of Chiefs (Fiji) gross domestic product information communication technologies International Monetary Fund Institute of Pacific Relations Micronesian Chief Executives’ Summit Malaita Eagle Force memorandum of understanding Micronesian Presidents’ Summit Melanesian Spearhead Group xix

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xx

List of Abbreviations

NAA NAM NGOs NLA OECD PACER PANG PIANGO PICTA PIDF PIDP PIPA PLG PNA PSIDS RAMSI RMI RSPacS SIS SOAS SPC SPEC SPNFZ SPREP SRO SSCR TPP TTPI UK ULMWP UN UNDP US USP USSR WCC WPHC WPNCL WTO

National Archives of Australia Non-Aligned Movement non-governmental organizations National Library of Australia Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Pacific Network on Globalisation Pacific Islands Association of Non-Government Organizations Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement Pacific Islands Development Forum Pacific Islands Development Program Pacific Islands Producers’ Association Polynesian Leaders’ Group Parties to the Nauru Agreement Pacific Small Islands Developing States Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands Republic of the Marshall Islands Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Smaller Island States School of Oriental and African Studies South Pacific Commission South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program Single Regional Organization Specialist Sub-Committee on Regionalism Trans-Pacific Partnership Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands United Kingdom United Liberation Movement for West Papua United Nations UN Development Program United States University of the South Pacific Union of Soviet Socialist Republics World Council of Churches Western Pacific High Commission West Papua National Council for Liberation World Trade Organization

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Map of the political and cultural divisions of contemporary Oceania. CartoGIS Services, Australian National University.

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1

Oceania and the Study of Regions

Regions range from the broadest possible constructions, such as the Indo-Pacific and the transatlantic world, to localized entities contained within a single valley. But whatever their scale, regions are generally configured around a geographic space that has been invested conceptually with certain essential features. Included in the geographic construction of Oceania are four major subregions, namely, Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia, which together constitute the ‘Pacific Islands’ or ‘Island Pacific’, along with Australasia, consisting of Australia and New Zealand, noting that New Zealand also falls within the Polynesian subregion. All are connected through the massive body of water that constitutes the world’s largest geographical feature: the Pacific Ocean. The islands scattered across its surface may be small, giving the impression that it is almost all empty space with very little in the way of land surface, apart from Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia. But this view glosses over the fact that there are nearly fifteen million square kilometres of ‘exclusive economic zones’ belonging to the countries of the Island Pacific as a whole, contributing to the idea that the Pacific Ocean is not a massive vacant space but rather a ‘blue continent’. The space encompassed by Oceania, as sketched here, follows a standard physical geographic definition of the region as well as reflecting its contemporary political geography, although it is not without controversy. Nor does it encompass all the actors involved in regional politics. These include France and the United States (US) as members of the Pacific Community, Oceania’s longest-standing regional organization. China has no official membership in the regional bodies but now has a significant presence, mainly through its network of bilateral relationships (for which it has a preference) and expanding aid activity. These play into contemporary regional politics as well as broader geopolitical considerations. Also figuring in the geopolitical scenario is the internationalization of the Indonesia/West Papua issue, which is a product of both colonialism and Cold War developments. 1

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2

Oceania and the Study of Regions

Addressing these and other aspects of regional politics in Oceania requires an account not just of contemporary dynamics but also of developments that have occurred over centuries, from the earliest human settlements through to European exploration and colonization, the period of formal regionalization in the post-war period, decolonization, the Cold War, the emergence of political regionalism and issues in the post–Cold War period revolving around security, political economy and geopolitical dynamics. These are the background conditions that inform analysis throughout the book. A key feature of this study is a focus on identity politics and its manifestation at various levels from the local through to the national, subregional and regional as well as broader configurations around the West/non-West or North/South divide along with the South–South motif, which assumes a conjunction of identities and interests. This has particular relevance for regional politics in Oceania, located as it is in the developing world, albeit with two ‘Western’ countries situated physically in the region and playing a role as both full members of the major regional organizations as well as donor countries in the North/South context. The initial themes addressed in this introductory chapter range over how regions emerge as political, social and economic entities, how they are conceptualized and how they come to provide a basis for identities around which political relations are configured. This includes an account of how and under what circumstances ‘regionness’ comes about, along with the idea of regional society in conceptualizing regional formations. Attention to the rise of Area Studies in the post-war period of decolonization and Cold War conditions provides further insights into the construction of regions in general and Oceania in particular. Also implicated in the emergence of Area Studies is the modernization paradigm, which continues to underpin ideas about regional development in the global South. The final section addresses the framework for analysis offered by postcolonial approaches. While recognizing their importance in scholarly and activist debates around issues of imperialism, colonialism and hegemony, this study provides a different approach. This includes widening the scope of postcolonial studies to embrace important instances of nonWestern colonialism in Oceania while also offering a more critical perspective on the often taken-for-granted binaries of colonizer/colonized, domination/subordination and repression/resistance. It therefore moves away from the standard West/non-West dichotomy that has tended to oversimplify the entities on either side of this divide and thereby many of the issues at stake.

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1.1  The Idea of Regions 3

1.1

The Idea of Regions

Geographical features inevitably loom large in definitions of regions but it clearly takes more than physical geographical criteria to invest any given area with ‘regionness’, understood as ‘the capacity of a selfdefined region to articulate its identity and interests to other actors’.1 This implies that the geographies of a region are ‘managed’,2 an activity carried out primarily by those designated as members and who are therefore the most authoritative actors in defining the region, formulating policy, gate-keeping and so on. Regional management, however, is also influenced by external forces, especially those that regard themselves as legitimate stakeholders and who have the capacity to project power and influence. Regions therefore appear as geopolitical constructs, although factors such as language, religion and ethnic identity – often conflated under the rubric of culture – sometimes count as much, if not more, in establishing regionness. Having said that, it is also important to avoid the temptations of essentializing analysis in terms of ‘culture areas’ and to investigate just how regions are both historically constituted and located in broader processes of social and economic change.3 This means taking account not only of discursive practices but also of the specific actions and events that have led to the construction of regions, although all these are intimately related.4 Further, as much as cultural factors may appear to bind actors together in a regional formation, they may also play into tensions between them, especially where a politics of culture is at play. Taken together, these considerations suggest that any given region exists not in any objective sense but rather as a ‘competing set of ideological constructs that project upon a certain location on the globe the imperatives of interest, power, or vision of these historically produced relationships’.5 Terms such as ‘Oceania’ and the entities it encompasses are therefore situated within and indeed substantially constituted by 1

Rick Fawn, ‘“Regions” and Their Study: Wherefrom, What for and Whereto?’, Review of International Studies, 35 (1), 2009, 14. 2 Richard Herr, ‘The Frontiers of Pacific Islands Regionalism: Charting the Boundaries of Identity’, Asia-Pacific World, 4 (1), 2013, 36–7. 3 Mitchell Bernard, ‘Regions in the Global Political Economy: Beyond the Local-Global in the Formation of the East Asian Region’, New Political Economy, 1 (3), 1996, 339. 4 Luc Van Langenhove, Building Regions: The Regionalization of the World Order (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 1. See also Anssi Paasi, John Harrison and Martin Jones, ‘New Consolidated Regional Geographies’, in Anssi Paasi, John Harrison and Martin Jones (eds.), Handbook on the Geographies of Regions and Territories (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018), 4. 5 Arif Dirlik, ‘The Asia-Pacific Idea: Reality and Representation in the Invention of a Regional Structure’, Journal of World History, 3 (1), 1992, 56.

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‘discourse’.6 The latter, in turn, is understood as a way of speaking about the world of social and political experience and, in particular, of producing meaning within a given context.7 This is partly reflected in the turn within geography from the concept of region to the concept of ‘place’ and its association with ‘the complex world of identity politics, ethnicity and gender’ which situate selves or subjects ‘in place’.8 This may appear to legitimate the tendency in some approaches to Area Studies that valorize ‘cultural contexts’ and the particularities and specificities that are claimed to define them. Apart from evincing a certain hostility to universals, such approaches are inclined to shy away from explaining just how ‘cultural contexts’ are constructed, maintained, revised and reconfigured. Recognition of these dynamics has at least made some impact through the ‘relational turn’ in political geography in which there has been some critical rethinking on the subject of interspatial relations.9 This accords with the approach taken in this book, dealing as it does with shifting relations at many levels, from the local and national to the subregional, regional and global, and in which issues of identity, and the politics of identity, loom large. The approaches sketched here contrast with rationalist and functionalist approaches that generally see the emergence of regions as responses to ‘objective’ problems such as security, trade and/or development. Integral to this reasoning is the notion that regions exist ‘out there’ and may be identified through objective material structures, organizations and actors.10 Although the rational/functionalist approaches are often taken as deeply opposed to the discursive/ideological formulations, I suggest that it is more productive to take them as complementary. After all, ideas are not disembodied discourses but are produced and developed in material circumstances, and vice versa.11 All approaches contribute insights to the phenomena under investigation – phenomena that consist in the interaction of the ideational and the material in the production of ‘the region’. 6 See Stephanie Lawson, ‘Regionalizing the Pacific Rim: Economic, Political and Cultural Approaches’, in Stephanie Lawson and Wayne Peake (eds.), Globalization and Regionalization: Views from the Pacific Rim (Sydney and Guadalajara: University of Technology Sydney and University of Guadalajara, 2007), 21–38. 7 Andrew Edgar and Peter Sedgwick (eds.), Key Concepts in Cultural Theory (London: Routledge, 1999), 117. 8 J. Nicholas Entrikin, ‘Introduction’, in J. Nicholas Entrikin (ed.), Regions: Critical Essays in Human Geography (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), xvi. 9 Jack Corbett, Being Political: Leadership and Democracy in the Pacific Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015), 9. 10 Fredrik Söderbaum, Rethinking Regionalism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 5. 11 Bernard, ‘Regions’, 341.

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1.2

Regions and Regionalization

Although globalization is generally taken to be a defining feature of the post–Cold War era, regionalization has also become characteristic of world order, albeit as a complementary rather than an opposing process.12 And just as globalization has a history that can be traced back many centuries, so too has regionalization. For present purposes, however, it suffices to note that there have been several principal waves of regionalization since the nineteenth century. The first has been identified as a European phenomenon involving early customs unions and trade agreements. Another wave occurred after the First World War, again involving mostly European sites, but with extensions via such mechanisms as the Commonwealth system of preferences established by the United Kingdom (UK) in 1932.13 A further two waves occurred after the Second World War: first from the 1950s through to the 1970s, which included not only the European Economic Community but trade blocs instituted by developing countries; and second after the end of Cold War when regionalization became more clearly complementary to participation in the world economy.14 Each of these has involved some measure of voluntary integration in the economic and/or political spheres of two or more independent states, at least to the extent that a certain measure of authority in key areas of national policy has shifted towards the supranational level.15 Despite the setback occasioned by ‘Brexit’, and recent waves of populist nationalism in various parts of the region, the European Union (EU) still represents the most substantial experiment in regional cooperation and integration and is often used as a benchmark for regionalist projects elsewhere.16 Europe has also been the source of most theorizing about regions to date, which has therefore been largely Eurocentric, although that is changing.17 Elsewhere, integration may be nowhere near as deep, but there has still been much apparent enthusiasm for establishing regional organizations, even if the result is more a case of enhanced intergovernmentality than a supranational entity. Across Asia and the 12

Stephanie Lawson, International Relations, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Polity, 2017), 120. 13 Edward D. Mansfield and Helen V. Milner, ‘The New Wave of Regionalism’, International Organization, 53 (3), 1999, 596–7. 14 Ibid. 15 Walter Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1. 16 Mark Beeson, Regionalism and Globalization in East Asia: Politics, Security and Economic Development (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 2. 17 See Amitav Acharya, Whose Ideas Matter? Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).

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Pacific, examples include the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its various offshoots, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the Pacific Community and the Pacific Islands Forum (previously the South Pacific Forum, and hereafter ‘the Forum’). There is also the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum that, with a membership of major Pacific Rim countries such as China, India, Russia, the US and Japan, encompasses the world’s biggest economies as well as the countries with the most extensive land areas and populations. It also includes Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand – the three largest countries in Oceania. Regional bodies are also incorporated within the United Nations (UN) system, most visibly the regional economic commissions linked to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).18 Currently, these are the Economic Commissions for Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific, and Western Asia. Membership of these, however, lacks coherence as some countries have membership in more than one region (e.g., Russia and Turkey belong in both the European and the Asia and Pacific groups) while some groups contain exogenous members (e.g., the UK, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the US and Canada are members of the Latin America and Caribbean group). Moreover, a different set of regions has been constructed for the purposes of elections within the UN system, reflecting an array of geopolitical factors that have made it impossible for the UN to maintain a consistent approach.19 Indeed, the effort to define ‘region’ has long been abandoned by the UN. Nor is there a commonly accepted definition in the social sciences beyond a simple dictionary designation of ‘an area, especially part of a country or the world having definable characteristics but not always fixed boundaries’, including, for example, ‘equatorial regions’ or ‘wine-producing regions’.20 Problems of definition notwithstanding, the rise of regional organizations in the post–Second World War era, along with an increasing array of global governance institutions, may suggest that the sovereign state model is no longer as central to world order as it once was. But most regional experiments outside of Europe have been concerned not to compromise state sovereignty and national interests. Given that independent sovereign statehood was, in the earlier days of post-war regionalization, still so recent for many countries, this is hardly surprising. Regionalization 18

Francis Baert, Tânia Felíciop and Philippe de Lombaerde, ‘Introduction’, in Philippe Lombaerde, Francis Baert and Tânia Felíciop (eds.), The United Nations and the Regions: Third World Report on Regional Integration (Dordrecht: Springer, 2012), 5. 19 Ibid., 6–7. 20 Originally located at en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/region.

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1.2  Regions and Regionalization 7

outside of Europe has therefore taken the path of ‘light’ intergovernmentalism rather than integrative supranational governance. There is no reason to assume, however, that background cultural conditions or world-views in the non-European sphere are a permanent impediment to greater integration. It has been observed, for example, that pacifist, cosmopolitan and pan-regional cultures entailing a strong demand for some kind of supra-state governance may be found in various traditions of thought including Buddhism, Ghandian-inspired Hinduism, panAfricanism, pan-Americanism and the Confucianist idea of ‘all-underheaven’. All are oriented to the ideal of peace through cooperation.21 Nor is there any reason to reject out of hand all theorizing emanating from EU studies as inapplicable to other regions.22 As one commentator notes, elements of two of the leading theories of European integration, neofunctionalism and new intergovernmentalism, have much relevance for developments in Asia.23 Approaches such as regime theory and postfunctionalism may also have a wider purchase,24 while ‘new regionalism’ studies from the late 1990s have contributed to a wider, more pluralistic approach capable of embracing the diversity of regional experiences around the world,25 although some remain essentially Eurocentric in approach.26 I say more about the issue of Eurocentrism shortly. However conceived in theory, the boundaries and characteristics of regional entities, wherever they are found, are far from settled, but rather shift and change according to the dynamics at play at any given time, along with the discourses surrounding them. Similarly, the theorization of regions is ongoing given that ‘neither the object of study (ontology) nor the way of studying it (epistemology) has remained static’.27 And 21

See Marion Telò and Anne Weyemburgh, ‘Supranationality and Sovereignty in an Era of Increasing Complexity and Fragmentation’, in Mario Telò and Anne Weyembergh (eds.), Supranational Governance at Stake: The EU’s External Competences Caught between Complexity and Fragmentation (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), 10. 22 For example, Ellen L. Frost, Asia’s New Regionalism (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008), 11–14. 23 Min-hyung Kim, ‘Integration Theory and ASEAN Integration’, Pacific Focus, 29 (3), 2014, 374–94. 24 For recent discussions of the major theoretical approaches in the European context see Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, ‘Grand Theories of European Integration in the Twenty-First Century’, Journal of European Public Policy, 26 (8), 2019, 1113–33; Antje Wiener, Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (eds.), European Integration Theory, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 25 See, for example, Fredrik Söderbaum and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.), Theories of New Regionalism: A Palgrave Macmillan Reader (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). 26 Greg Fry, Framing the Islands: Power and Diplomatic Agency in Pacific Regionalism (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2019), 28. 27 Fredrik Söderbaum, ‘Theories of Regionalism’, in Mark Beeson and Richard Stubbs (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Asian Regionalism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 13.

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whereas regionalization in its earlier years was dominated by state elites, the contemporary scene involves an expanding cast of actors across various dimensions: security, trade, development, human rights, subregional identities and so forth.28 This is certainly true of Oceania where regionalization now extends beyond the basic intergovernmentalism of the major regional organizations to involve civil society organizations (CSOs), corporate actors and other non-state entities and, not least, subregional groupings with their own agendas. The ability of non-state actors, especially at the grassroots level, to organize and articulate a range of social, political and economic concerns and connect with all parts of Oceania, including the various diasporas, has been enhanced considerably by the spread of information communication technologies (ICTs) in recent years, leading to a growth in ‘bottom-up regionalism’.29 Key issue areas include climate change, gender (in)equality and West Papuan self-determination, which, given the increasing availability of ICTs, have seen much more coordinated activism across the region. ICTs acquired additional importance during the COVID-19 pandemic at all levels of interaction and for all kinds of actors. And they will certainly continue to provide connectivity across a range of issue areas, enhancing the possibilities for ‘digital democracy’ throughout the region. Having said that, ICTs obviously come with risks as well as opportunities as recent adverse developments from cyber (in)security to dangerous disinformation attest. 1.3

Regionalism and Regional Identity

Although the terms regionalization and regionalism are often conflated, with the latter representing a convenient shorthand term for both, it is useful to distinguish between them.30 First, regionalization, as described in Section 1.2, may be taken as implying a form of integration consisting largely in processes that generate a structure or order for which institutions and rules of governance – either formal or informal – are established by authoritative actors to achieve certain mutually 28

Ibid. 29 See, generally, Jason Titifanue and Romitesh Kant, ‘Information and Communication Technologies as a Catalyst for Social Activism and “Bottom-Up” Regionalism’, in Lino Briguglio, Michael Briguglio, Sheila Bunwaree and Claire Slatter (eds.), Handbook of Civil Society and Social Movements in Small States (London: Routledge, 2023), 204–18. 30 At least one other author has done, although the analysis does not go much beyond describing regionalism as ‘an urge for a regionalist order’, suggesting policies of cooperation and coordination, while regionalization is defined largely in terms of the growth of economic interdependence. See Fawn, ‘“Regions” and Their Study’, 12–13.

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1.3  Regionalism and Regional Identity 9

agreed ends.31 Understood in this way, regionalization reflects the practical development and institutionalization of ‘regionness’. The EU, again, is generally taken as the example par excellence of formal regionalization, while organizations such as ASEAN – founded in 1967 and often said to be the most successful regional institution outside Europe32 – have historically relied on more informal rules of governance. A similar level of informality has characterized the Forum, Oceania’s premier regional institution, although that has been changing. The strong rules-based and heavily institutionalized approach of the EU is often taken to be more distinctively ‘Western’ in political style compared with non-Western formations. With ASEAN, for example, the notion that the organization proceeds only on the basis of a consensus among members, which also implies a strictly non-adversarial manner, is said to reflect the region’s cultural values  – again in contrast with those of the West.33 A notable deviation from the model occurred in 2021 when Myanmar’s military leadership was excluded from the ASEAN summit, a non-political representative being invited instead. This was ‘an unusually bold step for the consensus-driven bloc, which traditionally favours a policy of engagement and non-interference’.34 Despite this deviation, there has usually been less concern with ‘the production and governance of regional space than the assertion of a collective Asian political culture that preserves state sovereignty’.35 Similar claims have been made about diplomatic and political culture among Pacific Island leaders in Oceania where a ‘Pacific Way’ has been invoked to convey, among other things, the idea of a distinctive diplomatic style based on consensus decision-making. And again, this is usually contrasted with the West.36 This provides a prime example of the tendency to dichotomize West/non-West political cultures. In this particular case, the dichotomy turns out to be not merely misleading but 31

Stephanie Lawson, ‘Asia/Europe and the Construction of Regional Governance’, in Nicholas Thomas (ed.), Regional Governance in the Asia-Pacific (London: Routledge, 2009), 301–2; see also Björn Hettne, ‘Beyond the “New” Regionalism’, New Political Economy, 10 (4), 2005, 545. 32 Amitav Acharya, ‘How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism’, International Organization, 58 (2), 2004, 241. 33 See, generally, Jurgen Haacke, ASEAN’S Diplomatic and Security Culture: Development and Prospects (Abingdon: Routledge, 2003). 34 Ain Bandial, ‘ASEAN Excludes Myanmar Junta Leader from Summit in Rare Move’, 17 October 2021, Reuters (online). 35 Jesse P. H. Poon, ‘Regionalism in the Asia Pacific: Is Geography Destiny’, Area, 33 (3), 2001, 252. 36 Michael Haas, The Pacific Way: Regional Cooperation in the South Pacific (New York: Praeger, 1989).

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false. The evidence shows that the politics of EU integration since the 1992 Treaty on European Union was agreed has in fact been characterized overwhelmingly by deliberative, consensus-oriented behavioural norms with actual voting to decide issues the rare exception rather than the norm.37 Other studies confirm that EU members pursue consensus decision-making almost as an end in itself;38 that ‘informal norms of consensus are the primary mode of decision‐making’;39 and that deliberation and consensus are ‘part of everyday EU decision-making’.40 An EU website also highlights this: ‘Consensus means a proposal will only be adopted if all member states are in agreeance. Formal voting does not take place, the member states deliberate until they reach general agreement. Traditionally, this is the most used method of decision-making in the European Council.’41 Despite the typecasting of politics and diplomatic styles in the EU as adversarial, in contrast with consensual non-Western forms, proving problematic, it has nonetheless become entrenched as a truism, illustrating the ease with which stereotyping is deployed as an aspect of identity politics. It is also in relation to purported political styles, based on cultural attributes, that aspects of regionalism as an ideational exercise, and the construction of identity on a broad scale, emerges. Here, the term regionalism is taken to denote an ideological package of assumed values and beliefs, motives and interests that surround invocations of region and that seek to shape the processes, activities and institutions that constitute ‘the region’ as an entity. As suggested earlier, however, most commentators use ‘regionalism’ to refer more generally to all the processes, institutionalization, ideologies, etc. that combine to form ‘an extremely complex and dynamic process founded upon not one but a series of interacting and often competing logics’.42 These include logics of economic 37 Christopher J. Bickerton, Dermot Hodson and Uwe Puetter, ‘The New Intergovernmentalism and the Study of European Integration’, in Christopher J. Bickerton, Dermot Hodson and Uwe Puetter (eds.), The New Intergovernmentalism: States and Supranational Actors in the Post-Maastricht Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 2. 38 Uwe Puetter, ‘The Centrality of Consensus and Deliberation in Contemporary EU Politics and the New Intergovernmentalism’, Journal of European Integration, 38 (5), 2016, 602. 39 Dorothee Heisenberg, ‘The Institution of “Consensus” in the European Union: Formal versus Informal Decision‐Making in the Council’, European Journal of Political Research, 44 (1), 2005, 65. 40 See Amy Verdun, ‘Intergovernmentalism Old, Liberal, and New’, Oxford Research Encyclopedias, 2020 (online). 41 EU Monitor, ‘European Council Decides by Consensus’ (online). 42 Andrew Hurrell, ‘One World? Many Worlds? The Place of Regions in the Study of International Society’, International Affairs, 83 (1), 2007, 130.

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1.3  Regionalism and Regional Identity 11

and technological transformation, societal integration, power and political competition, security (both interstate and societal), and identity and community. Regionalism may therefore be viewed as ‘an unstable and indeterminate process of multiple and competing logics with no overriding teleology or single-end point’, producing dynamic entities that are ‘inherently unstable with little possibility of freezing the status quo’.43 This can certainly be said of regionalism in Oceania where the physical boundaries of the region encapsulated by the formal institutions have shifted according to geopolitical circumstances and where competing logics interact endlessly. Examples include the effective transfer of the western half of the island of New Guinea (i.e., West Papua) from the South Pacific to Southeast Asia when it was incorporated into the Republic of Indonesia. Recent developments in Forum membership have seen new members from the major French territories, previously regarded as unqualified, now being admitted while others from the Micronesian subregion threatened withdrawal. Developments in Oceania’s subregional organizations are also in flux. The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) has been facing challenges to its integrity and functioning due to membership issues concerning Indonesia and West Papua,44 with divisions among existing members emerging as a source of friction. The Polynesian Leader’s Group (PLG) is a relatively new grouping whose membership is not yet consolidated. Micronesian organizations – the Micronesian Chief Executives’ Summit (MCES) and the Micronesian Presidents’ Summit (MPS) – have asserted a more robust Micronesian profile in regional politics in recent years, challenging Forum solidarity in the process. These and other developments are the subject of detailed discussion in the chapters that follow. Returning to broader themes, both regionalization as a process and regionalism as an ideology and set of discourses, which together produce ‘the region’, are implicated in the formation of regional (and subregional) identities. This brings us to three basic interrelated characteristics of identities, best described as relational, situational and instrumental. First, identity formation is relational to the extent that it requires a contrasting image against which a form of self-identity can be constructed. The ‘self/other’ or ‘we/they’ dimension is common to virtually every form of identity politics, drawing on various ideational motifs to establish 43

Ibid. 44 Technically, the western part of the island of New Guinea now consists of two Indonesian provinces (Papua and West Papua), but ‘West Papua’ commonly refers to both. It has also been called, at various times, Netherlands (or Dutch) New Guinea, West New Guinea, Irian Barat, Irian Jaya Barat, Irian Jaya, Papua Barat and Papua/ West Papua.

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sameness and difference while tending to produce homogenized entities on either side of the divide. At the broadest level, the West/non-West or North/South developmental divide in the Oceanic context sees Australia and New Zealand placed on one side by virtue of their history as (proxy European) colonizing agents, their liberal democratic (Western) political institutions, dominant (Anglo) populations, (advanced) economic status and (again Western) geopolitical orientations and alignments. In contrast, Pacific Island countries are characterized as Indigenous, historically subjected to (mainly European/US) colonialism with very different traditional political systems (partly obliterated by imposed systems) and developing economies. Their geopolitical alignments are presently oriented to the Western sphere, but that is also subject to change. An overarching expression of identity in the Island Pacific has long been encapsulated in the idea of the ‘Pacific Way’, as noted earlier. This also appears to compromise the extent to which Australia and New Zealand can be seen as genuine members of a regional society with shared norms, values and orientations to processes, policies and other issues. Relational processes of identification and differentiation therefore tend to shape metanarratives casting some states as belonging in a region and others as alien or out of place.45 But this depends on the political circumstances at any given time. While there is some substance in the characterizations sketched here, they are not the whole story. Within the Island Pacific, and despite the homogenizing imagery of the Pacific Way, the self/other dimension is also evident in formulations based on the three geocultural entities first devised by early European explorers and colonizers, viz., Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. These have been invested with considerable significance by local actors and now play a key role in broader regional politics. A Melanesia/Polynesia divide has emerged from time to time, while the notion of a Melanesian ‘brotherhood’ is also highly significant in the ongoing issues surrounding Indonesia’s claims to West Papua as well as the ongoing colonial situation in New Caledonia. Manifestations of a Micronesian self, or ‘Micronesianism’, previously much weaker than both Melanesian and Polynesian subregional identities, have added another dimension to contemporary subregional politics. National and subnational identities are of course additional elements in the mix of regional politics, often aligning with the subregional entities 45 Wali Aslam, Leslie Wehner, Kei Koga, Janis van der Westhuizen, Cameron G. Thies and Feliciano de Sá Guimarães, ‘Misplaced States and the Politics of Regional Identity: Towards a Theoretical Framework’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 33 (4), 2020, 506.

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1.3  Regionalism and Regional Identity 13

but sometimes conflicting with them. Discourses within the Island Pacific often move between asserting a common identity for all Pacific people at one end of the spectrum and, at the other end, asserting the absolute distinctiveness or uniqueness of each and every island group. Taken together, all these factors appear to make the notion of Oceania as a coherent entity, seamlessly incorporating Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Island countries, highly problematic. The second, situational characteristic inherent in identities means that they are activated, and relationalities established or emphasized, according to the dynamics of particular contexts. It is important to highlight that it is a political context that counts here, something that may be overlooked in approaches that assume that ‘contexts’ are, almost by definition, determined primarily by cultural and/or historical factors, providing a fixed backdrop against which political options are constrained by the limits of ‘culture’ or ‘tradition’.46 Identities are flexible rather than set in stone, although some may be more flexible (or inflexible) than others. Fiji, for example, has been able to face either way when it comes to the Melanesia/Polynesia divide. New Zealand’s identity, too, may be adjusted according to circumstances. While identifying closely with Australia and the West more generally on a whole range of issues, New Zealand also orients itself more specifically to a Pacific Island identity, at least in the context of regional politics. This is sometimes expressed as a point of differentiation vis-à-vis Australia when it is asserted that New Zealand is ‘more Pacific’ than Australia.47 But in other situations, there is a limit to exactly how far identities may plausibly be stretched in any given situation. Indonesia’s attempt to take on a partial Melanesian identity to legitimate its claims to West Papua is a case in point. Third, identities are often instrumental: they may be deployed strategically in the pursuit of goals, or as defensive mechanisms in the face of unwelcome external pressures, or when internal critics challenge incumbent elites. Again, this is a political phenomenon in which the relational and situational aspects of identity formation are implicated. As we shall see, the ‘Pacific Way’ as a pan-regional motif encompassing the Island Pacific, along with subregional, national and subnational expressions of identities, have all been used strategically at different times and in different political contexts. China has also engaged in this kind of politics, promoting an identity as a South–South development partner to strengthen 46

Stephanie Lawson, ‘Political Studies and the Contextual Turn: A Normative/ Methodological Critique’, Political Studies, 56 (3), 2008, 584–603. 47 Michael Goldsmith, ‘Diplomatic Rivalries and Cultural One-Upmanship: New Zealand’s Long Quest to Become More Pacific than Australia’, Round Table, 106 (2), 2017, 187–96.

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engagement with the Island Pacific by invoking an element of sameness while placing traditional Western donors in the category of ‘other’.48 In addition to the relational, situational and instrumental characteristics of identity formation, identities also tend to be layered, or rather multilayered. One can identify as a member of a family, a village, a province, a state and a region, along with an ethnic or linguistic group, a religion, a profession, membership of a CSO, with one’s gender and/or sexuality, and so on, all at the same time. In diaspora communities, further layering may occur through the expression of hybrid identities such as Fijian-Australian at one level while also adopting a broad Pacific Islander identity at another.49 In the sphere of regional politics, it seems obvious that layering operates with local, national, subregional and pan-regional identities all coming into play. It is equally obvious that, depending on the political context, one layer may have more salience and be expressed more strongly at any given time. In light of these characteristic features of dynamic identity production and deployment, it is difficult to cast identities as stable or permanent. Older conceptions of identity assuming immutability have fallen out of favour, especially given the contemporary circumstances of rapid social change and the ever-increasing interconnections between communities around the globe, not to mention the phenomenon of migration, all of which have impacted significantly, not only on island communities in Oceania, but on Australia and New Zealand as well.50 Yet another use of the term ‘identity politics’, in both domestic and international contexts, has been in application to marginalized groups struggling to achieve social justice vis-à-vis dominant groups. Pertinent examples range from the Black Lives Matter movement to the global Indigenous rights movement. Critics of such struggles tend to use ‘identity politics’ as a negative epithet, portraying the groups as simply claiming an exaggerated victimhood to make demands. Other criticisms, while acknowledging the propensity of some activists to make ‘naïve, totalizing, or unnuanced claims’, suggest that the public rhetoric of identity politics nonetheless serves useful and empowering purposes even as these sometimes belie the complexity of claims to shared experiences or common group characteristics.51 48 Denghua Zhang and Stephanie Lawson, ‘China in Pacific Regional Politics’, Round Table, 106 (2), 2017, 198. 49 See Kirsten McGavin, ‘Being “Nesian”: Pacific Island Identity in Australia’, Contemporary Pacific, 26 (1), 2014, 126–54. 50 Toon van Meijl, ‘Introduction’, in Toon van Meijl and Jella Miedema (eds.), Shifting Images of Identity in the Pacific (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2004), 2. 51 Cressida Heyes, ‘Identity Politics’, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2020 (online).

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Issues in identity politics, especially with respect to the identity of international actors (states, regional institutions, corporations, CSOs and other entities), are also prominent in the literature on social constructivism.52 In political studies, constructivism has featured prominently in International Relations as well in comparative political studies, especially in the political culture literature. But what this literature has not investigated in much depth are the most basic concepts used in identity construction  – ‘culture’, ‘tradition’, ‘ethnicity’ and associated concepts – all of which tend to be taken for granted rather than examined in any depth. Further, and as suggested earlier, the specific political context in which these concepts are deployed is often left unexplored or at least underanalysed.53 So although few doubt the importance of ‘culture’ in contemporary international politics, there is a need to investigate ‘just how culture matters, the extent to which it matters, and the conditions under which it matters’.54 Studies of identity politics as configured around both regional and subregional formations in Oceania are well suited to addressing such questions. The insights of social constructivism are, however, important in highlighting certain dynamics of regional development, emphasizing as it does the role of norms and identities, as perceived or interpreted by various relevant actors – governments, businesses, civic groups, etc. – in defining or redefining that which becomes ‘a region’.55 As noted earlier, the first step in the conceptualization of a region as a delineated, named entity associated with a particular set of characteristics is its emergence as an idea or a convergence of ideas. It is in this sense that ‘the region’ is not ‘simply there’ but rather depends on its articulation in discourse.56 What we now call the Pacific Ocean has clearly been there for millennia, but its conceptualization as a geographic area did not exist until European explorers began to map it from the sixteenth century onwards.57 52 For example, Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Ted Hopf, ‘The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory’, International Security, 23 (1), 1998: 171–200; Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (eds.), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Peter Katzenstein (ed.), A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005); Amitav Acharya, ‘How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism’, International Organization, 58 (2), 2004, 239–75. 53 See Stephanie Lawson, Culture and Context in World Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 3. 54 Hurrell, ‘One World?’, 127. 55 Raimo Väyrynen, ‘Regionalism: Old and New’, International Studies Review, 5 (1), 2003, 26. 56 Wendy Larner and William Walters, ‘The Political Rationality of “New Regionalism”: Towards a Genealogy of the Region’, Theory and Society, 31 (3), 2002, 391. 57 K. R. Howe, The Quest for Origins: Who First Discovered and Settled the Pacific Islands? (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003), 24.

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It has also been observed that regions are politically both constructed and contested, not just by relevant actors within the region but by external actors as well.58 Oceania and its subregions have, more often than not, been defined by external actors. But while early definitions by explorers and colonial powers still carry considerable force, they have been adapted and modified over the years by actors within Oceania to reflect the different context of post-colonial regional politics. All this reinforces the point that regional boundaries are determined not simply by the ‘givens’ of physical geography or a static conception of culture, but invariably reflect shifts in the ‘powers, norms and interests of political leaders’.59 But, again, material facts cannot be discounted. Notwithstanding that physical land masses and waterways will always be subject to change due to rising or falling sea levels, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, the accretion of coral, etc., certain physical features of geographic space are indeed ‘just there’. The islands and populations that constitute the Melanesian subregion, for example, clearly have a material existence that is independent of particular social observations, acts of naming and modes of interpretation and analysis. But the identity and meaning of the islands – or rather their people as Melanesian – are social and political constructs, not material facts, and are created through interpretive practices that assign meaning and value. This brings us to naming practices in identity politics and the extent to which these become part of the symbolic construction of meanings about place, while also functioning as powerful determinants of inclusion and exclusion.60 It follows that names such as Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia, along with the ‘Pacific Islands’, ‘Oceania’, the ‘IndoPacific’ and so on, are, quite apart from designating groupings of physical land masses and ocean spaces, used to ‘humanize’ an area, to endow it with associations and meaning, to either identify it with ‘us’ or distinguish it from ‘us’, setting boundaries in the mind as much as on the map.61 Mental maps also guide understandings of regional or 58

Peter J. Katzenstein, ‘Regionalism in Comparative Perspective’, Cooperation and Conflict, 31 (2), 1996, 133. 59 Nye cited in ibid. 60 See Lawrence D. Berg and Robin A. Kearns, ‘Naming as Norming: “Race”, Gender and the Identity Politics of Naming Places in Aoteroa/New Zealand’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 14 (1), 1996, 99–122; and Laura Kostanzi and Guy Puzey, ‘Trends in Onomastics: An Introduction’, in Guy Puzey and Laura Costansi (eds.), Names and Naming: People, Places, Perceptions and Power (Bristol: Multimedia Matters, 2016), 1. 61 R. Gerard Ward, ‘Widening Worlds, Shrinking Worlds? The Reshaping of Oceania’, Pacific Lecture delivered for the Centre for the Contemporary Pacific (Canberra: Australian National University, 12 October 1999), 2.

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1.4  The Concept of Regional Society 17

international order and decision-making.62 And precisely because they are socially and politically constructed, they are subject to continuous reconstruction through ongoing acts of interpretation as relevant contexts change. This reinforces the point that the idea of region combines both material and virtual elements that are malleable rather than fixed.63 The shift from ‘Asia-Pacific’ to ‘Indo-Pacific’ to designate the broader strategic region within which Oceania is located provides a prime example. Having said that, identities derived from such constructs, which feed into issues of power, legitimacy and authority, and guide strategic and diplomatic choices, among many other things, can become deeply entrenched through processes of institutionalization and take on an aura of permanence. 1.4

The Concept of Regional Society

The idea of a ‘regional society’ derives from the more general concept of ‘international society’ developed by the English School of International Relations theory. It is part of a longer-standing tradition of liberal international thought concerned to elucidate the conditions under which peace and security can be achieved in an anarchical international sphere, highlighting the extent to which a certain cooperative social order is nonetheless achievable among states – an order that goes beyond a mere system in which interaction prompts states simply to observe and evaluate the behaviour of other states as a means of calculating one’s own particular self-interest. ‘A society of states … exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values … conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common institutions.’64 Empirically, a number of regional societies around the globe can be identified, each of which has its own structural and normative frameworks.65 One assumption that flows from this is that the greater the commonality of cultural ties, which increases in likelihood among states in a particular region, the greater the chances of developing a thicker, more coherent form of regional society. It is also the case, however, that 62 Rory Medcalf, ‘Contest for the Indo-Pacific’, Australian Outlook, 1 July 2020 (online). 63 Cf. Anssi Paasi, ‘The Resurgence of the “Region” and “Regional Identity”: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Observations on Regional Dynamics in Europe’, Review of International Studies, 35 (1), 2009, 131. 64 Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977), 13. 65 Yannis A. Stivachtis, ‘Interrogating Regional International Societies, Questioning the Global International Society’, Global Discourse, 5 (3), 2015, 327.

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rivalries and tensions are often higher among states in close proximity within a regional complex, regardless of assumed cultural commonalities, than among states far removed geographically. This is what makes efforts to socialize states on a regional basis all the more important. The EU is founded precisely on the notion of a regional society, prompted initially by the devastating experience of its ‘warring states’ history, and dedicated to building a society of states underpinned by common values, interests, rules and institutions. One study with a strong security focus offers a comparative analysis of several regions in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, examining all the difficulties confronting attempts to establish regional societies in these locations, chief among which are the legacies of colonialism and problems of state-making in the early decolonization period. These legacies include the very legitimacy of certain states in the perception both of their own citizens, or at least significant groups of them, as well as of neighbouring states. Together with lack of capacity across a range of state responsibilities, such factors have contributed to inadequate ‘stateness’ as the basis on which to build regional order and, in turn, a robust regional society.66 Looking to the Island Pacific, one can identify similar problems in state-building, especially in Melanesia, but many of the problems visited on other parts of the former colonial world are either absent or very much mitigated by other factors. And while there have been serious conflicts within states – notably Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji and Indonesia’s West Papua provinces – conflict between or among the states of Oceania as a whole has never been an issue, making the project of building a regional society less problematic. Regional civil society, which contributes significantly to the broader concept of regional society, is also worth highlighting.67 The early theorization of regions took regionalist projects to be largely statist affairs, rendering the region as not much more than an amalgamation of national spaces represented by state elites while ignoring the role of non-state actors, or treating them simply as incidental to state-based ones.68 ‘Civil society’ names the space in which many other actors pursue their interests separate from or outside the sphere of state-organized activity. Although the term was once used mainly in relation to private interests operating in the commercial sphere, corporate power and interests

66

Mohammed Ayoob, ‘From Regional System to Regional Society: Exploring Key Variables in the Construction of Regional Order’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 53 (3), 1999, 251. 67 On this subject see Fry, Framing the Islands, 141–9. 68 Bernard, ‘Regions’, 336.

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1.4  The Concept of Regional Society 19

are now generally seen as aligned with the state – or perhaps this is the other way around, since state interests are often aligned with those of the corporate world. Either way, corporate or commercial interests are usually excluded from the realm of civil society. Thus ‘civil society’ in the contemporary period is now more commonly applied to the plethora of voluntary associations – commonly known as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or the more recently favoured term civil society organizations (CSOs) – that promote social goods both within national societies as well as through the broader spheres of regional and global organization. While one can point to generalized features of CSOs, the causes and ideologies they promote, the activities they engage in, the resources they can draw on, the contexts within which they operate and the strategies they deploy all vary enormously. Encompassed within the very wide and diverse spectrum of CSOs, then, are: [A]nti-poverty movements, business forums, caste solidarity groups, clan and kinship mobilisations, consumer advocates, democracy promoters, development cooperation initiatives, disabled persons’ alliances, environmental campaigns, ethnic lobbies, faith-based associations, human rights advocates, labour unions, local community groups, peace drives, peasant movements, philanthropic foundations, professional bodies, relief organisations, sexual minorities’ associations, think tanks, women’s networks, youth groups and more.69

Almost all of these varying causes and/or interests are represented across Oceania, not just within national spheres but increasingly across the regional and subregional spheres as well, and extending beyond to the global level. Despite their apparent status as entities pursuing social goods independently of the state, and sometimes in opposition to state policy, CSOs frequently accept, and indeed seek, state funding or subsidies for their activities. This dependence, says one critical theorist, inclines the objectives of CSOs towards conformity with the established order, rather than presenting any challenge to it.70 Thus if CSOs have a role in promoting emancipatory or counter-hegemonic political, social or economic discourses or activities with a view to actually transforming an existing order in which current injustices prevail, such a role may at the very least be compromised. Be that as it may, CSOs have played a key part in ‘civil society regionalization’ in Oceania, as they have 69

Jan Aart Scholte, ‘Global Civil Society: Opportunity or Obstacle for Democracy?’, Development Dialogue, 49, November 2007, 17. 70 Robert W. Cox, ‘Civil Society at the Turn of the Millennium: Prospects for an Alternative World Order’, Review of International Studies, 25 (1), 1999, 11.

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elsewhere,71 finding greater efficacy in the pursuit of their common causes while contributing further to the substance of regional society in the process. 1.5

Area Studies, the Modernization Paradigm and Regions as Culture Areas

The analysis of regions and the particular attributes assigned to them must also recognize their constitution through scholarship. ‘Area Studies’ emerged as a new scholarly venture in the post-1945 period, especially in the US, denoting multidisciplinary research and teaching programs organized around the study of particular regions. The latter were defined in the US ‘in large part by the conditions of the Cold War: East Asia, Russia and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania’.72 Note that North America is missing from this list, presumably because it is not ‘other’. The US formulation of Area Studies in this period attracted much criticism, mainly because of its association with geostrategic interests and the recognition that the production of knowledge through its programs was less a disinterested intellectual enterprise than the manifestation of the projection of power and a quest for domination.73 Indeed, it has been suggested that the whole point of the modern university system, which emerged around the beginning of the nineteenth century, was precisely to provide for the production of knowledge essential to the expansionary interests of Europe and the US.74 This claim, however, is somewhat exaggerated. Universities and colleges have always engaged in knowledge production over a substantial range of subject matter that has little to do with ‘expansionary interests’. The very same universities (mainly in ‘the West’) have also provided the means by which the most scathing scholarly critiques of such enterprises have been produced. The institutionalization of Area Studies is also said to have been driven by the entrenchment of modernization theory in American social science and in policy circles as an aid to the spread of US hegemony. But again, 71

For example, Marta Reuter, Networking a Region into Existence? Dynamics of Civil Society Regionalization in the Baltic Sea Area (Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2007). 72 Neil L. Waters, ‘Introduction’, in Neil L. Waters (ed.), Beyond the Area Studies Wars: Toward a New International Studies (Hanover, NH: Middlebury College Press, 2000), 2. 73 See, generally, David Szanton (ed.), The Politics of Knowledge: Area Studies and the Disciplines (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004). 74 Masao Miyoshi, ‘Ivory Tower in Escrow’, in Masao Miyoshi and H. D. Harootunian (eds.), Learning Places: The Afterlives of Area Studies (Durham, NC: Duke University Press), 22.

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1.5  Area Studies, Modernization and Culture Areas 21

some forms also provided ‘critical spaces for generating opposition to imperial interventions’.75 However, it is the link between modernization theory, Area Studies and US imperialism that has received the most attention. One study of Japanese historiography in the post-war period notes that the Ford Foundation’s Area Studies program was designed only following ‘intense negotiations’ with various government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency.76 Modernization theory also sought to legitimate US Cold War ideology by promoting the belief that capitalism and liberal democracy provided the essential foundations for successful development. At the same time, modernization theory in the US responded to decolonization by presenting itself as an anti-imperialist and non-racist alternative to the ‘civilizing mission’ of the old European empires.77 Some may find the idea that the US represented both antiimperial and non-racist approaches almost laughable. Modernization theory also sought to present itself as scientific in a positivist sense, delivering ‘precision and rigour in particular through a greater reliance on formalization, mathematization and measurement’ in comparison with the ‘scattered historical erudition of regional specialization and the traditional teaching of political theory, considered to be vague and valueladen’.78 Numerous critiques of the positivist turn in social science, as well as defences of interpretive/historical methodologies, have been advanced over the past half century or so, and there is no need to rehearse all these here. Suffice to say that research in both the natural sciences and the social sciences is a human activity – and therefore by definition a social activity – attended by all the dynamics characterizing social interaction that in turn impinge on and compromise the quest for objective knowledge.79 With specific reference to the concept of modernization embedded in the theory, it has been suggested that, when ‘stripped of its scientific pretensions’, it became ‘little more than a classificatory device distinguishing processes of social change deemed “progressive” from those which are not’.80 A further consequence of modernization theory’s influence was the strengthening of the dichotomous construction of modernity vis-à-vis the traditional, with the latter often viewed as impeding social change. Traditional societies were characterized by a predominance of ascriptive, 75

Vicente L. Rafael, ‘Regionalism, Area Studies, and the Accidents of Agency’, American Historical Review, 104 (4), 1999, 1209. 76 Sebastian Conrad, ‘“The Colonial Ties Are Liquidated”: Modernization Theory, PostWar Japan and the Global Cold War’, Past and Present, 216 (1), 2012, 182. 77 Ibid., 184. 78 Nicolas Guilot, The Democracy Makers: Human Rights and the Politics of Global Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 109. 79 Lawson, Theories, 2–4. 80 Tipps, ‘Modernization Theory’, 222.

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particularistic, diffuse and affective patterns of action, extended kinship structures with a multiplicity of functions, little spatial and social mobility, a deferential system of social stratification, mainly primary economic activities, a tendency towards autarchy of social units, an undifferentiated political structure with elitist and hierarchical sources of authority, and so on. Modern societies, on the other hand, displayed a predominance of achievement, a nuclear family structure serving more limited functions, complex and highly differentiated occupational systems, high rates of both spatial and social mobility, a preponderance of secondary economic activities and production for exchange, the institutionalization of change and self-sustained growth, differentiated political structures with rationallegal sources of authority, and so forth.81 The tradition/modernity binary or dichotomy has been much criticized over the years, as has the modernization school of thought, with challenges to the latter coming especially from dependency and world system theory.82 Modernization theory has often been declared obsolete, but its assumptions remain highly influential and ideas about linear progress in development still have much currency among actors in both developed and developing countries. One of the more interesting aspects of the tradition/modernity debate is not so much the accuracy of the categories or their contents, but the extent to which they represent certain ideological positions. One early commentator, apart from highlighting the many variations in the relationship between traditional forms and newer institutions and values masked by the dichotomy, noted the extent to which both tradition and modernity could be used as ‘explicit ideologies operating in the context of politics in new nations’.83 So while US developmentalist approaches were underpinned by a modernizing ideology during the Cold War – of which neoliberalism in the contemporary period is a direct successor – the phenomenon of revivalism with respect to culture, custom or tradition has proved equally powerful, and no less in the island countries of Oceania than anywhere else.84 Moreover, in an age of identity politics, this phenomenon is observable not just in the former colonial world but throughout much of the global North as well. All these issues have much

81

J. Samuel Valenzuela and Arturo Valenzuela, ‘Modernization and Dependency: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Latin American Underdevelopment’, Comparative Politics, 10 (4), 1978, 537–8. 82 Alvin Y. So, Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency and WorldSystem (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990). 83 Joseph R. Gusfield, ‘Tradition and Modernity: Misplaced Polarities in the Study of Social Change’, American Journal of Sociology, 72 (4), 1967, 352. 84 Stephanie Lawson, Tradition versus Democracy in the South Pacific: Fiji, Tonga, and Western Samoa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

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1.6  Framing the Analysis 23

relevance to aspects of political economy discussed in Chapter 11, as well as to other themes throughout the book. The creation of Area Studies also led to the search for ‘deeper cultural unities’ in discrete areas or regions which effectively changed ‘a cartographic convenience into an entity with an identity internal to itself’.85 Indeed, the study of specific cultures has been described as ‘the soul of area studies’.86 The notion that the world is comprised essentially of broad culture areas has a ‘venerable history in anthropology’ with the discipline providing important conceptual tools.87 Writing about developments in the US, and well before the emergence of Area Studies, one commentator noted that specializations in the discipline were often by regions, the boundaries of which seemed ‘inherent in the phenomena themselves’.88 Assuming a common origin for the ‘same mesh of cultural traits’ among groups in geographically contiguous areas, the term ‘culture area’, whose boundaries stopped at the point at which the particular traits were no longer found, seemed an appropriate formulation for ‘expressing the regional character of human social behaviour’.89 Although the notion of culture areas (and the entire discipline of anthropology) have often been associated with the intellectual crime of exoticism,90 they have nonetheless provided useful ‘discursive frameworks for organizing disciplinary practices’ and are likely to continue to do so, as work on the Melanesian culture area, for example, attests.91 But the ‘culture areas’ of Oceania provide much more than this. They also provide a discursive field around which important subregional political affiliations have formed. 1.6

Framing the Analysis

Contemporary analyses of regional politics, or at least those attuned to developments outside of Europe, may also benefit from insights provided by postcolonial approaches. These have been highly influential in 85

Emmerson quoted in Grant Evans, ‘Between the Global and the Local There Are Regions, Culture Areas, and National States: A Review Article’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 33 (1), 2002, 148. 86 Waters, ‘Introduction’, 5. 87 Bruce M. Knauft, From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 4–5. 88 Clark Wissler, ‘The Culture-Area Concept in Social Anthropology’, American Journal of Sociology, 32 (6), 1927, 883–4, 891. 89 Ibid., 891. Another author notes the use in both Germany and the US in this period to deploy the concept of area studies in curating museum collections – see R. Lederman, ‘Globalization and the Future of Culture Areas: Melanesianist Anthropology in Transition’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 27, 1998, 427–49. 90 Lederman, ‘Globalization and the Future of Culture Areas’, 428. 91 Ibid.

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framing the terms of debate about the colonial experience and its aftermath and are obviously relevant to Oceania where issues of colonialism, past and present, have figured so prominently. The present study, while acknowledging the important contribution made by these approaches, is nonetheless concerned critically to examine some of the major assumptions implicit in conventional postcolonial studies, especially as these are configured around the West/non-West divide.92 The notion of the ‘postcolonial’, from which is derived ‘postcolonial theory’, ‘postcolonial discourse’ and ‘postcolonialism’ – terms that are often used interchangeably  – has come to embrace a field of meaning that goes well beyond its literal/temporal sense in designating something that simply comes ‘after colonialism’. The latter is catered for by the hyphenated ‘post-colonial’, which is usually intended to indicate the more straightforward temporal meaning and is used in the present study to refer simply to events or developments occurring after formal independence. Where the (unhyphenated) term ‘postcolonial’ appears, it reflects an explicit ideological/theoretical approach  – noting that ideology and theory share much common ground in the social scientific enterprise. This is because ‘postcolonial’ without the hyphen usually denotes a normative approach to the interpretation of both past and present in the former colonial world which is strongly anti-colonial. More specifically, it claims to constitute a form of counter-hegemonic discourse that critically addresses both the interpretation of the colonial past and its ongoing effects in the present, as well as manifestations of neocolonialism. This further entails a concern with ‘hegemonic regionalism’ and the prospects for ‘post-hegemonic regionalism’ that, in the case of Oceania, involves a rejection of economism and the reassertion of Indigenous and civil society concerns.93 Absent from much of this debate, however, are issues of internal colonialism and the role of local elites in perpetuating hegemonic practices as well as manifestations of colonialism and neocolonialism emanating from non-European or non-Western sources. One aim of the present study is to confront these particular issues. As for the genesis of postcolonialism, it is usually claimed to have occurred within literary studies,94 and the late Edward Said, a professor 92

The same approach is taken in ‘decolonial studies’ now popular in Latin American studies. See Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh, On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018). 93 See Helen Leslie and Kirsty Wild, ‘Post-hegemonic Regionalism in Oceania: Examining the Development Potential of the New Framework of Pacific Regionalism’, Pacific Review, 31 (1), 2018, 20–37. See also Katerina Teaiwa, ‘On Decoloniality: A View from Oceania’, Postcolonial Studies, 23 (4), 2020, 601–3. 94 See, generally, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Literatures, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2002).

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1.6  Framing the Analysis 25

of comparative literature, is widely regarded as having produced the founding text in the genre.95 The influence of his work has extended to virtually every field within the humanities and social sciences including historiography, which has produced a distinctive body of ‘colonial discourse theory’.96 The geographical reach of Said’s ideas has also been extended. For while his work concentrated largely on the ‘Near Orient’, showing how this region functioned to provide Europe’s major ‘cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the other’,97 his critique of the phenomenon of ‘Orientalism’ as perpetrated by European scholars in the heyday of the European empires has been put to work in virtually every part of the world that has experienced colonialism in one form or another, including Oceania.98 This has produced ‘Oceanism’ as an ‘homogenizing project of power and discourse’ creating in turn ‘racialized identities, essentialized mentalities and cultural typologies’.99 This trend, incidentally, which effectively universalizes Said’s framework, contradicts the cultural and historical specificity of cases that is so often invoked in postcolonial studies as well as in studies in the contextualist mode that has dominated much recent historiography.100 Said’s notion of Orientalism consists in a discourse through which Europeans have historically represented the ‘Oriental’ as an essentially inferior ‘Other’ against which contrasting positive images of the European/Western self have been constructed. These claims are embedded primarily in a critique of colonialism focusing, in particular, on the links between power, representation and knowledge.101 Postcolonial critique more generally is said to have emerged as the product of resistance to colonialism and imperialism and so identifies primarily with the subject position of anti-colonial activists.102 Postcolonial theory is 95 Edward Said, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient (New York: Pantheon, 1978). 96 D. A. Washbrook, ‘Orients and Occidents: Colonial Discourse Theory and the Historiography of the British Empire’, in The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 5, ed. Robin W. Winks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 596–8. 97 Ibid., 1. 98 See, for example, Greg Fry, ‘Framing the Islands: Knowledge and Power in Changing Australian Images of the “South Pacific”’, in David Hanlon and Geoffrey M. White (eds.), Voyaging through the Contemporary Pacific (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), 29–30; Robert Nicole, ‘Resisting Orientalism: Pacific Literature in French’, in Vilsoni Hereniko and Rob Wilson (eds.), Literature, Cultural Politics, and Identity in the New Pacific (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 265–90. 99 Jeffrey Sissons, ‘Conspiracy, Culture and Class in Oceania: A View from the Cook Islands’, Contemporary Pacific, 10 (1), 1998, 164. 100 For a critique of these approaches see Lawson, ‘Political Studies’. 101 See Said, Orientalism, 6–9. 102 Robert Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 15, 19.

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therefore associated largely with forms of resistance to European or Western imperialism and colonialism, the body of ideas that supported it and its ongoing effects. So, although postcolonial theory is often seen as far from singular and coherent,103 its central themes are clear enough. One critique of standard postcolonial studies has highlighted a tendency to focus narrowly on the legacies of colonialism in India, which ‘has a centrality in the literature of postcolonial studies not inferior to India’s erstwhile position as the jewel in the British crown’.104 But even when they go beyond this single case, the range remains narrow, both geographically and empirically, while generalization tends to be excessive. Consequently, ‘their theoretical formulations tend to neglect the historical and linguistic features of colonial empires outside the AngloAmerican framework’.105 Notwithstanding an interest in recovering the agency of local actors in non-Western settings, postcolonial approaches see imperialism as a ‘Western’ problem, thereby reproducing the very Eurocentrism that they purport to combat.106 There is also a tendency to overhomogenize European thought, as if all Europeans shared a single mindset.107 One can readily extrapolate from this that non-European or Indigenous people also tend to be overhomogenized. The result is the construction of a ‘white global culture’ against which a postcolonial world can be defined. Such tendencies elide ‘internal fractures’ in places such as India where the experiences of tribal minority peoples since independence has been no better and, in some cases, possibly worse than at any time during the colonial period.108 This highlights the phenomenon of ‘internal colonialism’ where less powerful groups within a state are now subject to mechanisms of genocide, exploitation, cultural devastation and so on. The field of postcolonial studies, however, remains much more attuned to the legacies of Western colonialism and its subjugation and exploitation of various non-Western subjects. This also raises the issue of Eurocentrism in approaches to the study of regions and other aspects of global politics, history, economics and society, defined as ‘a cultural phenomenon that views the histories 103



104 105 106 107 108

Gregory Castle, ‘Editor’s Introduction: Resistance and Complicity in Postcolonial Studies’, in Gregory Castle (ed.), Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), xiv. Robert Thomas Tierney, Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 13. Ibid. Ibid. Young, Postcolonialism, 74. Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism (London: Routledge, 1988), 9–10.

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1.6  Framing the Analysis 27

and cultures of non-Western societies from a European or Western perspective’.109 Beyond that, it is said to function as a universal signifier assuming the superiority of European or, more generally, Western cultural values over those of non-European societies.110 Eurocentrism is a variation of the more general phenomenon of ethnocentricity that refers to the tendency not only to see the world through the particular lens provided by one’s own ethnic group, community or society, but to assume that the culture and values inherent in that group are superior or at least to be preferred to those of other groups. But Eurocentrism is seen to be especially problematic because it is implicated in the exercise of power on a massive scale, not only in terms of ‘hard power’, as in the deployment of coercive military or economic means, but in other more subtle ways as well, such as through the imposition of cultural values. Historically, colonialism has been a major vector of Eurocentrism, and the continued dominance of the West in global politics to date has ensured that its impact remains profound. Applying the term ‘Eurocentric’ to the ideas of an individual or a group, however, is not just a neutral evaluative move, but is itself a political move. It is certainly part and parcel of contemporary intellectual discourses revolving around issues of identity, not just of those that are the subject (or object) of study but of those doing the studying. The invocation of Eurocentricity complements the West/non-West (or the North/ South) divide so often deployed in world political studies generally, and postcolonial studies in particular. It also posits an insider/outsider dichotomy as a rhetorical device that, like the West/non-West divide, depends on its simplicity for effect. In the postcolonial world, scholars of Western/ European origin may be regarded as less authentic interpreters of nonWestern histories and cultures, with Indigenous voices given much more credence, not just because they are more ‘authentic’ but because it also shifts the balance of rhetorical power in their direction. Clearly, one’s speaking position matters a great deal, and it seems incontestable that a speaker located within a particular context has insights not available to those outside, although what exactly constitutes ‘context’ and where its boundaries begin and end is no straightforward matter.111 It is equally obvious that neither Western nor Indigenous scholars, as with political figures or with the members of any particular group of even moderate complexity, speak with one voice. 109 Arun Kumar Pokhrel, ‘Eurocentrism’, in Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011) (online). 110 Ibid. 111 See Lawson, ‘Political Studies’.

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Critiques of Eurocentrism in comparative regional studies have also raised the question of agency. When viewed through the postcolonial prism, agency becomes ‘a mechanism for the scholar and the subject of the research to give voice and center knowledge about the world without Europe as a reference point’.112 Rather, the focus on agency seeks to ‘center the activeness of the actors involved in the regional project’.113 The present study also seeks to highlight this aspect of Indigenous agency in the development of Oceania’s regional organizations. At the same time, it can scarcely downplay the significant role played by European/ Western powers in the process. On a related theme, the extent to which the major colonial powers in Oceania have differed among themselves is also an important factor. Historically, France stands out as having been particularly resistant to greater Indigenous participation in regional affairs, let alone decolonization, while the UK, Australia and New Zealand actively sought to encourage it. In much postcolonial thought, however, agency tends to be viewed almost exclusively in terms of Indigenous resistance vis-à-vis Western colonial impositions. Accordingly, it remains in thrall to a dialectical view of history and, as a corollary, also ‘remains tied to an imperial philosophy of difference’.114 Another criticism of studies in the postcolonial genre is that they remain overly concerned with issues of cultural identity at the expense of more pressing issues of political economy that are, for many, a matter of life and death. Arif Dirlik and Aijaz Ahmed, in particular, have taken postcolonial theorists to task for abandoning or at least playing down class as a category of analysis.115 To these critiques we may add that postcolonial theory also ignores a certain convergence of interests and values between colonizing agents and some important local actors that cuts sharply against the grain of postcolonial critiques focusing only on domination (by colonizing powers) and resistance (by the colonized) in colonial relationships. Other approaches, such as those focusing on the nature of patron–client relations in colonial and post-colonial contexts, sometimes offer a more nuanced mode of analysis in which imperialism is seen not as a one-dimensional process in which Europeans simply forced their way in 112 Balogun, ‘Comparative Regionalism’. 113 Ibid. 114 See, generally, Simone Bignall, Postcolonial Agency: Critique and Constructivism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), ch. 2. 115 See especially Arif Dirlik, The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997); Aijaz Ahmed, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (London: Verso, 1994); and Young, Postcolonialism.

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1.6  Framing the Analysis 29

and unilaterally imposed their own version of order, but as a complex mix of negotiation and compromise, exchange and transformation, with local actors playing a significant role in producing a workable system within which elites among the latter also adopted roles of patrons within that system.116 In his later work on Culture and Imperialism, Said notes that questions of power and authority once raised in relation to the classical empires of Britain and France may now be directed at despotic successor regimes from Kenya, Nigeria, Morocco and Egypt, to Pakistan, Burma and Haiti, to name just a few, where ‘the struggle on behalf of democracy and human rights continues’.117 But there is almost nothing on Indigenous collaboration in the colonial project itself.118 Nor is there a reconciliation between ‘democracy and human rights’ as Western constructs, but which Said explicitly supports as a universal good on the one hand, and the postcolonial notion that standards of political behaviour derived from these constructs have been imposed in a Eurocentric/Orientalist fashion on non-Western societies through processes of colonialism and neocolonialism on the other. While successor regimes in the Pacific Islands have scarcely matched the depredations of some elsewhere in the former colonial world, they have not been without problems of social and political injustice in which the agency of Indigenous elites must bear some scrutiny. One study in Pacific historiography has pointed out that many scholars have been reluctant to address issues of stratification and other forms of inequality within Pacific Island societies, except where ‘subalternity’ coincides with anti-colonial analysis.119 When it comes to the hegemonic aspects of Indigenous hierarchies, or the close identification of interests and values between at least some Indigenous elites and colonial officials during the colonial period, some perceive a tendency to silence rather than critique.120 And, as suggested earlier, postcolonial approaches also tend to

116



117 118 119



120

See, especially, Colin Newbury, Patrons, Clients and Empire: Chieftaincy and Over-rule in Asia, Africa and the Pacific (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage Books, 1993), 321. The index to Said’s Culture and Imperialism has an entry on ‘collaboration’ but this reference is to a chapter entitled ‘Resistance and Opposition’ in which no discussion of ‘collaboration’ appears. Jocelyn Linnekin, ‘Contending Approaches’, in Donald Denoon, Stewart Firth, Jocelyn Linnekin, Malama Meleisea and Karen Nero (eds.), The Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 31. For example, Robert Borofsky, ‘An Invitation’, in Robert Borofsky (ed.), Remembrance of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000), 10. The problem of an ‘academic politics that unequivocally condemns imperialism and all its works’ is noted in Jane Samson, Imperial Benevolence: Making

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gloss over forms of local (non-Western) domination and subordination because they do not fit their particular normative framework that has been set up largely as a critique of Western practices. The present study therefore takes issue with postcolonial theory’s claims to constitute a coherent and effective counter-hegemonic discourse. While it is acknowledged that postcolonial theory has contributed much to the critique of Western colonialism and its mechanisms of oppression and control – which I have no intention of defending – I suggest that it often relies on a normative framework based on overly simplistic images of oppressors and oppressed who are lined up, again, on either side of the West/non-West divide. This produces a two-dimensional view of the world that tends to evade confronting other hegemonic practices, especially those of local Indigenous elites either during the colonial period or in its aftermath. It also elides the issue of non-Western colonialism. The legacy of Japanese imperialism in Micronesia and Indonesia’s annexation of West Papua are important cases in point, while the rise of China with its increasing presence in Oceania is an emerging issue for neocolonialism. We must also consider the trend to ‘decolonizing knowledge’, which, in universities, has taken the form of ‘decolonizing the curriculum’. Again, this is a positive contribution to contemporary intellectual developments calling for much greater inclusion of ideas, sources, analyses and so on from outside a largely white, male canon of work that has so far dominated throughout much of the former colonial world as well as in metropolitan centres of learning. Its initial impetus has come largely from developments in South Africa where post/anti-apartheid education and ‘liberation pedagogy’ had been developing and has been further British Authority in the Pacific Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998), 1. Another critique of the tendency to treat colonialism as monolithic is Nicholas Thomas, Colonialism’s Culture: Anthropology, Travel, and Government (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) while a more direct critique of the domination/ subordination and resistance dichotomy in the Pacific is Keith L. Camacho, ‘The Problems of Indigenous Collaboration: The Role of Chamorro Interpreters in Japan’s Pacific Empire, 1914–1945’, Journal of Pacific History, 43 (2), 2008, 207–22. Ian Campbell, ‘Chiefs, Agitators and the Navy: The Mau in American Samoa, 1920–29’, Journal of Pacific History, 44 (1), 2009, 41–60 shows how internal rivalries among Samoans is sometimes mistaken for resistance. Another salient critique from a different ‘culture area’ is Sherry B. Ortner, ‘Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 37 (1), 1995, 173–93, which examines the systematic way in which relations of domination and subordination within Indigenous societies are glossed over in anthropological work. Other examples of historiography exploring issues of stratification, collusion and collaboration include Peter Hempenstall, Pacific Islanders under German Rule: A Study in the Meaning of Colonial Resistance (Canberra: ANU Press, 2016); and Stewart Firth, New Guinea under the Germans (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983).

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1.7 Conclusion 31

promoted by student protest movements calling for ‘decolonization’ in universities.121 This may be related to trends discussed earlier about the kind of identity politics that seeks recognition for marginalized groups. The more sophisticated proponents of the decolonizing of education and knowledge movement, however, do not call for the abandonment of ‘Western’ knowledge, nor do they seek to posit a dichotomy between Western and non-Western sources, but rather argue for an inclusive approach in which contributions from both are recognized. Certainly, a diversity of sources, methods, ideas and epistemologies is a strength, not a weakness, in any scholarly field, and is especially important to the present study. 1.7 Conclusion This chapter has illuminated the extent to which virtually all parts of the world are now enmeshed in formal processes of supra-state regionalization. It has also distinguished between regionalization as a process and regionalism as a set of discourses involving the formation of identities, although regionalization and regionalism are complementary and, in many ways, necessary to each other. The idea of regional society, the emergence of Area Studies and the modernization paradigm, as well as the conceptualization of regions as culture areas, all provide further insights into the phenomenon of regionalism, both in general terms and more specifically in application to Oceania. Area Studies in particular has helped to consolidate regions as units of scholarly analysis. And, although we may well critique the way in which such studies were used in the pursuit of certain geopolitical ends during the Cold War, few students of Oceania as a region, or more especially of the Island Pacific as a special entity, could dismiss Area Studies as having no value.122 ‘Pacific Studies’ as a specialized area of scholarly interest is well established in various centres of learning from Hawai’i to Australia, New Zealand, China and Europe along with many other locations in both the Island Pacific and the Pacific Rim. In more recent times, postcolonial theory has also made its mark on the way in which scholars frame their approach and promote their own policy prescriptions, contributing further insights into the dynamics of 121



122



See, generally, Jonathan D. Jansen (ed.), Decolonisation in Universities: The Politics of Knowledge (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2019). See Jon Gross and Terence Wesley-Smith, ‘Introduction: Remaking Area Studies’, in Terence Wesley-Smith and Jon Gross (eds.), Remaking Area Studies: Teaching and Learning Across Asia and the Pacific (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2010), ix–xxvii.

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power, agency and representation both in the colonial past and the postcolonial and neocolonial present. But because mainstream postcolonial framing has tended to adhere to a strict West/non-West dichotomy, it also tends to miss important cleavages within these categories while ignoring critical aspects of the agency of local Indigenous elites and neglecting the role of non-Western powers in the colonial enterprise. Moreover, while some of the most powerful actors, both past and present, have come from outside the region, contemporary regional politics is an arena in which local actors exercise considerable agency and influence although, to paraphrase Marx, not necessarily in circumstances of their own making. Agency therefore appears as a theme of this study, as is the trend in other recent accounts of Oceania and its people.123 Critiques of postcolonial approaches notwithstanding, the legacies of Western imperialism has been profound, and therefore much of the discussion in the chapters that follow involves its impact on regionalism in Oceania. Before the advent of Western powers, however, Oceania was populated through successive waves of immigration that created the basis on which the various societies evolved. The longer view, as set out in Chapters 2 and 3, therefore provides the essential backdrop to the emergence of Oceania as a dynamic region populated with an array of actors who have made Oceania what it is today.

123



For example, Lorenz Gonschor, A Power in the World: The Hawaiian Kingdom in Oceania (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2019); Fry, Framing the Islands, 2019.

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2

Demarcating Oceania

Although institutionalized regionalism in Oceania is usually dated only to the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, it is best understood against a much longer span of time as well as in terms of how scholars, and others, have interpreted and demarcated both the history and geography of this space and therefore its identity as a region. Archaeological findings concerning the deep past certainly have implications for contemporary debates about regional and subregional identity. And these, in turn, are often politically charged. As this chapter shows, there is nothing straightforward about any of the categories that have been used to demarcate Oceania or various parts of it. Rather, all categories and concepts associated with these exercises are unstable and problematic, even if their ‘shorthand utility’ makes them difficult to resist.1 The discussion begins with the way in which Oceania was first populated by successive waves of migration beginning around 50,000 to 45,000 years ago, towards the end of the Pleistocene epoch. Studies of this period often deploy the geographic terms ‘Near Oceania’ and ‘Remote Oceania’, which have no ethnic or cultural connotations. The second section provides an overview of various exercises in the naming of Oceania, the Pacific Ocean, the South Pacific, and so on. There is nothing especially controversial about any of these naming exercises until it comes to the tripartite division devised by eighteenth-century Europeans, namely, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The distinctions between these subregional entities arose in a context in which racialist ideas were prominent and that therefore bear their imprint. The Melanesia/Polynesia distinction, in particular, was to become especially controversial in later debates. The tripartite separation based on the Melanesia/Micronesia/ Polynesia division receives special attention in this chapter due not only to the scholarly critiques surrounding it, but also because of the extent to which it underpins contemporary subregional developments. Having 1

David Igler, The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 10–11.

33

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said that, it must nonetheless be emphasized that although much of the history of Oceania  – and the Pacific Ocean itself  – tends to focus on the period since the arrival of Europeans who have played ‘a grand and highly transformational role’, they arrived rather late in the story and at a time when Indigenous societies had established ‘abiding practices’ anchored in deep connections to their locales.2 2.1

Near and Remote Oceania

The evidence to date suggests that human settlement by ancestors of Near Oceania  – consisting of New Guinea, the Bismark Archipelago and most of the Solomons  – dates from up to 50,000 years ago and is related to lower sea levels, which allowed land crossings, as well as to the intervisibility of island land masses which enabled relatively safe crossings over short distances. At this time New Guinea was connected to the Australian landmass, forming an Australian–New Guinea continent known as Sahul by archaeologists and paleoanthropologists,3 but referred to as Meganesia by paleobiologists.4 The presence of Papuanspeaking groups in Near Oceania over such an extensive time period is a major factor in the equally extensive linguistic diversity in the area as well as a certain level of physical/biological variance.5 Other reasons for the existence of around 1,000 different languages in this area include the difficult topography of the landscape producing the comparative isolation of small-scale societies as well as hostile relations between them. According to one linguist, each has remained ‘fiercely proud of its own language/dialect, paraded as a badge or emblem’.6 There is evidence that Manus Island (now part of Papua New Guinea) was reached over 26,000 years ago. This is noteworthy because Manus is never visible from any other landmass, and therefore necessitated a ‘blind crossing’. As far as the evidence goes to date, this constitutes the

2

Matt K. Matsuda and Ryan Tucker Jones, ‘Preface to Volume I’, in Ryan Tucker Jones and Matts K. Matsuda, The Pacific Ocean to 1800, vol. 1 of Paul D’Arcy (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 18. 3 Glenn R. Summerhayes and Anne Ford, ‘Late Pleistocene Colonisation and Adaptation in New Guinea: Implications for Modelling Modern Human Behaviour’, in Robin Dennell and Martin Porr (eds.), Southern Asia, Australia and the Search for Human Origins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2014, 213. 4 See Richard Gillespie, ‘Dating the First Australians’, Radiocarbon, 44 (2), 2002, 455–72. 5 Patrick V. Kirch, ‘Peopling of the Pacific: A Holistic Anthropological Perspective’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 39 (2010), 131–2. 6 Darrell Tryon, ‘The Languages of the Pacific Region: The Austronesian Languages of Oceania’, in Matthias Brenzinger (ed.), Language Diversity Endangered (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007), 392.

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2.1  Near and Remote Oceania 35

very first such crossing anywhere in the world.7 However, the beginnings of settlement in Remote Oceania – all of the island groups from the eastern Solomons and beyond  – did not occur until well into the Holocene around 4,000 years ago with the earliest evidence found in the Mariana Islands. Migration into Remote Oceania was carried out largely by Austronesian speakers originating in East Asia, probably from what is now southern China’s Fujian province as well as Taiwan, but who appear to have mixed with groups from Near Oceania on the way. The later migrating groups have also been characterized according to their technologies in Lapita ceramics and outrigger canoe building, the latter being a key factor in the ability to travel over longer ocean distances. However, the initial ‘Lapita expansion’, which ended about 2,850 years ago, went only as far as Tonga and Samoa. The remainder of Remote Oceania was not settled before the first millennium ce . In fact, the evidence suggests that much of the expansion did not occur until the period 800–1000 ce when present-day French Polynesia, Hawai’i and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were first inhabited. New ZealandAotearoa was the last island group to be settled around 1250 to 1300 ce . The development of large double-hulled canoes at the time of the further expansion of settlement to Remote Oceania is a possible explanation for this achievement.8 Whatever the mode of transport, the move into a region of millions of square kilometres of open ocean is widely regarded as the most spectacular feat of open ocean voyaging ever undertaken.9 Tracing population movements through archaeological evidence is one thing, but discerning the reasons behind migrations is another. Overpopulation and increasingly scarce resources in depleted environments may be one factor  – which resonates with the idea that human populations represented an ‘invasive species’ almost everywhere they went (and still do)10 – but other socio-political explanations have been canvassed as well. These include possible alliances of junior elites  – ‘the younger sons of apex families destined never to rule in their own right’ – with disaffected ‘commoners’ whose opportunities for advancement were also highly constrained.11 But once the geographical limits 7 Matthew Spriggs, ‘Ocean Connections in Deep Time’, Pacific Currents, 1 (1), 2009, 7. 8 Kirch, ‘Peopling’, 139–41. 9 Spriggs, ‘Ocean Connections’, 7. See also Matt K. Matsuda, Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 18–19; David Christian, ‘The Pacific Region in Deep Time’, in Ryan Tucker Jones and Matts K. Matsuda (eds.), The Pacific Ocean to 1800, vol. 1 of Paul D’Arcy (ed.) The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 35–63. 10 Christian, ‘Pacific Region in Deep Time’, 52. 11 Matthew Spriggs, ‘Towards a Unified Theory for Pacific Colonization’, in Ryan Tucker Jones and Matt K. Matsuda (eds.), The Pacific Ocean to 1800, vol. 1 of Paul D’Arcy (ed.)

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of migration had been reached, it seems that strongly hierarchical societies, at least among Polynesians, again prevailed (although resistance could take other forms). In the contemporary period, however, migration driven by the desire for a better life is evident in the post-war movement of Pacific people in search of new opportunities in Australia, New Zealand and the US.12 Returning to matters of nomenclature, the terms Near and Remote Oceania are most often used in accounts of the early populations of the region by archaeologists and paleoanthropologists, although they are familiar to scholars in other disciplines as well. But they are less so to others, including most of the region’s inhabitants. One commentator says that they actually have little meaning as geographical terms either, with a salience restricted to a particular time period up to about 3,000 years ago, and that it is perhaps a misplaced sense of political correctness to attempt to use them now as an alternative to the Melanesia/Micronesia/ Polynesia divide.13 The latter was devised by European explorers fewer than 200 years ago and is controversial for a number of reasons, as discussed later in this chapter. But whether one uses the terms Near and Remote Oceania, or Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia, to delineate the subregions of the Island Pacific, Australia is not included. This is sometimes explained by reference to the lack of ancestral and/or cultural relatedness, which also explains the exclusion of Japan and some small islands off the coast of California.14 Indigenous Torres Strait Islanders and north-eastern Australian Aborigines, however, were in contact with coastal New Guinea and the regional associations are recognized today, at least with respect to the inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the four-yearly Festival of Pacific Arts sponsored by the Pacific Community. New Zealand occupies a more ambiguous position as a country with a dominant white settler population (of mainly British descent) comprising around 75 per cent of the total. As of the 2018 census it had a significant Indigenous Maori population of around 15 per cent and a further 8 per cent made up of migrants from other Polynesian islands: mainly The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 518. 12 Ibid. 13 Spriggs, ‘Ocean Connections’, 11. However, while the ethnographic case for the Melanesia/Micronesia/Polynesia divide has problems, others suggest that at least a partial case can be made on certain geological/geographical grounds. See Geoffrey Clark, ‘Dumont D’Urville’s Oceania’, Journal of Pacific History, 38 (2), 2003, 155–61. 14 Ethan E. Cochrane and Terry L. Hunt, ‘The Archeology of Prehistoric Oceania’, in Terry L. Hunt and Ethan E. Cochrane (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 1.

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2.2  Naming the ‘Pacific’ and ‘Oceania’ 37

Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau, with the remainder primarily of Asian origin.15 Descent groups and their assumed characteristics – either cultural or physical, or both  – obviously play a key role in identity politics, as do exercises in naming. Our next concern is with early naming practices associated with the region  – practices that are inextricably associated with European incursions, starting with exploration and followed by resource exploitation, trading, proselytization and colonization. Whether this amounts to the Pacific Ocean itself being ‘historically “invented” by the West’16 is a moot point. In any event, we shall see that the identities and representations associated with these have generally drawn either from the region’s geographical features as well as the assumed characteristics of its inhabitants, or both. Early European explorers from Balboa and Magellan to Cook, Bougainville and Dumont D’Urville projected images that ranged from romanticized depictions of the broad region and its people to rather more negative ones, many of which persist to the present day. 2.2

Naming the ‘Pacific’ and ‘Oceania’

When Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa climbed a hill in Darién on the Isthmus of Panama in the year 1513, and discerned what was, for Europeans, an as yet unknown expanse of ocean, he named it the Mal del Sur (South Sea), lying as it was to the south of where he then stood. This term was subsequently pluralized as the ‘South Seas’ and taken up by many British explorers, persisting in English usage until well into the twentieth century.17 In the meantime, Portuguese-born Ferdinand Magellan, usually credited with the first circumnavigation of the globe between 1519 and 1522, and certainly the first European to lead a crossing of the ocean from east to west, named it Mar Pacifico, so benign did it appear to him at the time. But it was some time before ‘the Pacific Ocean’ came into common usage. By the time of Cook’s voyages it was still usually referred to as the ‘South Sea’ or ‘Seas’. After his death, new maps more frequently applied the word ‘Pacific’ to the entire basin, while ‘South Seas’ came to designate the islands in the central and southern latitudes in increasingly literary and romantic terms.18 15

See New Zealand, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, ‘Pasifika New Zealand: Our Pacific Community’, n.d., circa 2019 (online). 16 Steven Yao, ‘A Rim with a View’, in Mary Ann Gillies, Helen Sword and Steven Yao (eds.), Pacific Rim Modernisms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 17. 17 It still persists in popular usage in the UK, as the author has observed from time to time. 18 Mark Peterson, ‘Naming the Pacific’, Common-Place, 5 (2), January 2005 (online).

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The author of a comprehensive nineteenth-century navigation guide, Alexander George Findlay, noted that the names ‘South Sea or Pacific Ocean are neither of them justly appropriate, seeing that it is neither more South nor more pacific than any other’. ‘But’, he added, ‘the names are recognised’.19 The ‘Pacific Ocean’ and ‘the Pacific Islands’ or just ‘the Pacific’ have certainly stuck. Findlay also pointed out that the terms the ‘Great Ocean’ or sometimes ‘Oceanica’ were introduced by the Danish geographer Conrad Maltè-Brun (1775–1826). The name ‘Great Ocean’ was taken up by a number of French explorers including Jules-SébastienCésar Dumont D’Urville (1790–1842), author of ‘Sur les Iles du Grand Ocean’ (‘On the Islands of the Great Ocean’) in which he proposed the now familiar division of the Island Pacific into three distinct geocultural subregions – Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia20 – although in doing so he drew on existing assumptions and categorizations, as discussed shortly.21 ‘South Pacific’ came into more common use during and after the Second World War, mainly through the US military presence, and was reinforced in public perceptions through the hugely popular Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, although the name certainly had a life before that, in fact appearing in the title of Findlay’s work a hundred years earlier. Following the war, the ‘South Pacific’ became entrenched, at least for a time, through the naming of institutions such as the South Pacific Commission (SPC), the South Pacific Forum, the University of the South Pacific (USP), and so on. The first two organizations have since been renamed as the Pacific Community and the Pacific Islands Forum, respectively, to acknowledge member countries located geographically north of the equator. USP, which still caters mainly for English-speaking students from Pacific Island countries south of the equator, retains its original name. But overall there has been a marked shift in usage away from ‘South Pacific’ to ‘the Pacific’, or ‘Pacific Islands’, or the ‘Island Pacific’ in naming practices, the last two categories obviously excluding the larger countries of the ‘rim’. The more expansive conception of area and people encompassed in the French terms Océanique and l’Océanie appeared first in application not only to the Pacific Ocean and its islands but Australia as well 19

Alexander George Findlay, A Directory for the Navigation of the South Pacific Ocean, with Descriptions of Its Coasts, Islands, Etc., from the Straights of Magalhaens to Panama and those of New Zealand, Australia, Etc., Its Winds, Currents and Passages, 2nd ed. (London: Richard Holmes Laurie, 1863), xi. 20 Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont D’Urville, ‘Sur les Iles du Grand Ocean’ [1832], reproduced in Journal of Pacific History, 38 (2), 2003, 163–74. 21 See Clark, ‘Dumont D’Urville’s Oceania’, 155–61.

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2.2  Naming the ‘Pacific’ and ‘Oceania’ 39

and, occasionally, the Malay archipelago. The French terms were subsequently taken up in English as Oceanica and then Oceania.22 While the Malay archipelago no longer figures in contemporary understandings of Oceania, the latter is still inclusive of Australasia (i.e., Australia and New Zealand). Thus one standard geography text defines Oceania as ‘including Australia, New Zealand and the islands of the mid-Pacific lying mostly between the tropics’.23 This, incidentally, excludes those islands of the northern Pacific that lie close to the East Asian, Russian Far Eastern or North American landmasses, and which are also not generally included in the ‘Pacific Islands’ or ‘Island Pacific’. While ‘Pacific’ still appears to be the most commonly used term in and around the region, ‘Oceania’ has become more popular among Pacific Island scholars and writers, perhaps through the influence of Albert Wendt’s notion of a ‘new Oceania’24 and Epeli Hau’ofa’s promotion of the same term in embodying his ‘sea of islands’ concept.25 Both Wendt’s and Hau’ofa’s ‘new Oceania’ incorporates a strong denunciation of colonialism and many of its legacies as well as manifestations of neocolonialism in the contemporary period. Both authors have been especially scathing of ‘experts’ and ‘consultants’ who presume to tell Islanders what to do and how to do it. Hau’ofa’s concept of Oceania stretches its boundaries to embrace Pacific Islanders in a social network now spread out around the rim of the Pacific basin from Australia and New Zealand in the south-west to the US and Canada in the north-east.26 This conception of course still centres on the ocean as a physical entity, which figures in all the metaphors, but Hau’ofa’s Oceania is explicitly inclusive of Pacific Islanders whether they live in their ancestral islands or not, although there is some ambivalence about non-Indigenous people.27 As one observer points out, it is in fact a fairly restricted concept of Oceania that figures in these ‘strategic appropriations by indigenous intellectuals concerned to negotiate postcolonial identities’.28 22

Bronwen Douglas, ‘Introduction: Foreign Bodies in Oceania’, in Bronwen Douglas and Chris Ballard (eds.), Foreign Bodies: Oceania and the Science of Race 1750–1940 (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2008), 5–7. 23 Joseph J. Hobbs, Fundamentals of World Regional Geography, 4th ed. (Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2009), 415. 24 Albert Wendt, ‘Towards a New Oceania’, Mana Review, 1 (1), 1976, 49–60. 25 Epeli Hau’ofa, ‘Our Sea of Islands’, in Eric Waddell, Vijay Naidu and Epeli Hau’ofa (eds.), A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands (Suva: School of Social and Economic Development, University of the South Pacific, 1993). 26 Ibid. 27 This ambivalence would not extend to non-Indigenous minorities such as Indo-Fijians but by inference refers mainly to Westerners or ‘international consultants’ whose attitudes place them outside his framework for Oceania. 28 Douglas, ‘Introduction’, 5.

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Another term, albeit a fairly uncommon one, is ‘Pacific Oceania’, which appears to exclude Australia. But it is described as an ‘artificial modern name’ that, like other regional designations such as Africa, Asia and Europe, is ‘based on perceptions of geographic space and cultural history but [applied] only at a rough scale with imperfections’.29 But then all names are artificial in the sense that they are invented by humans for human purposes rather than given by nature. And they are no less artificial on the one hand, or authentic on the other, whether they are ancient or modern. The use of Oceania in the main title of this book is therefore a choice among all the various invented names that have emerged from time to time. It is a little more expansive than ‘the Pacific Islands’ or the ‘Island Pacific’, and deliberately so. It includes not just the people of or from Pacific Island countries, but encompasses Australia and New Zealand as well. This is closer to the ‘cartographic vision’ of the French geographers and naturalists who invented the term. It includes the whole island of New Guinea and therefore encompasses West Papua  – a political/ strategic choice as much as it is a geographic one, but one that is based on the identity of the Indigenous people of West Papua as ethnically Melanesian, despite all the difficulties that the term entails. Oceania’s eastern boundary extends to Hawai’i along with the uninhabited French territory of Clipperton Island in the northern Pacific and to the Pitcairn Islands and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the south. This study therefore includes the most relevant spaces and actors in the story of regional politics within a fairly conventional geographic definition of Oceania. Inevitably, it is not the same Oceania as it is for other writers with other stories to tell.30 The inclusion of Australia and New Zealand, however, does not require merging the identities of Pacific Island people with these larger states, which are generally categorized as Western and whose majority populations are often regarded as cultural outsiders. On the other hand, to invest too much in ‘Islander identities’ in contrast with ‘Western identities’ is to reinforce the problematic insider/outsider and West/non-West dichotomies referred to earlier. To do so would also raise the question of the extent to which a Papua New Guinean highlander shares an identity with, say, a Marshallese Islander on a remote low-lying atoll, or a thoroughly urbanized, professionally 29

Mike Carson, Archeology of Pacific Oceania: Inhabiting a Sea of Islands (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), 4. 30 For example, Gonschor’s Oceania is inclusive of the Malay/Indonesia archipelago, which he sees as the ‘cradle of Oceania’ where Austronesians first developed their navigational technologies and that figured in some pan-Oceanic nineteenth-century Hawai’ian writings. Gonschor, Power in the World, 10.

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2.2  Naming the ‘Pacific’ and ‘Oceania’ 41

employed Niuean resident in Auckland. The people of Oceania, or of any particular locality, nationality or subregion within it, cannot simply be lumped together and treated as a homogeneous category with one voice, one vision and one set of experiences. There are of course other actors not encompassed in the definition of Oceania but that are certainly very relevant to regional politics: France and the US, often regarded as colonial/neocolonial powers, as well as Indonesia, China and Japan. But they are not ‘in’ Oceania as defined for the purposes of this study. An exception is the US state of Hawai’i, home to an Indigenous Polynesian population and certainly ‘in’ the region in both a physical and cultural sense. Another possible exception is Taiwan, which has also made some claims to status as a Pacific Island on the basis of its officially designated ‘Taiwan Aboriginal People’, an Austronesian-speaking group of almost 400,000 people comprising about 2 per cent of the population and who, on the basis of the evidence for migration origins, have ancestral links with the Austronesian speakers of contemporary Oceania.31 The nonChineseness of Taiwan Aboriginal People has, incidentally, become a factor in the contemporary politics of Taiwanese nationalism to the extent that they have become ‘poster children’ for the independence movement.32 Taiwan was represented at the Festival of Pacific Arts in Guam in 2016, along with Hawai’i, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands and Norfolk Island, thereby indicating some recognition of the distinctive identities of each of these within a broader Oceanic family.33 For Taiwan, this is part and parcel of its engagement in ‘Austronesian diplomacy’ in the Island Pacific, a form of strategic identity politics, linking the term ‘Austronesian’ to culture, ethnicity and language and thereby enhancing ‘the power of the term’.34 There are many other people not of Oceanic origin but who now form distinctive minorities in various island groups. These include a substantial population of Indian descent in Fiji (i.e., Indo-Fijians) – a factor that has figured prominently in much of Fiji’s domestic political turbulence 31

Michael Stainton, ‘The Politics of Taiwan Aboriginal Origins’, in Murray A. Rubinstein (ed.), Taiwan: A New History, 2nd ed. (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2007), 27–44. 32 Mark Munsterhjelm, ‘The First Nations of Taiwan: A Special Report on Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples’, Cultural Survival, June 2002 (online). 33 See Pacific Community, ‘12th Festival of Pacific Arts, 2006’ (online). A total of twenty-seven countries were represented as separate entities. Absent from the list was Rapa Nui. 34 Jessica Marinaccio, ‘“We’re Not Indigenous. We’re Just, We’re Us”: Pacific Perspectives on Taiwan’s Austronesian Diplomacy’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China Alternative? Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), 354.

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and that has had spillover effects in regional politics. While China as a state actor is a relative latecomer to regional politics, there has been a Chinese presence from around the early nineteenth century when smallscale traders first sought opportunities in the region. These were followed by labourers and, later, by others involved in small businesses and other commercial enterprises. The communities they have formed in various locations around the region are diverse. Some retain ties with their country of ancestral origin while others have virtually no connections. Although comprising fewer than 1 per cent of the population of any Pacific Island country, the presence of ethnic Chinese communities has had certain political and social ramifications, including playing into the rivalry between Taiwan and China in the region.35 Another issue concerns Indigenous place names. One source says that in Indigenous genealogies of place, the Pacific Ocean as an entity is absent and that, despite the more than a thousand languages in the region, there was no word for it at all.36 In Polynesian languages, however, moana refers to seas/oceans and the Maori term te moana nui a Kiwa designates ‘the great ocean of Kiwa’, the latter referring to a legendary Polynesian explorer and guardian of the sea.37 According to one source, moana has become increasingly popular in some (mainly academic) discourses and is testament to the ‘current dominance of Polynesian thought and involvement of matters of the Pacific’, although it has the potential to alienate Micronesians and Melanesians.38 Most European names, however, have stuck. While the ‘South Seas’ is now practically archaic, ‘the Pacific’ seems here to stay, as does ‘Oceania’. Also, while there are recognized names linked to Indigenous identity for some countries  – for example, Kanaky for New Caledonia and Aotearoa for New Zealand – they are more widely known by their European names. The most controversial naming practices in Oceania are those relating to the subregions now known as Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, 35

See Paul D’Arcy, ‘The Chinese Pacifics: A Brief Historical Review’, Journal of Pacific History, 49 (4), 2014, 396–420. 36 Damon Salesa, ‘The Pacific in Indigenous Time’, in David Armitage and Alison Bashford (eds.), Pacific Histories: Ocean, Land, People (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 44. 37 Michele Keown, Pacific Islands Writing: The Postcolonial Literatures of Aoteroa/New Zealand (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 11. In contemporary popular culture, however, Moana appears now as the name of the young Polynesian heroine of an animated Disney children’s film, along with another character, the demi-god Maui, which has, almost inevitably, drawn criticism from some quarters with respect to stereotyping and cultural (mis)appropriation. See New York Post, ‘Why Moana is Drawing Criticism in the South Pacific’, 30 November 2016 (online). 38 Kirsten McGavin, ‘Being “Nesian”: Pacific Islander Identity in Australia’, Contemporary Pacific, 6 (1), 2014, 134.

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2.3  The Tripartite Division of the Island Pacific 43

formulated almost two centuries ago and originally based entirely on European standpoints. Despite problems with their ethnographic integrity, not to mention the racist thinking on which they were initially based, they now have a firm ‘reality’ in regional politics, both conceptually and institutionally, which is likely to persist into the foreseeable future. We therefore consider next the history and politics of this particular division of Oceania. 2.3

The Tripartite Division of the Island Pacific

The scheme attributed largely to Jules-Sébastien-César Dumont D’Urville for the division of Oceania into three subregions was not simply an exercise in physical geography39. Indeed, he claimed that his scheme offered a more ‘natural’ model than any existing ones because it was based on the ‘type and characteristics of the inhabitants’ rather than simple ‘geometric’ divisions:40 Thus, in my text, when the names Polynesian, Micronesian and Melanesian are mentioned, it will be instantly clear that I am referring to copper-skinned peoples who speak a common language and slavishly obey the laws of tapu; or to copperskinned people who speak various languages and do not believe in tapu, or lastly to the blacks of Oceania.41

On the matter of race – as distinct from cultural practices such as the observance of ‘tapu’ that evidently distinguished Polynesians – Dumont D’Urville proposed that there were actually only two distinct ‘racial types’ evident in his Oceania, ‘namely the Melanesian race, which is itself only a branch of the black race from Africa, and the swarthy or coppery Polynesian race, which is only an offshoot of the yellow race from Asia’.42 The only other race that Dumont D’Urville recognized was ‘the white or pinkish race which supposedly originated from the Caucasus [and which] soon covered almost all of Europe and from there spread all over the globe’. Micronesians were classified together with Polynesians as belonging to the ‘yellow’ race.43 It is also noteworthy that Micronesians, although sharing ‘copper skin’ with Polynesians, were distinguished from them mainly in terms of the absence of ‘tapu’ and of a 39

This section draws partly from Stephanie Lawson, ‘“Melanesia”: The History and Politics of an Idea’, Journal of Pacific History, 48 (1), 2013, 1–22. 40 Dumont D’Urville, ‘Sur les Iles’, 173. For commentaries see Serge Tcherkézoff, ‘A Long and Unfortunate Voyage towards the “Invention” of the Melanesia/Polynesia Distinction 1595–1832’, Journal of Pacific History, 38 (2), 2003, 175–96; Geoffrey Clark, ‘Dumont D’Urville’s Oceania’, Journal of Pacific History, 38 (2), 2003, 155–61. 41 Dumont D’Urville, ‘Sur les Iles’, 173. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid.

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common language, and so ‘defined in relation to what they do not have rather than what they do’.44 Before Dumont D’Urville, Johann Reinhold Foster had also posited two distinct varieties of ‘natives’ in the South Seas, which helped to prepare the ground for the Melanesia/Polynesia division. However, it was not just a matter of physical description. Explicit aesthetic, moral and intellectual elements were also applied to these racial distinctions, with Melanesians evidently the least favoured while Polynesians were regarded as superior, although there were variations in both categories.45 With respect to socio-political organization, Dumont D’Urville clearly believed that the Polynesians had ‘made the most progress towards civilization’. They possessed ‘well-ordered monarchies which seem to be of fairly long standing, castes separated one from another by special privileges, invariable customs and religious ceremonies of obscure origin but celebrated with great pomp show that these people left their natural state long ago to establish extended societies’.46 This contrasted sharply with his interpretation of Melanesians who, in addition to evincing enormous variation in their languages, were thought to show none of the sophistication of their Polynesian or Micronesian neighbours in social structures, or their more friendly reception of Europeans: These black people almost always live in very small tribes whose chiefs wield an arbitrary authority that they exercise just as tyrannically as any small African despot. Much closer to a barbaric state than the Polynesians and the Micronesians, they have no governing bodies, no laws, and no formal religious practices. All their institutions seem to be in their infancy…. …Natural enemies of the white people, they have always displayed a stubborn defiance and strong antipathy towards the Europeans, who have almost always had grounds to regret their encounters with these treacherous hosts. Thus neither Cook, nor Bougainville, nor for that matter any of the navigators that came after them, have had with Melanesians the cordial relations that they so frequently enjoyed with the more hospitable peoples of Polynesia.47

The inhabitants of Viti (Fiji) fared rather better in Dumont D’Urville’s assessment, mainly because of their closer associations with Polynesian neighbours: Amongst the numerous varieties of the Melanesian race … the inhabitants of Viti should rank highest. Indeed, despite their ferocity and their inclination to 44

Paul Rainbird, ‘Taking the Tapu: Defining Micronesia by Absence’, Journal of Pacific History, 38 (2), 2003, 238. See also David W. Kupferman, ‘On Location at a Non-entity: Reading Hollywood’s “Micronesia”’, Contemporary Pacific, 23 (1), 2011, 141–68. 45 Tcherkézoff, ‘Long and Unfortunate Voyage’, 193. 46 Dumont D’Urville, ‘Sur les Iles’, 166. 47 Ibid., 169.

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2.3  The Tripartite Division of the Island Pacific 45 cannibalism, these natives have laws, arts, and are sometimes organised into nations. Some of them are very handsome. Their language is richer, clearertoned and more regular than in the western islands, and their seafaring skills equal those of the men of the other race. We found amongst them individuals gifted with a degree of intelligence and judgment that was most remarkable for savages. However, they obviously owe these qualities to the proximity of the Tongan people and to their frequent contacts with the Polynesian race.48

The actual terms ‘Polynesia’, meaning ‘many islands’, and ‘Micronesia’, meaning ‘small islands’, did refer literally to geographic characteristics in terms of the land size and the spread of the islands. But ‘Melanesia’, meaning ‘black islands’, seems to have referred not to any feature of the landscape but specifically to the colour of the inhabitants as the ‘black race of Oceania’,49 and is therefore considered derogatory. So, too, is the idea of ‘smallness’ indicated in the term ‘Micronesia’, reflecting the notion that such tiny islands are ‘not terribly important to those for whom size matter’.50 Polynesia, however, seems not to have attracted any such criticisms. Those issues aside, the geographical boundaries of each grouping set out by Dumont D’Urville still hold today, except that his original version of Melanesia  – also described as ‘Southern Oceania’  – included Australia, and therefore Indigenous Australians as Melanesian.51 This obviously no longer holds, with Melanesia now restricted to the island of New Guinea and its outliers, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and, somewhat ambiguously, Fiji.52 Taken together, these encompass virtually all of Near Oceania as well as part of Remote Oceania as designated by archaeologists and paleoanthropologists. The mid–nineteenth century was a time when a European ‘science of race’ was reaching its apogee, and the Indigenous people of Oceania figured prominently, as reflected in a range of writings produced on the subject.53 A contribution by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace 48

Ibid., 169–70. Dumont D’Urville believed the same associations had had an equally positive effect on the people of Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands and the Hebrides. 49 Ibid., 165. 50 David Hanlon, Making Micronesia: A Political Biography of Tosiwo Nakayama (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014), 7. 51 Dumont D’Urville, ‘Sur les Iles’, p. 166. For Dumont D’Urville, ‘those who stand on the lowest rung of this [Melanesian] race are obviously the people of Australia and Tasmania’. Ibid., 170. 52 Torres Strait Islanders are incorporated into Australia but many groups among them are culturally and physically similar to Melanesians. The more easterly islands of Indonesia (apart from West Papua) also have populations with some Melanesian characteristics, but do not identify as such. 53 See, generally, Bronwen Douglas and Chris Ballard (eds.), Foreign Bodies: Oceania and the Science of Race (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2008).

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proposed what was initially a line of biogeographic demarcation – becoming known as the Wallace line – between Asia and Australia/Papua New Guinea. The line runs through modern-day Indonesia just to the east of Bali and was devised to mark distinctions between the fauna found on either side. But a similar line, further to the east, came to demarcate Malays and Papuans, initially based on observable physical features such as skin colour and hair texture but subsequently also on the more ‘advanced’ Malay versus the more ‘primitive’ Melanesian cultures.54 Although never demarcated with any great precision, especially given that ‘racial purity’ proved an elusive category and populations such as that of the island of Timor were evidently mixed, the ‘human Wallace line’ has subsequently played into the politics of human difference by opposing parties. In its ‘political afterlife’, for instance, racial differences posited by earlier scholars were used by West Papuans themselves as a ‘diplomatic asset’ in their arguments against Indonesian claims to their territory in the 1960s.55 And it continues to this day with West Papuans drawing on notions of both their racial and cultural distinctiveness as Melanesian people in contrast with the majority Malay population of Indonesia. So much is well known, at least among scholars of the Pacific, about the ideas on which divisions in Oceania were based. Also well known is the fact that ‘race thinking’ permeated European ideas about human difference throughout the period of European exploration and imperialism and well into the twentieth century. But while race thinking often posited hierarchies in which Europeans occupied the highest rung and which were therefore explicitly racist in connotation, it was not always of this character.56 Much German ethnology of the period was distinctly anti-racist, being opposed to theories of human difference based on biological traits.57 Johann Herder’s rejection of biological race is too seldom highlighted in the context of European thinking about human difference,

54

For detailed discussion of the complexities surrounding this development see Chris Ballard, ‘“Oceanic Negroes”: British Anthropology of Papuans 1820–1869’, in Bronwen Douglas and Chris Ballard (eds.), Foreign Bodies: Oceania and the Science of Race 1750–1940 (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2008), 157–202. 55 Fenneke Sysling, ‘The Human Wallace Line: Racial Science and Political Afterlife’, Medical History, 63 (3), 2019, 325. See also, David Webster, ‘Pan-Africanism in the Pacific: Race and the International Construction of West-Papuan Identity’, Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 22, 2022, 260–76. 56 See Lawson, Culture and Context, 85–90. 57 Matti Bunzl and H. Glenn Penny, ‘Introduction: Rethinking German Anthropology, Colonialism, and Race’, in H. Glenn Penny and Matti Bunzl (eds.), Worldly Provincialism: German Anthropology in the Age of Empire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 2.

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2.3  The Tripartite Division of the Island Pacific 47

but is worth emphasizing here as an antidote to the overhomogenization of European ideas: [I] should like to express the hope that [the] distinctions that have been made – from a perfectly laudable zeal for scientific exactitude – between different members of the human species will not be carried beyond bounds. Some, for instance, have thought fit to employ the term races for four or five divisions, according to regions of origin or complexion. I see no reason for employing this term. Race refers to a difference of origin, which in this case either does not exist or which comprises in each of these regions or complexions the most diverse ‘races’…. [T]hey are, in the final analysis, but different shades of the same great picture which extends through all ages and all parts of the earth. Their study, therefore, properly forms no part of biology or systematic natural history but belongs rather to the anthropological history of man.58

It was also common at the time to use the idea of race not only to distinguish between Europeans and others but within the European population too – as exemplified by the identification of Teutonic, Alpine and Mediterranean racial types endorsed by early schools of physical anthropology.59 Dumont D’Urville himself pointed to the historic barbarity of certain groups of Europeans, including his own: [T]he inhabitants of northern Europe, such as the French, the English and the Germans, who were near savages twenty centuries ago, quickly rose out of their barbaric state and equalled and finally surpassed the Southern European nations who had so long despised them for their ignorance.60

This observation offers a clear example of social evolutionary thinking in which people(s) were regarded as progressing from barbarism and savagery through to civilized beings.61 But more to the point, ‘European’ thinking about human difference throughout the period of exploration and colonization was diverse, as indeed was ‘European culture’ itself. This goes against the grain of much contemporary cultural analysis, which ‘associates alterity solely with non-Western cultures or marginal groups’ and which ‘refuses to recognize the diversity within European cultures’.62 Having said that, it is clear that the original demarcation 58

Johann Gottfried Herder, Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind, reproduced in J. G. Herder on Social and Political Culture, trans., ed. and introduced by F. M. Barnard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 284. 59 See, for example, William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1899). 60 Dumont D’Urville, ‘On the Islands’, 166. 61 For a detailed discussion see K. R. Howe, The Quest for Origins: Who First Discovered and Settled the Pacific Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003). 62 Russel A. Berman, Enlightenment or Empire: Colonial Discourse in German Culture (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 22.

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of the Island Pacific, and especially the characteristics assigned to the people of Melanesia, was based on the kind of race thinking that scholars now find abhorrent and wish to distance themselves from in no uncertain terms. It is sometimes said that one cannot judge the past by the standards of the present. But we can, and do, especially when it comes to issues such as racism and its legacies. In contemporary scholarship, and in accordance with present-day moral and intellectual standards as well as an appreciation of the fact that ‘race’ is a social construct with no scientific integrity, ideas about race and racism are anathema. Indeed, the repugnance evinced by some contemporary scholars with respect to the very obvious racism of a good many early explorers, scholars and other writers has produced a serious questioning of the Melanesia/Polynesia division in particular, if not calls for its abandonment.63 Others have rejected the Melanesia/Polynesia division on the grounds that the ethnic and cultural (let alone the racial) distinctions they purport to encapsulate simply do not hold up to close scrutiny. Nicholas Thomas, citing a number of prominent historians and anthropologists of the Island Pacific, noted more than twenty years ago that: ‘A critical point which has been insisted upon with peculiar force in Pacific Studies in recent years has been the unhelpfulness and even falsity of the distinction between the major ethnic and cultural regions of Melanesia and Polynesia.’64 Around the same time, Oscar Spate also argued that the terms were not especially useful and that ‘the diversities within Melanesia’ in particular ‘are such that some authorities see the term as little more than an expedient catch-all which should be scrapped’.65 Others endorse the view that none of the entities, despite remaining convenient for geographic purposes, should be designated as ‘culture regions’ because of their associations with nineteenth-century racial assumptions and classifications.66 Those preferring the terms Near and Remote Oceania further suggest that although the old tripartite nomenclature serves as ‘geographical shorthand’, the distinctions they are meant to convey lack substance. Even so, an exception is made for Polynesia as ‘a meaningful culturehistorical category, as all Polynesian populations and languages prove to be descendants of a common clade’.67 Anthropologists have also 63 See Bronwen Douglas, Across the Great Divide: Journeys in History and Anthropology (Amsterdam: Harwood Acdemic Publishers, 1998), 5–7. 64 Nicholas Thomas, ‘The Force of Ethnography: Origins and Significance of the Melanesia/Polynesia Division’, Anthropology Today, 30 (1), 1989, 27. 65 O. H. K. Spate, Paradise Lost and Found (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1988), 1. 66 Howe, Quest for Origins, 25. 67 Kirch, ‘Peopling of the Pacific’, 133.

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2.3  The Tripartite Division of the Island Pacific 49

identified a distinctive Polynesian model of chiefly authority, although variations occur from one island group to the next.68 We shall see in later chapters the extent to which the ‘Pacific Way’ was initially configured around Fijian, Samoan and Tongan cultural models. This also raises the interesting position of Fiji, which is often classified as Melanesian – and which now belongs to the MSG – but which has been dominated politically, at least until recently, by a Polynesian model of chiefly authority. These, and related issues, are addressed more fully in due course, but it is worth mentioning here that Polynesian influences in Fiji can be attributed at least in part to Tongan colonialism, later reinforced by British colonial practices in partnership with local Indigenous elites. Micronesia, as noted earlier, is often defined in terms that merely distinguish its people by what they do not possess in common, compared with Polynesia; namely, a certain cultural coherence. Thus, as one critic of the very idea of Micronesia as a culture region has said, although it persists as an orthodoxy, Micronesia ‘cannot be sustained as a single entity by any combination of archaeological, linguistic, ethnographic, or local historical evidence’.69 Rather, ‘it is the inherent taint of colonialism that has falsely bound these islands together as an object of study’.70 Even so, critics generally give in to the necessity of using ‘Micronesia’ as a shorthand for the area.71 We shall see in Chapter 7 that ‘Micronesianess’ or a ‘Micronesian Way’ have been rarely expressed collective markers of identity for Islanders in northern Oceania, with localized variations having much more salience.72 Even so, actors from this subregion have formed important subregional associations, and participate in broader regional associations under the rubric of ‘Micronesia’, thus investing the term with their own meaning and value, albeit in political rather than cultural terms. 68

For the most substantial study of Polynesian chiefdoms, and the variations within them, see Patrick Vinton Kirch, The Evolution of the Polynesian Chiefdoms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 69 David Hanlon, ‘The “Sea of Little Lands”: Examining Micronesia’s Place in “Our Sea of Islands”’, Contemporary Pacific, 21 (1), 2009, 94. 70 Rainbird, ‘Taking the Tapu’, 247. Rainbird is here reporting what he interprets as Hanlon’s view. 71 The term ‘northern Oceania’ is sometimes used to encompass all the island countries of the Micronesian subregion (even though Kiribati and Nauru lie south of the equator), but it is unlikely to replace ‘Micronesia’ as a category. On the finer details of naming the US-affiliated subregion, which includes most but not all of the Micronesian countries as well as American Samoa, see Suzanne Lowe Gallen, ‘Micronesian Subregional Diplomacy’, in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds.), The New Pacific Diplomacy (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 175–88. 72 See Lin Poyer, ‘Ethnicity and Identity in Micronesia’, in Robert C. Kiste and Mac Marshall (eds.), American Anthropology in Micronesia: An Assessment (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999), 212–13. See also Glenn Petersen, ‘Politics in Postwar Melanesia’, 145–96, in the same volume.

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‘Melanesia’ is also said to possess no explanatory value other than as a geographic space; ‘to speak of Melanesian peoples implies nothing about common origins or relationships in any genetic sense’.73 Again, this may be so, but it has scarcely prevented the development of notions of a ‘Melanesian brotherhood’ as manifest in the founding ideology of the MSG and which also underpins support for the West Papuan cause. Nor is the view that Melanesia has no explanatory value beyond designating an arbitrary geographic space shared by all or even most anthropologists. Indeed, as a ‘culture area’ it is distinguishable from virtually all others, less for any apparent uniformity than for its sheer diversity, noting that although it contains only around eight million people, it has almost a quarter of the world’s languages, and so has ‘a special place in the understanding of human cultural variation’.74 Its diversity is certainly in contrast with the relative homogeneity assumed for Polynesia. In summary, the ethnic/cultural integrity of the tripartite division of Oceania has been contested at least partly via an intellectual and moral trend that repudiates historic racist categories as well as on the grounds of ethnographic integrity. But, to reiterate, the adoption of Melanesia/ Micronesia/Polynesia as the basis for contemporary subregional political organization, which has been driven solely by Indigenous actors, illustrates the point that it is the political context that counts as much, if not more, in the dynamics of identity formation rather than some fixed cultural backdrop. Having said that, assumptions about cultural characteristics are certainly implicated in the formulation of political categories, as Section 2.4 shows. 2.4

Melanesia and Polynesia as ‘Political Types’

Among the most controversial works based on the Melanesia/Polynesia divide, and which undoubtedly inspired many of the critiques cited earlier, is Marshall Sahlins’s work on ‘political types’ in Melanesia and Polynesia.75 Sahlins demarcates Melanesia and Polynesia along the conventional geographical zones, adding that: ‘In and around Fiji, Melanesia and Polynesia intergrade culturally, but west and east of their intersection the two provinces pose broad contrasts in several sectors.’ In 73

Kirch, ‘Peopling of the Pacific’, 133. 74 Knauft, From Primitive to Postcolonial, 1. It is precisely in these terms that so many conventional texts on Melanesia and/or the wider island Pacific have begun. See, for example, L. L. Langness and John C. Weschler (eds.), Melanesia: Readings on a Culture Area (Scranton, NY: Chandler Publishing, 1971), 10–11. 75 Marshall D. Sahlins, ‘Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief: Politics Types in Melanesia and Polynesia’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 5 (3), 1963, 285–303.

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anthropological annals, he says, ‘the Polynesians were to become famous for elaborate forms of rank and chieftainship, whereas most Melanesian societies broke off advance on this front at more rudimentary levels’.76 And a little later, ‘the contrast between developed Polynesian and underdeveloped Melanesian polities is immediately striking for differences in scale’.77 Thus the notion of a ‘backward’ Melanesia vis-à-vis a relatively ‘advanced’ Polynesia is clearly stated. Another contrast is based on the equation of Melanesian ‘big men’ with Western bourgeois and Polynesian chiefs with European feudal lords. While admitting it may be a caricature, he nonetheless presses the point: The Melanesian big-man seems so thoroughly bourgeois, so reminiscent of the free enterprising rugged individual of our own heritage. He combines with an ostensible interest in the general welfare a more profound measure of selfinterested cunning and economic calculation. His gaze … is fixed unswervingly to the main chance. His every public action is designed to make a competitive and invidious comparison with others, to show a standing above the masses that is product of his own personal manufacture. The historical caricature of the Polynesian chief, however, is feudal rather than capitalist. His appearance, his bearing is almost regal; very likely he just is a big man – ‘Can’t you see he is a chief? See how big he is?’ In his every public action is a display of the refinements of breeding, in his manner always that noblesse oblige of true pedigree and an incontestable right of rule. With his standing not so much a personal achievement as a just social due, he can afford to be, and he is, every inch a chief.78

Sahlins’s article received significant critical attention from other quarters as well, with many at pains to point out exceptions to his generalizations and to highlight the variety of styles of leadership, especially within Melanesia.79 His most scathing critic, however, was Tongan scholar Epeli Hau’ofa, who took issue with this passage, in particular, as not only unfounded but obnoxious in its treatment of the Melanesian ‘political type’: The language used here is taken straight out of the factory and the boardroom. The writer denies that traditional Melanesian leaders have any genuine interest in the welfare of their people, and that their public actions are motivated purely by selfishness…. It is a clever, thoughtless and insulting piece of writing … the whole article is an invidious pseudo-evolutionary comparison, in Sahlins’s terminology, between the ‘developed’ Polynesian polities and the ‘underdeveloped’ 76

77 78 79

Ibid., 286. Ibid., 289. Ibid. See, for example, Anne Chowning, ‘Leadership in Melanesia’, Journal of Pacific History, 14 (2), 1979: 66–84; Bronwen Douglas, ‘Rank, Power and Authority: A Reassessment of Traditional Leadership in South Pacific Societies’, Journal of Pacific History, 14 (1), 1979, 2–27.

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Melanesian ones. It belongs to a pedigree of literature on Oceania – going back at least two hundred years  – written by explorers, navigators, beachcombers, missionaries, colonial officials and the like, who have romanticized Polynesians and denigrated Melanesians.80

Hau’ofa notes also that Sahlins’s article ‘has the potential of bolstering the longstanding Polynesian racism against Melanesians’.81 Hau’ofa may have had in mind, among other things, works such as that of Maori scholar Te Rangihiroa, otherwise known as Sir Peter Buck, who, no doubt following the conventional wisdom of his time, delineated basic racial divisions among humankind. Polynesians, he said, were classified as ‘Europoids’  – in contrast with Melanesian ‘Negroids’ (and Asiatic ‘Mongoloids’)  – the former being described in physically flattering and heroic terms as ‘a tall athletic people’ who had historically shown ‘the ability and courage to penetrate into the hitherto untraversed seaways of the central and eastern Pacific’.82 Interestingly, Buck’s 1930s map of New Zealand ‘studiously avoided marking a route out of Asia for the Polynesians that included any Melanesian islands except Fiji’.83 One of the most pertinent features of the ethnological construction of the Melanesia/Polynesia divide, however, lies in the political distinctions, summed up succinctly by one of Sahlins’s principal critics, Nicholas Thomas, as the ‘opposition between the competitive and egalitarian political systems of Melanesia and the stratified chiefdoms of Polynesia’, associated in turn with two leadership types: ‘the big-man, who acquired influence through factional politics and the manipulation of reciprocal exchange relations, and the chief, whose position derived from rank at birth’.84 Thomas also highlights the point that the evolutionary principle by which social diversity was organized in earlier modes of analysis (Sahlins’s included) produced a linear scale of development with the more hierarchical, stratified Polynesian ‘type’ at the higher end and the less orderly ‘tribal condition’ of Melanesians, ‘seen largely in terms of what was absent’, at the lower end. Moreover, because the Polynesian ‘type’ approximated an aristocratic model it received implicit approval, at least in older-style commentary and scholarship.85 Thomas also noted a tendency among some contemporary scholars of Melanesia to express ‘moral approval’ of ‘egalitarian Melanesian 80

81 82 83 84 85

Epeli Hau’ofa, ‘Anthropology and Pacific Islanders’, Oceania, 45 (4), 1975, 285. Ibid., 286. Peter Buck, Vikings of the Sunrise (Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1954), 19. Spriggs, ‘Ocean Connections’, 21. Thomas, ‘Force of Ethnography’, 28. Ibid.

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societies’ and to thereby impute ‘democratic’ characteristics.86 If this analysis was carried further, it could be argued that whereas the older style of (European) valuation placed the more hierarchical aristocratic model higher on the scale of social evolution, contemporary standards tend to rank ‘democracy’ and its associated characteristics (such as egalitarianism and achieved status) as more ‘advanced’ than any form of authoritarianism, however much pomp and ceremony attends the latter. Furthermore, ascribed status – such as that embodied in surviving European monarchies and aristocracies – is now often regarded as anachronistic, and even those who support the continuation of constitutional monarchies as symbols of national heritage would not necessarily support kings, queens, princes, sultans, emirs, etc. in wielding actual political power at the expense of those who have achieved it through the institutions of representative democracy. In the contemporary Island Pacific, it is also noteworthy that Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, which approximate the ‘Polynesian type’ as far as dominant socio-political structures are concerned, have a very patchy record as far as ‘democracy’ is concerned, due in large measure to an ideology supporting chiefly legitimacy and authority that cuts against the grain of democratic principles.87 The extent to which the ‘Polynesian’ characteristics evident in the former group of countries actually developed into rigid, hierarchical structures due to colonial and other European influences is another moot point, although one that cannot be pursued in detail here.88 Democratic stability has clearly been an issue in Melanesia too, but this has scarcely been due to problems of entrenched hereditary elites. Considering political stability more generally, one scholar has made a sharp distinction between Melanesia and Polynesia in terms of state functioning in the contemporary period. In the wake of coups in Fiji, the near collapse of the state in Solomon Islands and ongoing conflict in parts of Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, Ben Reilly has argued that ‘much of Melanesia is plagued by poor state performance, with negative economic growth, ethnic conflict, weak governance and military coups’. A clear contrast is drawn with Polynesian countries that have ‘proved to be relatively successful post-colonial states, providing stable government, policy continuity and steady if unspectacular growth, notwithstanding an ongoing dependence on foreign aid’.89 Another more trenchant critic noted the attendance of Melanesian leaders at an unofficial summit in 86

87 88 89

Ibid., 32. See, generally, Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy. But see ibid. Benjamin Reilly, ‘State Functioning and State Failure in the South Pacific’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 58 (4), 2004, 479.

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Fiji – the latter at the time suspended from the Forum and subject to diplomatic sanctions following a fourth coup – and remarked that Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu were ‘the poorest and worst governed independent states in the Pacific’.90 Another factor in the mix is the quite appalling incidence of gender violence in Melanesia – a phenomenon known to undermine effective, sustainable development across the region and which, in the end, compromises life chances for both women and men. A more sensitive summary of the sources of instability in Melanesian countries has been provided by anthropologist Geoff White, who points out that Western ideas about good governance start from a very different perspective to that of Melanesian societies characterized by smallscale socio-political organization with egalitarian rather than hierarchical structures, together with high levels of diversity among largely rural-based populations, which make the task of managing modern statehood enormously difficult. These features, however, can also provide for stability and self-sufficiency at the localized level even in times of state crisis.91 And Papua New Guinea is among the few post-colonial states that have actually maintained an unbroken record of democratic government.92 This stands in contrast with Samoa and Tonga. The former, although stable and now relatively prosperous (thanks in large measure to aid and remittances), continues to exclude citizens without matai (chiefly) status from holding elected office while in Tonga, an autocratic system of rule by a monarch and ‘nobles’ has only recently given way to something approaching a parliamentary democracy.93 Not surprisingly, the contrasts drawn by Reilly and other critics of governance and society in contemporary Melanesia can, and have been, disputed.94 The point in mentioning such work here is to illustrate the extent to which the ethnographic division of Melanesia/Polynesia, however much it has been criticized for generating regional stereotypes based on a crude dichotomy,95 remains salient in political studies, and 90 Helen Hughes, ‘The Fiji Meeting Would Be a Farce if It Were Funny’, Canberra Times, 30 March 2011 (online). 91 Geoff White, Indigenous Governance in Melanesia, Discussion Paper 2007/5 (Canberra: State, Society and Governance in Melanesia, Australian National University, 2007), 1. 92 R. J. May, ‘Disorderly Democracy: Political Turbulence and Institutional Reform in Papua New Guinea’, Scientific Commons, 2003 (online). 93 On reforms in Tonga see Ian Campbell, Tonga’s Way to Democracy (Christchurch: Herodotus Press, 2011). 94 See, for example, David Chappell, ‘“Africanization” in the Pacific: Blaming Others for Disorder in the Periphery?’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 47 (2), 2005, 286–317. 95 See Douglas, ‘Rank, Power and Authority’, 16.

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thus continues to be employed by scholars and others seeking to make sense of differences in political styles on the one hand and in the political fortunes of states in the region on the other.96 Scholarly objections to the Melanesia/Polynesia divide, moreover, have not been echoed loudly or widely among those to whom the divisions have been applied. Melanesia, as one commentator notes, is not just a convenient geographic construction but one that has become a reality in the decolonized south-west islands of Oceania where people describe themselves, and see their future, as Melanesian.97 Similarly, Solomon Islands–born academic Tarcisius Kabutaulaka has said that despite the origins of the term, ‘Melanesia’ and ‘Melanesian’ are used as terms of empowerment and a focus of identity.98 There is also the idea of the ‘Melanesian Way’ as well as the MSG as a formal subregional grouping, both generated by Melanesians themselves. It follows that scholarly objections notwithstanding, the nomenclature of the tripartite division of Oceania remains highly salient for those whose identities have become aligned with them. 2.5 Conclusion ‘Oceania’ has been subject to interpretive practices reflecting various historic, geographic and political perspectives. Even the history of the earliest migrations into the region, and the way in which they are understood and evaluated in the contemporary period, provide another dimension to debates about regional and subregional identity. It has also been noted that certain divisions, categories, names or other markers of identity may be cast as ‘artificial’, suggesting that there is something ‘inauthentic’ about whatever the division or category is, and that it should perhaps be dispensed with or recast. The most contentious exercise in dividing up the broad region into more specific categories has clearly been the designation of the Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian subregions, although the controversies about historic racist connotations as well as ethnographic integrity have been confined largely to academic circles. They have been 96 See also John Henderson, ‘The Future of Democracy in Melanesia: What Role for Outside Powers?’, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 44 (3), 2003, 225–41. 97 Clive Moore, New Guinea: Crossing Boundaries and History (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003), 3–4. 98 Cited in Ron Crocombe, The South Pacific (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 2001), 146. See also Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, ‘Re-presenting Melanesia: Ignoble Savages and Melanesian Alter-Natives’, Contemporary Pacific, 27 (1), 2015, 110–46.

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far less controversial among those to whom the divisions have been applied, with the most derogatory category in fact giving rise to a badge of identity worn with considerable pride and regarded as meaningful in the context of wider regional relations in the contemporary period. The power to name, to demarcate, to categorize and, above all, to inscribe meaning clearly has political aspects. Europeans have historically had this power in the region named as Oceania, or the Pacific, or the many variations on the latter such as the Pacific World, South Pacific, Asia-Pacific, Indo-Pacific, Pacific Rim, Pacific Basin, the Island Pacific, and so on, all of which have different connotations and which are likely to endure for a long time to come. But contemporary actors in the region have demonstrated the ability to invest any such names with their own meaning and values, and to deploy them for their own purposes.

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3

Colonizing Oceania

The history of the colonization of Oceania, in the literal sense of settling a territory at a distance from one’s original home, begins with the early migrations dating back around 50,000 years. But it is more commonly understood in relation to the European – or more generally Western – colonization of the region over the last 400 years or so. Indeed, the term colonialism, along with the closely related phenomenon of imperialism, is rarely associated with any other entity in the region. Japan’s record in Micronesia in the twentieth century is one exception, but there are others. The Tongan imperium is described as ‘a well-reported hegemonic expansion throughout Western Polynesia’, much of it in pre-European times.1 Significant traces of Tongan occupation are certainly evident in Samoa and the eastern parts of the Fiji Islands, and in a number of smaller islands, suggesting that at least some colonizing activity took place. Another is the Yap empire, which stretched across a chain of islands for about a thousand kilometres in Micronesia.2 The terms ‘empire’ and ‘imperialism’ seem to imply something rather grand, and whether the Tongan or Yap cases really fit within a workable definition is a moot point. If we assess them only in comparison with modern European empires, the resemblance may seem very thin. But a study of the very considerable number of empires that have existed

1

David V. Burley, ‘Archaeological Demography and Population Growth in the Kingdom of Tonga: 950BC to the Historic Era’, in Patrick V. Kirch and Jean-Louis Rallu (eds.), The Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island Societies: Archaeological and Demographic Perspectives (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007), 197. The term ‘Tongan imperium’ is used by Niel Gunson, ‘The Tonga-Samoa Connection 1777–1845: Some Observations on the Nature of Tongan Imperialism’, Journal of Pacific History, 25 (2), 1990, 177. Note, however, that he doesn’t actually argue that relations between Tonga and Samoa could be characterized in these terms. Another historian of Tonga argues that although some form of colonization by Tonga may well have occurred, it hardly merited the term ‘imperialism’ in the sense that we would normally use it. See Ian Campbell, Island Kingdom: Tonga Ancient and Modern (Canterbury: University of Christchurch Press, 1992), 10–13. 2 Willliam A. Lessa, ‘The Place of Ulithi in the Yap Empire’, Human Organization, 9 (1), 1950, 16–18.

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throughout world history over the last five to six thousand years would show not only considerable variation in size and shape but also certain shared characteristics associated with the projection of power along with supporting ideologies. On the basis of the evidence available, one author argues that the Tonga and Yap cases can be described, quite fairly, as species of empire and that to deny similarities to other world historical empires that have arisen in the Americas, Africa, Asia or Europe is to suggest that the Indigenous societies of Oceania somehow ‘existed outside the realm of world historical experience’.3 Leaving particular cases aside for the moment, we should consider the concepts of colonialism and imperialism in more general terms. Imperialism refers to the practice of establishing and maintaining an empire, with the latter in turn understood as a relationship of political control imposed by one polity over one or more others.4 Colonization as a practice of settlement can occur in the absence of a more grandiose policy of imperialism emanating from a centre of power. This was obviously the case in the early settlement of otherwise unpopulated Pacific Islands as well as with respect to subsequent relocations where members of one population group move to an already occupied territory, with or without exercising force. The ‘ism’ in both colonialism and imperialism suggests an ideology supporting practice, although one theorist has suggested that colonialism is best analysed simply in terms of the practice of settlement while imperialism involves policy emanating from a metropole through which subject people are ruled and which is driven by ‘grandiose projects of power’.5 However, just as regionalization refers primarily to a process of creating and institutionalizing a region, while regionalism denotes an ideological package of values and beliefs, motives and interests that surround invocations of region, so colonization and colonialism can be similarly distinguished. Modern imperialism, as an ideological package of a more grandiose kind, imbued with notions of status and prestige relative to other major powers, may not actually extend to formal colonization beyond, say, a few administrative posts and trading centres, although it clearly involves the projection of power over foreign territory. So although there are certain distinctions to be made between the terms, they obviously overlap, and the term colonialism is often used as a convenient shorthand incorporating imperialism and referring to a general set of ideologies, policies, 3

Glenn Peterson, ‘Indigenous Island Empires, Tonga and Yap Considered’, Journal of Pacific History, 35 (1), 2000, 27. 4 Michael Doyle, Empires (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 19. 5 Robert Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, anniversary ed. (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), 17.

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processes and practices associated with colonization.6 The term colonialism is used in this way in the present discussion. It is also the case that the ideological contents of colonialism and/or imperialism can vary, as can their interpretation. Most critical approaches would place power and control, domination, subordination and exploitation at the centre of any definition while conservative approaches, although acknowledging the role of power, focus more on some kind of ‘civilizing process’ and generally hold that the ‘great’ empires have tended to impose peace on otherwise turbulent and violent societies, as reflected in the terms Pax Romana, Pax Britannica and Pax Sinica. Either approach, incidentally, can be applied to the analysis of, say, Ottoman, Japanese, Mughal or Chinese imperialism as much as to European imperialism.7 Not all European countries engaged in the business of empire, which was restricted largely to just nine European countries. France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Italy and Germany were all imperial powers at one time or another, with colonial possessions scattered across the globe. But none acquired the same power and influence, or have left such a distinctive mark on the contemporary world, as the British Empire.8 It is commonly observed that Britain once governed around a quarter of the world’s population, covered about the same proportion of the earth’s land surface, and more or less controlled every major ocean.9 Beginning with North America – noting that the modern US originated as a collection of small British colonies on the eastern seaboard, starting with Jamestown in 1607 – the spread of its tentacles thereafter is quite astonishing, even given the loss of the American colonies in the American War of Independence from 1775 to 1778. The implications for Oceania, as a region, of the subsequent expansion, not just of the British Empire itself but of the ‘Anglosphere’ more generally, have been profound. It is worth noting that it was just prior to the American War of Independence that Captain James Cook made landfall on the east coast of Australia in 1770, followed up by the establishment of the British colony of New South Wales when the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove in 1788. It was from Sydney that New Zealand was later colonized, with the new settler populations of both Australia 6 For further discussion see Mary Gilmartin, ‘Colonialism/Imperialism’, in Carolyn Gallaher, Carl T. Dahlman, Mary Gilmartin, Alison Mountz and Peter Shirlow (eds.), Key Concepts in Political Geography (London: Sage, 2009), 115–21. 7 Kenneth Pomeranz, ‘Empire and “Civilizing Missions”, Past and Present’, Daedulus, 134 (2), 2005, 34–45. 8 See Lawson, International Relations, 35. 9 Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2003), xii.

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and New Zealand subsequently becoming heavily involved in further colonization in the region and pressuring Britain to extend its imperial reach. On the other side of the Pacific, in addition to its annexation of Hawai’i in 1898, the US became important in the later colonial period with its interests in Micronesia in particular. This chapter looks first at earlier colonizing activities in Oceania, all of which have shaped the region in one way or another, and then the quest to establish a ‘British Oceania’, pursued largely by colonists in Australia and New Zealand. This discussion is followed by the establishment of the Western Pacific High Commission. Section 3.3 highlights the fact that although the idea of a ‘Pacific World’ arose in the later colonial period, the persistence of imperial rivalries in the region until well into the twentieth century ensured that it remained a rather incoherent one. 3.1

European Exploration and Imperialism

Given the dominance of the Spanish Empire in the Americas dating from Christopher Columbus’s voyage in the 1490s, it is scarcely surprising that Spanish seafarers established the first European presence in Oceania, including contact with Solomon Islands as early as the 1590s and a formal colony on Guam in 1668. But Spanish colonization remained limited to parts of Micronesia, motivated mainly by the practical need for replenishment stopovers in the long voyages across the ocean from the Americas to the Philippines and the Moluccas where greater riches were on offer. Spain was eventually ousted from the region as a result of the Spanish-American war of 1898. The US took over the Philippines and Guam while the Caroline and Northern Mariana Islands (which then included Palau) were ‘sold’ to Germany, the latter a latecomer to the region but by then a dominant power in continental Europe with significant imperial ambitions.10 So despite the fact that between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Pacific Ocean was more or less a ‘Spanish Lake’, with the Manila galleons operating for well over 200 years, their legacy is now reflected mainly in a sprinkling of place names throughout much of Micronesia as well as in Solomon Islands – named by a Spanish explorer for the biblical king – and in Vanuatu as reflected in the name of the largest island: Espiritu Santo. Spanish Catholic proselytizing also left its mark, in the Mariana group in particular.11 10 Francis X. Hezel, Strangers in Their Own Land: A Century of Colonial Rule in the Caroline and Marshall Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1995), 7. 11 O. H. K. Spate, The Spanish Lake: The Pacific Since Magellan, vol. 1 (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2004).

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Russian exploration had also begun in the northern reaches of the ocean by the first half of the seventeenth century and, in 1741, the first Russian settlement was established in what is now Alaska. ‘Russian America’, as it was known, came under colonial control until 1867 when it was ceded by Tsar Alexander II – for a price – to the US. More than a century and a half before, Peter the Great had dreamed of a vast Russian empire to rival those of the Europeans to his east. It was to include a Pacific fleet with home ports in the northern Pacific and the extension of Russian sovereignty down the coast of California.12 But it was not to be and a Russian presence in Oceania, despite a Pacific Ocean coastline of over 4,500 kilometres, has never been extensive, at least relative to other powers. Russia was therefore never a participant in the colonial division of Oceania, nor in any activities involving the labour or arms trades, nor in any of the internecine strife often fomented by other interlopers in the region.13 The Dutch had also been among the earliest explorers in the region, with Abel Janszoon Tasman sailing from Batavia (Jakarta) to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and then east to Tasmania, New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji and New Guinea in 1642–1643. But his ventures into the Pacific were not followed up until 1722 when Jacob Roggeveen mapped Rapa Nui, the Tuamotus and Samoa.14 The Dutch claimed Netherlands New Guinea (now commonly referred to as West Papua15) in 1828 but even a rudimentary form of colonization did not occur until the establishment of coastal administrative posts from 1898. This followed a period during which most of present-day Indonesia also came under Dutch colonial control, although that task was not completed until the first decade of the twentieth century. The main reason for the Dutch claim to the western part of New Guinea in the first place appears to have been simply its proximity to their east Indies possessions, and concerns that other colonial powers, especially the British, might take control instead, 12

See Lydia T. Black, Russia in Alaska, 1732–1867 (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2004). 13 D. D. Tumarkin, ‘USSR: The Unknown Northern Neighbour’, in Ron Crocombe and Ahmed Ali (eds.), Foreign Forces in Pacific Politics (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1983), 143. 14 Robert C. Kiste, ‘Pre-Colonial Times’, in K. R. Howe, Robert C. Kiste and Brij V. Lal (eds.), Tides of History: The Pacific Islands in the Twentieth Century (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1994), 19. 15 Technically, the western part of the island of New Guinea as a whole now consists of two Indonesian provinces (Papua and West Papua), but ‘West Papua’ commonly refers to both. This territory generally has had more names applied to it than almost any other entity in the Pacific region. These include Netherlands (or Dutch) New Guinea, West New Guinea, Irian Barat, Irian Jaya Barat, Irian Jaya, Papua Barat and Papua/West Papua.

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thereby bringing them too close for comfort. The eventual incorporation of Netherlands New Guinea into the state of Indonesia and the ongoing ramifications for regional politics is a story we take up later. Interest from other European powers remained more or less marginal until around the mid–eighteenth century when Britain and France – at that time strategic rivals in both Europe and North America – began to focus attention on the Pacific, turning it into a contested site for major European powers.16 This was designed not only to enhance their great power status and the mercantilist pursuit of wealth through commercial gain, but was also linked to scientific interests and the quest for knowledge more generally.17 Private voyages by French seafarers had seen more than a hundred world circumnavigations in the earlier part of the eighteenth century but official French support for overseas exploration came only after the end of the Seven Years War in 1763. Louis Antoine de Bougainville’s 1766 voyage and that of Jean-François de Laperouse, commencing in 1785, were among the most notable in the period, followed by early nineteenth-century figures such as Dumont D’Urville who, apart from solidifying the Melanesia/Micronesia/ Polynesia divide of the region, produced twenty-three volumes of new scientific data. By the end of the century, almost all Pacific Islands had been located by European seafarers, although the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815 slowed follow-up activity. After this, however, France’s efforts redoubled, driven primarily by an intensely competitive effort to regain some prestige, especially vis-à-vis Britain after the humiliating defeat at Waterloo. By the end of the nineteenth century the Society Islands, the Tuamotus, the Marquesas, the Australs, the Gambiers and New Caledonia had all been annexed by France while the New Hebrides came under a unique condominium arrangement with Britain in 1906.18 As of the third decade of the twenty-first century, most of these island groups remain part of the French Pacific empire. Germany may have been a latecomer to the region but its imperial ambitions, driven largely by a desire to demonstrate prestige as a world power, saw colonial control established in all three subregions. This was despite initial resistance by Otto von Bismark, first chancellor of the German Empire, who initially regarded colonies as a waste of resources delivering no real commercial or strategic advantage. But there were 16

John West-Sooby, ‘Introduction’, in John West-Sooby (ed.), Discovery and Empire: The French in the South Seas (Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, 2013), 8. 17 John Gascoigne, ‘Motives for European Exploration of the Pacific in the Age of Enlightenment’, Pacific Science, 54 (3), 2000, 229. 18 Robert D. Craig, ‘France in the Pacific’, in Robert D. Craig and Frank P. King (eds.), Historical Dictionary of Oceania (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981), 93–4.

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certainly trading and plantation interests among Germans in the region (and in other parts of the world) and these, in concert with other factors, saw a change in policy. In the event, a protectorate was established in German New Guinea in 1884 consisting of the north-east section of the main island of New Guinea as well as about 600 islands stretching throughout the Bismarck Archipelago.19 The Marshall Islands and the northern Solomons were annexed in 1885, Nauru in 1888 and Western Samoa in 1900 (the US taking American Samoa at the same time). One source says that German colonialism, in the Pacific and elsewhere, has suffered an image problem manufactured mainly by self-serving British propaganda during the First World War.20 But the record in German New Guinea is far from rosy, although Samoans fared rather better under the administration of the relatively enlightened Governor Wilhelm Solf. One thing that does stand out in the historical record, though, is the rapacious nature of German settlers, who were generally ‘convinced of their racial superiority and … bent on commercial development’.21 The same, however, can be said of other European settler communities. Religious proselytizing provided an additional motive, albeit one sometimes advanced to provide window dressing for pursuing other interests. This, however, is not to cast doubt on the sincerity of many of the missionaries involved, nor on the humanitarian impulses of those who sponsored them.22 Some missionaries were actively opposed to the interests of settlers, thereby ‘complicating any simple equation of religion and missionary work with cultural imperialism’.23 In Europe, many of those committed to evangelical work were also committed to the anti-slavery movement, which often entailed an anti-colonial stance. The London Missionary Society, established in 1795, proclaimed that its object was ‘simple and noble’: ‘to deliver mankind from the greatest possible portion of misery which besets them, and to confer upon them the most abundant measure of felicity which our nature is capable of enjoying’.24 Their sensibilities were, however, informed by a frame of reference that, in addition to suffering ‘the 19

Peter J. Hempenstall, Pacific Islanders under German Rule: A Study in the Meaning of Colonial Resistance (Canberra: ANU Press, 2016), 12–17. 20 Peter J. Hempenstall, ‘German Colonial Empire’, in Robert D. Craig and Frank P. King (eds.), Historical Dictionary of Oceania (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981), 106. 21 Ibid. 22 See Samson, Imperial Benevolence. 23 Young, Postcolonialism (2001), 77. See also Andrew Porter, ‘Religion, Missionary Enthusiasm, and Empire’, in Andrew Porter (ed.) and Alaine Low (assoc. ed.), The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 3, The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 222–46. 24 London Missionary Society, A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean: Performed in the Years 1796, 1797, 1798 in the Ship Duff (London: London Missionary Society, 1799), 3.

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miseries and diseases which their intercourse with Europeans had occasioned’, regarded the inhabitants of the southern ocean as existing in a state of ‘mental ignorance and moral depravity’ as well.25 The ‘miseries and diseases’ imagery resonates with the ‘fatal impact’ thesis that depicts the entry of Europeans as an invasion that brought about, intentionally or not, the ruination of otherwise idyllic island societies through disease, modern weaponry and unsuitable foreign ideas and customs.26 This view has been identified in the work of a diverse array of writers from the late eighteenth century to the present,27 although critics reject accompanying connotations of lack of Indigenous agency.28 The issue of population decline in Oceania became more controversial after the publication of a study in the late 1960s, which argued that population numbers at the time of contact were probably much lower than previously estimated.29 This study was subsequently challenged by another one arguing the opposite case, at least for Hawai’i.30 Both views remain contested, but there is little doubt that significant depopulation occurred through disease-bearing microbes to which Pacific Islanders had little resistance, giving rise to a belief that island populations were destined to die out and providing additional justification for colonizing otherwise ‘empty islands’.31 One of the foremost of European voyagers in Oceania, James Cook, expressed serious concerns about the spread of venereal diseases, and observed more generally that: ‘We debauch their Morals already too prone to vice and we interduce among them wants and perhaps diseases which they never knew before and which serves only to disturb that happy tranquillity they and their fore Fathers had injoy’d.’32 That Cook 25

Ibid. 26 Alan Moorehead, The Fatal Impact: An Account of the Invasion of the South Pacific, 1767– 1840 (London: Penguin, 1987). 27 K. R. Howe, ‘The Fate of the “Savage” in Pacific Historiography’, New Zealand Journal of History, 11 (2), 1977, 138. 28 For discussion of opposing views see Vicki Luker, ‘Disease in Pacific History’, in Anne Perez Hattori and Jane Samson (eds.), The Pacific Ocean Since 1800, vol. 2 of Paul D’Arcy (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 348. 29 Norma Macarthur, Island Populations of the Pacific (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1968). 30 David E. Stanner, Before the Horror: The Population of Hawaii on the Eve of Western Contact (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Social Science Research Institute, 1989). 31 See I. C. Campbell, Worlds Apart: A History of the Pacific Islands (Christchurch: University of Canterbury Press, 2003), 185–9. On details of ideas about the possible extinction of ‘savage races’ more generally see Patrick Brantlinger, Dark Vanishings: Discourse on the Extinction of Primitive Races, 1800–1930 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003). 32 Quoted in Howe, ‘Fate of the “Savage”’, 138.

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had a strong humanitarian impulse is evident throughout much of his writing and serious studies of Cook affirm this.33 There is no evidence that he took sexual advantage of any Islander personally. On the contrary, he disapproved of what he regarded as lax morals among Islanders and sought to moderate the behaviour of his own crews in this and other respects. This has not prevented him from being branded a ‘syphilitic racist’ by an Indigenous Hawai’ian scholar-activist – perhaps more activist than scholar – which reflects a view, apparently held widely among Hawai’ian nationalists in the contemporary period, of Cook having personally introduced venereal disease.34 Of course, we can readily judge Cook and virtually all other Europeans involved in imperial projects from the perspectives and standards of the present, find them wanting, and condemn them in the strongest moralistic terms. But the hyperbole attending figures such as Cook does not serve the cause of good scholarship, especially where it is at odds with the evidence.35 Having said that, Cook was certainly involved in episodes of violence against Islanders and, although he was not himself a colonizer, his explorations inaugurated dispossession by later British colonialists in a number of places. As far as Hawai’i goes, one possible irony of the Hawai’ian nationalist critique of Cook as a precursor to colonialism may be illustrated through a brief exercise in counterfactual history. Had Hawai’i become a British colony or protectorate at an early stage, which it came close to in the 1840s, there is a reasonable chance that the Indigenous monarchy, or at least an Indigenous power elite, would have survived and Hawai’i would have eventually become independent in the post-war period, along with most other Pacific Island countries, instead of becoming the fiftieth state of the US. The British always admired a 33

Having said that, some admirers of Cook, such as the foremost scholar of Cook’s journals, J. C. Beaglehole, found it difficult to see their ‘hero’ as possibly biased, unfair or just plain wrong in his own narratives, as noted by Philip Edwards, ‘General Introduction’, in Philip Edwards (ed.), The Journals of Captain Cook (prepared from the original manuscripts by J. C. Beaglehole for the Hakluyt Society, 1955–1967) (London: Penguin, 2003), 5. On the other hand, there are studies in which the avowed ‘interpretative strategy’ is to reveal ‘a Cook different from the humane persona of the Enlightenment … unreasoning, irrational, and violent’, although it is admitted that this version of Cook only emerges in the third voyage. See Gananath Obeyesekere, The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 7. 34 Kay Haunani-Trask quoted in Nicholas Thomas, Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook (London: Penguin, 2018). 35 In addition to Thomas’s book, works of excellent scholarship on Cook  – but which all give varied interpretations – include Anne Salmond, The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: The Remarkable Story of Captain’s Encounters in the South Seas (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003); J. C. Beaglehole, The Life of Captain James Cook (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992).

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monarchy and all its trappings, and generally accorded much respect to Indigenous hierarchies that displayed characteristics similar to their own.36 Their record with other Polynesian hierarchies attests to this, especially in Tonga where the monarchy remained firmly in place under British protected status. In Fiji, the paramount chiefs of the eastern regions thrived throughout the entire period of colonial rule, becoming entrenched in colonial political structures, retaining power until well into the independence period and effectively being deposed only recently by other (non-chiefly) Indigenous forces. For Hawai’i, in a notable act of cooperation, both Queen Victoria’s government and that of France made a reciprocal agreement to regard the Sandwich Islands, as they were then known, ‘as an independent state, and never to take possession, either directly or under title of protectorate, or under any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed’.37 Given Hawai’i’s geographical location, American interests may well have had a significant impact on Hawai’i even with a formal British colonial presence. But in the absence of such a presence, and given the attitudes of many Americans of the time, the overthrow of the Hawai’ian monarchy (conducted essentially by American businessmen) and the sophisticated centralized political system, developed from 1795 onwards, was doomed. There are several other notable points about the Hawai’ian monarchy and its broader role in Oceania in the nineteenth century. Of particular interest was the move to create a Hawai’ian-led confederation of Oceanic polities, including a pan-Polynesian entity. Lorenz Gonschor sees this largely as a tactic to forestall Western imperial encroachments in the region.38 In the first half of the nineteenth century, Hawai’i was in an excellent position to take such a lead, having gained international recognition and standing in the ‘family of nations’ and with established diplomatic relations with leading Western powers.39 Another study says that the history of the Hawai’ian kingdom’s foreign relations at this time is usually depicted as that of ‘a small, weak state struggling to defend its sovereignty against the imperial encroachments of the big powers of the period’. The other side of the story, however, is that ‘the Hawaiian 36

For an account of British attitudes towards Indigenous hierarchies that supports this view see David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). See also Anna Johnston, ‘Europe’s Other?’, in Anne Perez Hattori and Jane Samson (eds.), vol. 2 of Paul D’Arcy (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 73. 37 Quoted in Merze Tate, ‘Great Britain and the Sovereignty of Hawai’i’, Pacific Historical Review, 31 (4), 1962, 329. 38 Gonschor, Power in the World, ch. 1. 39 Ibid., 7.

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Kingdom itself sought to from time to time to play the role of a big Pacific power and to annex or obtain spheres of influence over other islands and island groups in the Pacific Ocean area – in short to assume the “Primacy of the Pacific”’.40 The most proactive figure on behalf of the Hawai’ian government was Englishman Charles St Julian who, in 1852, offered his services to Hawai’i as a political agent in Polynesia, urging that the ‘supremacy of Hawaii among the nations of Polynesia should be preserved and its interests secured’. However, at the same time that St Julian was concerned to ensure that Hawai’i was seen as ‘the guide, the guardian and the national head of a system of small sovereigns in Polynesia’,41 he was simultaneously attempting to convince Great Britain to expand its influence in the region.42 Merze Tate writes that ‘[t]here was no contradiction or disloyalty in this apparent duality of purpose, for St Julian attempted to accomplish for Hawaii what he could not persuade British statesmen to do’, that is, ‘fill the power vacuum existing in Polynesia’.43 Noting that British policy at the time was anti-expansionist and sought rather to maintain the status quo, she suggests that: ‘Far more significant than this passive attitude … was the active championship of a British Oceania by vigorous young leaders in both the Australian colonies and in New Zealand and their later … dynamic espousal of an Australasian Monroe Doctrine for the Pacific.’44 This suggests that Gonschor’s point about forestalling ‘Western encroachments in the region’ is possibly too much of a generalization. Gonschor’s account of Hawai’ian leadership in this period, however, includes important insights into strategies such as ‘similitude’, which, in the context of political institution building in non-Western polities in the period, refers to the adjustment of cultural protocols and other behaviours along with the selective appropriation of Western features of governance to create a hybrid system designed to achieve parity with Western powers.45 This strategy paid off in some other cases – Japan, Thailand, Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia – cited as successes in resisting colonization.46 Absent from this list is Tonga which, although a British protected state, was never a colony. Tongan strategies certainly included similitude and 40

Jason Horn, ‘Primacy of the Pacific under the Hawaiian Kingdom’, MA thesis, University of Hawai’i, 1951, 1. 41 Quoted in MerzeTate, ‘Hawaii’s Early Interest in Polynesia’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 7 (2), 1961, 233. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid., 244. 45 Gonschor, Power in the World, 4. 46 Ibid.

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were successful in retaining the kingdom’s autonomy. But the strategy failed in Hawai’i in the face of later developments that saw the end of the monarchy and annexation by the US. Returning briefly to perceptions that Pacific Islanders, especially from a Christian missionary point of view, suffered severe moral shortcomings, it is also relevant to note that such ideas were at odds with other views, especially those of French philosophes such as Denis Diderot. Some leading intellectual lights of the French Enlightenment considered that the ways of life of Pacific Islanders, such as those encountered in Tahiti, offered the corrupt and decadent societies of Europe a lesson in how to live the good life, thus contributing to the allegory of the Noble Savage.47 From this perspective, ‘civilization’ was responsible for contaminating and debasing the human condition, not elevating it to a higher plane. The elevation of Pacific Island lifestyles (although the reference was mainly to Polynesians) was in addition to the reports of gorgeous tropical landscapes, crystal clear lagoons and vibrant blue seas that added to the notion of the region as a veritable paradise on earth. These romantic images of course persist to the present day, with all the clichés that attend them. In summary, differing interests, incentives, purposes and agendas produced a varied assortment of Europeans entering Oceania from Magellan onwards who, in turn, propagated varied images of the region and its inhabitants. The reflections on European societies that these provoked may have had some critical elements, especially among the French philosophes, while thinkers such as Johann Herder, mentioned in Chapter 2, rejected any notion of a racial hierarchy of humankind. But on the whole, encounters in the Pacific Islands encouraged views of European superiority and a belief that benefits would accrue to the Indigenous people through lessons in European civilization, both practical and moral.48 This was further encouraged by the apparent violence of many Pacific Island societies. Early observations discerned that life in the islands was characterized by regular warfare, endemic violence and constant fear; ‘people feared evil spirits, their priests, often their leaders, and certainly their enemies’.49 In some places, practices such as cannibalism and strangling the wives of dead chiefs and burying them with 47

This is usually attributed to Rousseau, but some scholarship casts doubt on this. See Ter Ellingsen, The Myth of the Noble Savage (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001). 48 See Bernard Smith, ‘European Vision and the South Pacific’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 13 (1/2), 1950, 65–100. 49 John Connell, ‘Island Dreaming: The Contemplation of Polynesian Paradise’, Journal of Historical Geography, 29 (4) 2003, 558.

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them appalled the sensibilities of missionaries such as John Williams who was, in the end, himself devoured in Vanuatu. But missionaries at least subscribed to the idea that the Islanders were not of a different ‘race’ but rather represented a version of ‘antique humanity’, suggesting that it was ‘the circumstances of time and place – not differences of race – that had allowed Western Europeans to advance’.50 Increased British and French activity in the eighteenth century also produced a plethora of publications consumed by a fascinated public and generated something of a ‘Pacific craze’, especially following Cook’s voyages. Interest was strong in Britain but reports from the voyages of French explorers also caught the public imagination. Spanish literature on the region was sparse and so did not feature strongly in the more general accounts of the region circulating in Europe at the time. By the nineteenth century, it is said that the opening of the Pacific to European vision contributed significantly to the triumph of both romanticism and science.51 Beyond that, the sheer size of the earth and its oceans, apprehended by the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in one direction and Cape Horn in the other, as well as the enormous variety of plants and animals, not to mention human societies encountered along the way, made it apparent, at least to the more reflexive of European thinkers, just what ‘a small spot Europe is, and how great a variety is spread over the face of the earth’.52 It is evident, moreover, that although knowledge of other people and other places, in the Pacific and elsewhere, provided a means by which Europeans could contemplate images of both self and other, these were very diverse and went beyond simple dichotomous formulations of a superior self in contrast with inferior others.53 Some studies have attempted to discern what the various Indigenous people of the region may have thought of the ‘peculiar floating samples of European society’ that they encountered in the early contact period.54 And there is no reason to suppose that their responses were any less complex.55 Nor is it realistic to depict Island people as the passive subjects of European influences, or helpless casualties of their depredations, 50

Samson, Imperial Benevolence, 9. 51 Bernard Smith, European Vision and the South Pacific, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 1. 52 Voltaire quoted in John Gascoigne, ‘The Globe Encompassed: France and Pacific Convergences in the Age of Enlightenment’, in John West-Sooby (ed.), Discovery and Empire: The French in the South Seas (Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, 2013), 18–19. 53 See Lawson, Culture and Context, 66. 54 Thomas, Discoveries, xx. 55 Lawson, Culture and Context, 66.

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dragooned into playing the part ‘of a stereotyped victim in a Western passion play’.56 While we cannot dispute the superiority afforded by European weapons and technology, to depict Indigenous people as inert is to at once deny them agency and impute to their own ways no resilience. Besides which, they soon proved adept at using those same weapons. Intruders may also have been manipulated far more often than they realized, turning attention from ‘the Good, Noble or Romantic savage to the Politick Indigene’.57 Moreover, Pacific Islanders themselves did not always remain confined to the ‘local’. They, too, started moving about, exploring various parts of the world, including Europe. Nicholas Thomas reports that by the end of the eighteenth century it is possible that hundreds of Islanders (mostly male) had joined European ships and travelled extensively, sometimes relocating permanently but often returning home with stories of their own discoveries.58 Another account examines interactions between Indigenous people and the various Europeans who found their way to the islands, observing that new trade and commodities enhanced the wealth and prestige of some Indigenous elites in Tahiti and Hawai’i in particular, and played a role in tipping the balance of ‘old and new power struggles’.59 More generally, before the advent of formal colonization, interactions at all levels increased, with some Indigenous Islanders experiencing new opportunities for autonomous mobility and expanding the interconnectedness of the region. And while ever European settlers and others remained outnumbered and outgunned, ‘power flowed both ways’.60 To overemphasize Indigenous agency, however, also has its problems, including glossing over some of the adverse consequences of European activity in the region.61 How to devise an interpretation of history that negotiates between opposing positions – which are themselves politically charged – and captures the complexity of those times is a challenge. But what cannot be disputed is the fact of European imperialism and the impact it has had on how the region has been shaped politically and in other ways. Section 3.2 provides a more detailed account of the major players in colonizing Oceania. As we shall see, notwithstanding concerted 56

Adam Kuper, Culture: The Anthropologists’ Account (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 222. 57 Spate, Paradise, 211. 58 Nicholas Thomas, Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 4. 59 Tracey Banivanua Mar, Decolonisation and the Pacific: Indigenous Globalisation and the Ends of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 26. 60 Ibid., 29–30. 61 Ian Campbell, ‘The Culture of Culture Contact: Refractions from Polynesia’, Journal of World History, 14 (1), 2003, 63–86.

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French efforts in the region as well as a certain level of German activity, an outstanding feature of European imperialism in Oceania is the dominance of the British presence, whether directly or through the agency of its Australasian outposts. 3.2

The British Ascendancy

The British presence in Oceania was initiated by explorers, traders, settlers and missionaries, with government officials tending to follow only in their wake.62 Australia was, in fact, the only country colonized from the start under an official British policy and in the absence of missionary, settler or trader influences, although these soon flourished. The Australian colonies were also to have a significant influence on the extension of British imperialism. Indeed, the colonization of New Zealand, and most of the other Pacific Island groups that eventually came under British control, was led mainly by settlers and traders in the islands with support from Australia-based colonists who together ‘urged Britain to annex almost every island and reef in the Pacific’.63 But formal British colonization in the Island Pacific appears to have been undertaken with some reluctance by British governing authorities and only after considerable pressure from those whose calculation of their own interests saw it as best served by expanding a British colonial presence. Again, these consisted mainly of settlers or traders already established in the region although, in the case of Fiji, a similar calculation of interests among Indigenous chiefly leaders, albeit in the face of pressures introduced by European and American activities in the islands, also played a role in persuading Britain to establishment a Crown Colony there. From the earliest days of the colonization of Australia’s east coast, the Island Pacific was regarded as a source of strategic concern to those that settled there. One of the earliest acts of the colony of New South Wales by its first governor, Captain Arthur Phillip, only a few months after arriving in 1788, was to take possession of both Norfolk Island and Lord Howe Island specifically to prevent any other European power from taking them.64 Indeed, Phillip’s original instructions referred to ‘Norfolk Island … being represented as a spot which may hereafter become useful’ and enjoined him ‘to send a small Establishment thither to secure 62

C. Hartley Grattan, The Southwest Pacific to 1900: A Modern History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Press, 1963), esp. 3–30. 63 Kiste, ‘Pre-Colonial Times’, 25. 64 Merze Tate, ‘The Australasian Monroe Doctrine’, Political Science Quarterly, 76 (2), 1961, 264.

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the same to us, and prevent its being occupied by the subjects of any other European Power’.65 This was even before the rest of the Australian continent itself was claimed for Britain. New Zealand was annexed by Britain just over fifty years later, first as part of New South Wales but then as a Crown Colony in its own right. It had attracted British settlers who were beyond either the control or the protection of any effective European or Indigenous authority. Britain’s annexation is said to have been eventually taken with ‘extreme reluctance’, contrary as it was to a belief current in Britain that the empire was ‘quite large enough already’.66 But this sat alongside other convictions: that Britain had a duty, first, to both control and protect British subjects wherever they were and, second, to protect Maori from criminal and exploitative activity on the part of said British subjects.67 Several sources also mention concern at the possibility of French interest in colonizing the islands.68 For their part, French observers noted that attitudes in Sydney saw the south-west Pacific as an ‘Oceania for the Anglo-Saxons’,69 while New Zealand settlers regarded their country as the ‘Britain of the South’.70 The second part of the nineteenth century saw increasing pressure from various interests in the Australasian colonies for Britain to extend formal control over some of the smaller island groups in the region. Governor George Grey in New Zealand, alarmed to find the French in possession of New Caledonia on a trip he had taken around the islands in the early 1850s, proposed a federation of South Seas islands under the auspices of New Zealand.71 A few years later, there was much agitation in Australia over the Fiji Islands where, again, there were significant numbers of settlers and traders but no effective governing authority, as well as the possibility of another colonizing power taking control. John Dunmore Lang, a Sydney-based Presbyterian minister who played a prominent part in a campaign ‘to convert the South Pacific into a British Oceania’,72 presented a petition to the Legislative Council of New South

65

Great Britain, ‘Governor Phillip’s Instructions’, 25 April 1787, Historical Records of New South Wales, vol. 2, part 2 (online). 66 Peter Adams, Fatal Necessity: British Intervention in New Zealand, 1830–1847 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1977), 11. 67 Ibid. 68 See ibid.; also Tate, ‘Australasian Monroe Doctrine’, 265. 69 Grattan, Southwest Pacific, 179. 70 E. D. Laborde (ed.), Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, 2nd ed. (London: William Heinemann, 1952). 71 Ibid., 267. 72 Ibid., 269.

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Wales calling for annexation of the Fiji Islands, highlighting the dangers of allowing a foreign power to take control there: That the occupation of the Fiji islands by any other Power in Christendom than Great Britain herself or one emanating directly from her by the ties of a common origin would be exceedingly detrimental to British interests throughout the Pacific Ocean, as well as calamitous in a very high degree to this colony in particular, to which from its geographical position the Islands of the Western Pacific naturally look for their guide and protection.73

The final stages of the First World War also saw an ‘Australian Monroe doctrine’ mooted once again by Prime Minister Billy Hughes and an appeal to the US to aid in fending off ‘predatory nations’: If Australia is to constitute a free Commonwealth, she must have guarantees against future aggression. This involves an Australian Monroe Doctrine for the Southern Pacific. Whoever controls the islands within Australian waters also controls Australia…. We therefore seek America’s steadfast co-operation and aid. We are committed by inexorable circumstances to the doctrine ‘Hands off the Pacific’.74

Australia and New Zealand clearly nurtured the idea of a ‘British Oceania’, together with a US presence, providing political order and security in a region that was seen as vital to their own interests. Given that Australia and New Zealand were themselves British colonies, this is hardly surprising. Also, although various schemes put forward to promote a Pacific federation or something like it did not eventuate, such schemes nonetheless contributed to the evolution of regionalist thinking within Australia and New Zealand and were to condition attitudes to regional cooperation over the next century.75 It has also been observed that the sentiments of Australian settlers, as well as those of many British historians of the period, were permeated with an attitude of possessiveness towards the Pacific Islands and that this is reflected in the genesis of the foreign policies of both Australia and New Zealand.76 With respect to New Zealand, the mid to late nineteenth century saw the rise of imperial ambitions in eastern Polynesia as evidenced by efforts to bring Samoa, the Cook Islands and Niue under British control, with New Zealand as the proxy power. This was achieved with the Cooks and Niue by the end of the century, while Western Samoa was taken from

73

Quoted in ibid. 74 W. M. Hughes, ‘The Pacific – Australian Monroe Doctrine’, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 June 1918, 13 (online). 75 Fry, South Pacific Regionalism, 39. 76 Grattan, Southwest Pacific, 180.

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German control in 1914.77 Tonga, with which New Zealand nurtured close ties, remained a British protected state until 1970. Australia and New Zealand also came to be colonial powers in their own right, although their own national narratives tend to gloss over this fact.78 All these developments, from the pressures placed on Britain by Australia and New Zealand to extend imperial control in the region, to their own assumption of colonial power and control in later periods, amount to an exercise in strategic denial, that is, the denial of access to the region by any country considered to be at least potentially hostile.79 The legacy of this effort is reflected in the contemporary period in the fact that, in addition to Australia and New Zealand, the independent countries of Samoa, Nauru, Tonga, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Vanuatu are all members of the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly the British Commonwealth), of which the British monarch remains head, while most of the remaining Pacific Island countries are closely associated with the successor state to another former British colony: the US. Furthermore, in addition to Indigenous languages, practically all the island countries of Oceania are Anglophone, the only exceptions being the three French territories and with Vanuatu having a Francophone minority. The quest to establish a ‘British Oceania’ – mainly by Australia and New Zealand rather than Britain itself – was therefore largely successful, leaving a very distinctive imprint on the region. By the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, ‘British Oceania’ was sorely lacking in order, a situation that prompted an early form of regionalization, albeit a limited one. 3.3

The Western Pacific High Commission

The creation of the Western Pacific High Commission (WPHC) by the British government in 1877 was driven primarily by concerns about order in the region, especially regarding the behaviour of British subjects.80 The British government had not been keen to expand its presence in Oceania, but given that lawlessness among Europeans, and especially among British subjects, had become a major problem, there was eventually a reluctant 77

Ibid., 509. 78 For a critique of dominant New Zealand narratives see Damon Salesa, ‘New Zealand’s Pacific’, in Giselle Byrnes (ed.), The New Oxford History of New Zealand (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2009), 149–72. 79 R. A. Herr, ‘Regionalism, Strategic Denial and South Pacific Security’, Journal of Pacific History, 21 (4), 1986, 175. 80 See Richard Herr, ‘Regionalism in the South Seas: The Impact of the South Pacific Commission 1947–1974’, unpublished PhD thesis, Duke University, 1976, 63. See also W.D. McIntyre, ‘Disraeli’s Colonial Policy: The Creation of the Western Pacific High Commission 1874–1877’, Historical Studies: Australia and New Zealand, 9 (35), 1960, 279–94.

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acceptance of responsibility.81 The office of High Commissioner of the Western Pacific was created and, although it was a separate post, it was to be held concurrently with the governorship of Fiji. The first substantive occupant of that post, Sir Arthur Gordon, arrived in the Fiji Islands in 1875. It might be thought that Gordon, as the representative of the British Crown, would be concerned primarily with defending the rights and interests of British subjects in the islands. But this was not so. His approach was highly paternalistic when it came to native welfare and scarcely oriented to defending settler and trader interests.82 Not long after his arrival, there were bitter complaints, reported at length in the Australian press and included in the report of the 1881 Intercolonial Conference in Sydney, that he was doing nothing to deal with native people who committed crimes against the property or lives of Europeans in the wider region.83 Gordon’s reply pointed out that his jurisdiction extended only to British subjects and there was no basis on which action could be brought against any nonBritish subject.84 The WPHC was, after all, designed to control British, not Indigenous, behaviour, with a view to safeguarding the latter from the former. Another occupant of the twin posts from 1904 to 1910, Sir Everard im Thurn, reinforced this, stressing that the creation of the office was intended ‘to embody British control over British subjects in the Pacific Islands other than Fiji, and in order to afford due protection to the natives within the same area’.85 Another commentary by Gordon, referencing his experience in Fiji, illustrates just how far his views differed from those of some settlers and traders around the region: [T]here are those who would grant to every white man, however irresponsible, the privileges belonging to the members of a ruling caste, who regard as

81

Deryck Scarr, Fragments of Empire: A History of the Western Pacific High Commission 1877–1914 (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1967), xv. 82 See, generally, Peter France, The Charter of the Land: Custom and Colonization in Fiji (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969); Stephanie Lawson, The Failure of Democratic Politics in Fiji (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). 83 Intercolonial Conference, Minutes of Proceedings, Sydney, ‘Outrages in the Islands of the Pacific’, Appendix to Report of Committee Appointed to Examine the Acts and Papers Relating to the Appointment of High Commissioner’, Victorian Parliamentary Paper, no. 62, January 1881, 67–80 (online). 84 A. H. Gordon, ‘Despatch and Memorandum from the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific Relative to the Report of the Intercolonial Conference Regarding the State of Affairs in Polynesia, and the Powers of the High Commissioner’, 26 February 1881, Victorian Parliamentary Paper, no. 71, 1880–81, 2–4 (online). 85 Sir Everard im Thurn, ‘European Influence in the Pacific, 1513–1914’, paper read to the Royal Geographic Society, 22 February 1915, reproduced in Sir Everard im Thurn, Thoughts, Talks and Tramps: A Collection of Papers (London: Oxford University Press/ Humphrey Milford, 1934), 215. Since Fiji had become a Crown Colony, Indigenous Fijians were in fact British subjects and so fell under the jurisdiction of the colonial government there.

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‘insolence’ any independence of action on the part of the native landholders of the country, and as treason to white supremacy the retention in native hands of executive or judicial power, who would rather see crime committed with impunity than permit the sacredness of the ‘dominant race’ to be profaned by the touch of a native constable.86

A particular concern for the WPHC was the labour trade. From the early 1860s there had been an increasing trend in securing labour for commercial plantations, both within the islands and in the Australian colony of Queensland, which often involved the abduction of recruits. On the other side of the ocean, South Americans were involved as well, although the numbers were smaller. Even so, the practice there devastated the Indigenous population of Rapa Nui.87 In the south-west Pacific, around 60 per cent of recruits came from the New Hebrides and nearly 30 per cent from the Solomons, but few island groups were spared altogether.88 Nor were Europeans the only ones to profit. In the Gilbert Islands, im Thurn reports that native labourers appear to have been sold by their own chiefs through resident beachcombers to the recruiters.89 He went on to note that the best result of the establishment of the High Commission ‘was the suppression of the evils of the labour traffic’.90 Such ideas resonated with Victorian humanitarian ideals, underpinned in turn by notions of Great Britain as a benevolent civilizing force in the world at large, and of native people in particular. Although often falling well short in practice, these ideas were carried through to the post-war era of emergent colonial regionalism. Indeed, if there is one characteristic of at least formal British policy marking this period, it is benign paternalism. Informal practices and the behaviour of many settlers and traders is another matter, and the British authorities were well aware of this. As Jane Samson notes, there was a complex relationship between humanitarianism and imperialism and a deep ambiguity attending the definition of British interests in the region. ‘On one point, however, all humanitarians were agreed: white villains were responsible for the most troubling aspects of culture contact in the Pacific islands.’91 The WPHC continued an existence right through to 1976 by which time almost all former British colonies were either independent or close 86

Gordon, ‘Despatch and Memorandum’, 5. 87 See, generally, Grant McCall, Rapanui: Tradition and Survival on Easter Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1981); Steven Roger Fischer, Island at the End of the World: The Turbulent History of Easter Island (London: Reaktion Books, 2005). 88 David Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 71. 89 im Thurn, ‘European Influence’, 232. 90 Ibid., 228. 91 Samson, Imperial Benevolence, 23.

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3.4  The Persistence of Imperial Rivalries 77

to achieving that status. The Pitcairn Islands comprise the sole remaining British possession. But as an organization, the WPHC had little or nothing to do with other European colonial powers in the region or with the US. There was in fact very little in the way of cooperation among the colonial powers in Oceania in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and this was to persist until well into the twentieth century. 3.4

The Persistence of Imperial Rivalries

The lack of regional cooperation among the various colonial powers during the nineteenth century and for much of the first half of the twentieth century can be attributed in large part to the competitive nature of colonialism in the Pacific Islands.92 French activity in the earlier colonial period had clearly been a concern and German colonial expansionism in the 1870s and 1880s had been a source of unease as well, especially to Australia, although the British government was not especially concerned at the time, a stance conditioned by its reluctance to take on more financial burdens.93 Australian concerns, however, led to Queensland, although itself still a colony, annexing the eastern part of New Guinea and then seeking retrospective sanction from the British who, rather grudgingly, established the protectorate of Papua in 1888. This was subsequently taken over by an independent Australia in 1902, although it wasn’t until 1906 that a formal administration was established. When the First World War commenced, Australia seized German New Guinea, establishing a military administration that was later converted into a mandate and then, along with Papua, a trust territory following the Second World War, at which time it also took over responsibility for the former German colony of Nauru. At the 1919 Versailles settlement, Prime Minister Billy Hughes is reported to have ‘demanded, and won for Australia the possession of the island “ramparts” on the grounds that only in this way could they be kept from “the hands of an actual or potential enemy”’.94 While Germany had been forced to depart the region during the First World War, France maintained a presence in French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna. In 1858, France had also annexed the uninhabited, and virtually uninhabitable, Clipperton Island, a coral atoll lying over 5,000 kilometres from Tahiti and around 2,000 kilometres 92

Herr, ‘Frontiers’, 38. 93 W. E. H. Stanner, The South Seas in Transition: A Study of Post-war Rehabilitation and Reconstruction in Three British Pacific Dependencies (Sydney: Australasian Publishing Company, 1953), 1. 94 Ibid.

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from Mexico.95 The nineteenth century had also seen the continuation of an earlier rivalry between France and Britain in the region that, in addition to issues of national prestige, had cultural and religious elements. The latter was manifest in the identification of Catholicism with French interests and Protestantism with British or Anglo-Saxon interests, at least from a French perspective.96 One source observes that the French made particular use of Catholic missionary zeal in pursuing nationalist ends,97 while another remarks on the role of religion in invigorating the French ‘spirit of nationalistic competition with the British’, alongside hopes of future economic benefits.98 It has also been suggested that the ‘religious animosities and resentment on both sides underlie the emotion often attending perceptions of Anglo-Saxons in the Pacific, and viceversa, persisting until this day’, while the assertion of a political right to protect French nationals remains a rationale for the continuing French presence today.99 Japanese interest in the Pacific Islands began in the latter part of the nineteenth century, intensifying in the early twentieth century as its naval power increased. Anthropological studies in Japan had been established during the Meiji era, with the subject matter coming to focus on Japan’s colonial possessions. In 1892, the Japanese scholar and diplomat Inagaki Manjirō was perhaps the first to proclaim the ‘Pacific Age’ – with Japan leading the way.100 Although Japanese interest in the ‘South Seas’ (Nan’yô) was mainly strategic, commercial interests beckoned and emigration from Japan was underway as well. Japanese Diet member (and historian) Takekoshi Yosaburō insisted that the future of Japan lay with the ocean and urged his fellow Japanese to address the task of turning ‘the Pacific into a Japanese lake’.101 Yosaburō also distinguished Japanese people from the underdeveloped people of the South Seas, aligning them instead with Western colonial powers.102 Indeed, developing perceptions 95 Robert Aldrich, The French Presence in the South Pacific, 1842–1940 (London: Macmillan, 1990). 96 Denise Fisher, France in the South Pacific: Power and Politics (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2013), 22. 97 Jean Ingram Brookes, International Rivalry in the Pacific Islands, 1800–1875 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1941), 17. 98 Grattan, Southwest Pacific, 209. 99 Fisher, France, 22. 100 Pekka Korhonen, ‘The Pacific Age in World History’, Journal of World History, 7 (1), 1996, 41. 101 Reported in Mark R. Peattie, ‘The Nan’yô: Japan in the South Pacific, 1885–1945’, in Ramon H. Myers and Mark R. Peattie (eds.), The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 179. 102 Robert Thomas Tierney, Tropics of Savagery: The Culture of Japanese Empire in Comparative Frame (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010), 112.

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3.4  The Persistence of Imperial Rivalries 79

of the Japanese self vis-à-vis ‘savage people’ took pathways similar to those of Europeans. At different stages in Japan’s own colonial trajectory, ‘the savages were headhunters to be eradicated, primitive societies to be studies, “noble savages” who had escaped the blight of Japan’s industrial modernity, or hybrid subjects expected to conform to Japanese cultural norms’.103 Other studies highlight various additional aspects of the Japanese presence in Oceania, including important connections with Hawai’i in the late nineteenth century, reflected at one stage by a proposal (by the Hawai’ian monarch) for a marriage between members of the Japanese and Hawai’ian royal families. It is further noted that Japanese emigration to Hawai’i and other parts of Oceania at this time, along with increasing numbers of Chinese, Filipino and Indian arrivals, among others, produced a wave of ‘Asian settler colonialism’.104 The Japanese presence in Micronesia, following Germany’s ousting in the First World War and the subsequent award of League of Nations mandates, had the effect of separating these territories from other parts of the region even more thoroughly. Japan had entered into a secret treaty with Britain, France and Russia in 1917 with the terms providing, among other things, that in negotiations over any peace agreement emerging from the war, Australia and New Zealand would support Japanese control in Micronesia north of the equator and, in return, Japan would support Australia’s and New Zealand’s retention of their former German territories to the south. This is exactly what happened – much to the chagrin of the US. The position of the US, however, was weakened by the refusal of its own Congress to ratify the Versailles Treaty, thereby excluding it from the League of Nations. And so the US ‘emerged as a loser in the postwar settlement of the Pacific’.105 It did, however, retain Guam, which it had controlled since its victory in the American-Spanish war of the late 1890s, at least until it fell to the Japanese in 1941. Japan gained nothing in the way of economic benefits from the territories in Micronesia but, in an age in which the holding of foreign possessions was a mark of national achievement, Japan acquired prestige in the international system of that time. Japanese reasoning in support of its acquisition of the Micronesian territories through the mandate 103 Ibid., 2. 104 Greg Dvorak, ‘The Phantom Empire’, in Anne Perez Hattori and Jane Samson (eds.), vol. 2 of Paul D’Arcy (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 102–3. 105 Robert F. Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall: A History of Guam (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1995), 146–7.

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system also held that they were essential to the forward defence of Japan against an American threat from the Philippines and, more especially, from Guam.106 Japan had joined the League of Nations but withdrew in 1935 after the League’s condemnation of Japanese aggression in Manchuria in China. But it continued to hold the mandated territories despite some moves by Germany (by then a member of the League), as well the US (in a weaker position as a non-League member) to take over the Micronesian mandate territories.107 In the event, Japanese control continued technically until 1947 when an official Japanese presence in the Pacific Islands all but vanished, and with the US gaining control of its former mandate territories. The Pacific War was devastating for many of the Island people who not only provided resources for the major protagonists but also suffered direct and indirect violence, mainly in the Japanese territories as well as in other places subject to Japanese invasion or occupation. Much of this has been largely ignored in war memories that have tended to focus primarily on images of devastation in Europe, including of course the dreadful impact of the Jewish Holocaust. Similar images of emaciated Pacific Islanders, reflecting the appalling conditions they suffered, have scarcely seen the light of day.108 The social impact in other ways was remarkable too. From late 1941 to 1945, the population of many islands doubled or even tripled or quadrupled almost overnight with the arrival of military forces which also brought with them enormous quantities of goods and materiel for the war effort. It is almost an understatement to say that industrialized warfare ‘fought by more than two million exotic troops flooding onto their soils and traversing their seas was a unique experience for Pacific islanders’.109 That most Islanders in the Melanesian area remained predominantly supportive of the Allies, and contributed substantially to their eventual victory in myriad ways, is well known, although sometimes too readily described merely in terms of simple, unquestioning loyalty. Recent studies from Indigenous perspectives provide more nuanced accounts of how local people saw the war, as well as insights into how the changes in the

106



107

108 109

Hermann Hiery, The Neglected War: The German South Pacific and the Influence of World War I (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i, 1995), 222. Haruo Tohmatsu, ‘Japan’s Retention of the South Seas Mandate, 1922–1047’, in R. M. Douglas, Michael Dennis Callahan and Elizabeth Bishop (eds.), Imperialism on Trial: International Oversight of Colonial Rule in Historical Perspective (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), 64. See Banivanua Mar, Decolonisation, 121. Judith A. Bennett, Natives and Exotics: World War II and Environment in the Southern Pacific (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), 7.

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dynamics of politics and society in places such as Solomon Islands were implicated in subsequent moves to independence and the configuration of the post-colonial state.110 3.5

A Nascent Regional Consciousness?

The outcome of the Second World War saw not only a reconfiguration of power but the emergence of formal regional cooperation among the major powers on a significant scale, together with some participation from Indigenous leaders. In the meantime, a rudimentary sense of regional consciousness had begun to emerge through both the development of Pacific-based media, at least in the Western Pacific Anglosphere. A sense of region also started to emerge through scholarly enterprises in metropolitan centres, while on the eastern side of the ocean there were certain developments in pan-Pacific thinking, although these tended to focus on Pacific Rim countries more so than on the islands. The founding of the Pacific Islands Monthly in Sydney in 1930 by New Zealand–born journalist R. W. Robson is said to have engendered a nascent sense of regional consciousness and community, at least within the Anglophone sector, in the later colonial period.111 The idea of establishing a news magazine had been prompted by Robson’s observation, in his years of travelling as a journalist, of a curiosity among Europeans resident in the various island groups  – mostly planters and traders  – to learn of happenings around the region more generally.112 The flyer accompanying the first issue of his news magazine certainly gave a sense that the various island groups would benefit greatly from regional unity and coherence which the journal proposed to promote: Divided, with few means of communication between Groups, Territories and Colonies, controlled by a dozen different Administrations, the residents of the Pacific Islands suffer under many disabilities … This journal hopes to provide the Pacific Islands with a means of securing unity of expression and action; to let the world know something of the wonderful progress that is being made … to keep up a constant agitation for redress of genuine grievance; to broadcast information about the unique opportunities offered to capital and enterprise in these rich, tax-free, undeveloped lands; to assist Australian and New Zealand exporters in strengthening their Pacific trade 110



111 112

Anna Annie Kwai, Solomon Islanders in World War II: An Indigenous Perspective (Canberra: ANU Press, 2017). W. D. Forsyth cited in Herr, ‘Frontiers’, 38; see also Fry, South Pacific Regionalism, 46–8. Dulcie Stewart, Pacific Islands Monthly: Fragmented Identities, 2 March 2015 (online).

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relationships; and … to supply Islands residents with a useful summary of what is happening in other parts of the Pacific.113

The magazine was not oriented to an Indigenous readership, although it did report on their affairs. This was reflected in Robson’s arch-colonialist views, which are very clearly evident in many of the editorials as well as much of the general reporting. While journalism provided at least a rudimentary sense of regional consciousness, there was little emanating from academic quarters in the pre-war period, although within various departments – mainly history, geography, linguistics and anthropology – there were specialists on particular areas, as noted in Chapter 1. An early interdisciplinary enterprise, the School of Oriental Studies was established as part of the University of London in 1916, with the initial intention of training staff for service in the British colonies as well as to encourage the study of Asian languages and cultures. Its scope was enlarged to include African studies, and it became the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 1938, but interest in the Island Pacific remained peripheral. In North America, a non-governmental Pan-Pacific Union was established in Honolulu in 1907, leading in turn to the creation of other international NGOs concerned with the broad region, including the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR).114 Infused with the ideals of Wilsonian internationalism, the IPR was established as a permanent institution following its first substantive meeting in Hawai’i in 1925.115 National Councils of the IPR were subsequently formed in metropolitan centres around Australia, New Zealand, Canada, China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines and the UK, followed later by France, the Netherlands, the Dutch East Indies, Thailand, India and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). During the Second World War the IPR developed a strong stance against colonialism and racism.116 It focused largely on East Asia, Australia and North America, but it did at least include the Island Pacific. It was the founding body of the journal Pacific Affairs, now almost a century old.117 The IPR promoted the 113



114



115 116 117

Flyer issued by Pacific Publications accompanying Pacific Islands Monthly, 1 (1), 16 August 1930. Lawrence T. Woods, Asia-Pacific Diplomacy: Non-governmental Organizations and International Relations (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1993), 7. Tomoko Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific: The United States, Japan and the Institute of Pacific Relations in War and Peace, 1919–45 (London: Routledge, 2002), 2. Ibid., 281. See Paul F. Hooper, ‘The Institute of Pacific Relations and the Origins of Pacific and Asian Studies’, Pacific Affairs, 61 (1), 1988, 98–106. Hooper notes at pp. 120–1 that the Institute was forced to dissolve in the 1950s, partly due to being a victim of its own success and in attracting the attention of the McCarthy era political witch-hunts.

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idea of a ‘Pacific World’ that, although first specifically articulated in a Japanese context, is claimed to have arisen over an extended historical period circa 1770–1941, ‘marked by a philosophical and cultural consciousness of the Pacific, as demonstrated both by trade, cultural connections, and deliberate international affiliation based on a sense of identity shared through Pacific location’.118 But again, while the prime geographical referent is the Pacific Ocean, IPR publications and analysis focused more on the ‘Rim’ than the islands in the ‘Basin’, and still does. In the immediate post-war period in the UK, a report on SOAS recommended that the whole field covered by the school be expanded and developed,119 and so Area Studies – although not then known by that name in the UK – experienced a post-war boom. As we saw previously, the same period saw the idea of Area Studies being taken up in the US, through both government-funded programs and private endowments from such bodies as the Ford Foundation. If the world was to avoid another violent conflagration, especially in the circumstances of the Cold War, then ‘“we” needed to learn about “them”’.120 In Hawai’i, the EastWest Centre was established in 1960 to ‘promote better relations and understanding among the people and nations of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific through cooperative study, research, and dialogue’. In 1980 the Pacific Islands Development Program (PIDP) was set up under its auspices ‘to assist Pacific Islands leaders in advancing their collective efforts to achieve and sustain equitable social and economic development consistent with the goals of the Pacific islands region’s people’.121 Even so, the Island Pacific remained fairly marginal with most attention focused on East and Southeast Asia. But it was not so elsewhere. In June 1945, while the Pacific War was still in progress, a US official, described as the ‘American Minister for Australia’, was reported as saying that ‘Australia should make all aspects of the Pacific  – the peoples and the resources, its past and future  – a field for its scholarship…. No aspect of the Pacific should be neglected – the ocean, its currents, winds, weather, climates, fisheries, ocean birdlife, the adjacent peoples, philosophies, customs, political organisations, resources, lands within and bordering the Pacific, literature, arts and 118



119



120 121

Katrina Gulliver, ‘Finding the Pacific World’, Journal of World History, 22 (1), 2011, 84. Colin Bundy, ‘SOAS: A Brief History and Profile’, IIAS Newsletter, 33, March 2004, 48 (online). Stanford University, ‘The New World of Area Studies’, Interaction, Spring 2007 (online). East-West Centre, ‘Mission and Organization’, n.d. (online).

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sciences.’122 In the event, one significant Australian academic institution devoted primarily to the study of the Pacific Islands emerged in the early post-war period: the Research School of Pacific Studies (RSPacS) at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, established in 1948. Since then, academic centres focusing on the Pacific Islands have proliferated around the world, although most are based in and around the broad region itself. Practically every New Zealand tertiary education institution engages in Pacific Studies. In Australia, RSPacS is no more, at least in its original form, and the field of Pacific Studies at the ANU was to decline as the focus on Asia strengthened in the post–Cold War period, reflecting the Australian government’s calculation that its interests lay closer to that region.123 More recently, however, Pacific Studies there has been boosted with increased attention to a region again seen as having vital geostrategic importance as China, in particular, asserts its presence. As for China itself, a Centre for Australian, New Zealand and South Pacific Studies was established by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1994 to boost knowledge of the region after its admission to the APEC forum in 1991. A further government initiative to establish 200 area and country studies centres has seen another six Pacific research centres established in Chinese universities since 2012.124 It is noteworthy that Indonesia, which annexed West Papua in 1969 and which has recently attempted to assert a partial Pacific/Melanesian identity to bolster its claims, does not have a single Pacific Studies centre of any kind.125 In an age where the importance of Island-centred histories rather than those produced from European perspectives is better understood,126 122



123



124 125 126

Martin T. Johnson quoted in ‘Study of the Pacific Advocated by Prominent American’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 16 (6), June 1945, 11. RSPacS was rebranded in 1994 as the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies to reflect a shift in scholarly focus to Australia’s north. The author was a member of the School Board when the decision was taken and among those wishing to retain ‘Pacific’ as the first-named region to reflect the School’s origins, rather than ‘Asian and Pacific Studies,’ let alone have it submerged under ‘Asia-Pacific’. However, the tide was to turn further, and it is now the College of Asia and the Pacific, which is home in turn to just one department dedicated to studies of the region: the Department of Pacific Affairs. For an account of the original RSPacS see Raymond Firth, ‘The Founding of the Research School of Pacific Studies’, Journal of Pacific History, 31 (1), 1996, 3–7. Denghua Zhang, ‘Growing Academic Interest in the Pacific – Pacific Research Centres in China’, In Brief 20/22 (Canberra: Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University, 2020), 1. See, generally, Hipolitus Ringgi Wangge and Stephanie Lawson, ‘The West Papua Issue in Pacific Regional Politics: Explaining Indonesia’s Foreign Policy Failure’, Pacific Review, 36 (1), 2023, 61–89. K. R. Howe, Where the Waves Fall: A New South Sea Islands History from First Settlement to Colonial Rule (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1988), xiii.

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we must also consider the question of whether a sense of region existed among Pacific Islanders themselves before the post-war period, or indeed in earlier times. One study shows evidence of interaction occurring across significant distances, even though it may have been sporadic, in the preEuropean period, as indicated both by residues of material culture as well as oral traditions.127 This is in addition to the evidence for the Tongan and Yap empires discussed earlier. However, an early commentary on prospects for regional development in the mid-1940s suggested that ‘a sense of unity and common interest’ was then ‘almost wholly lacking among the island people’.128 One early study of regionalism also says there is little direct evidence of intergroup identity among Pacific Islanders before the advent of Europeans in the region and, if any did exist, it was almost certainly quite limited.129 Another also refers to a lack of regional thinking among Pacific Islanders in the period of colonial regionalism following the Second World War.130 A delegate to the fourth South Pacific Conference from the New Guinea highlands reportedly said that, before he attended the conference, ‘he did not know that there were people living in the Pacific in such places as Fiji and Samoa’.131 Even so, among the smaller subregions such as the Fiji–Samoa–Tonga triangle, knowledge of and interaction between Island groups was well established, although this had not given rise to a common identity at the time. 3.6 Conclusion The modern European empires changed the world in ways that other world historical empires did not, creating new political entities in the form of colonial states all around the globe. There was never any prospect of the status quo ante being restored with the formal retreat of imperialism, nor was it likely that the new states of the post-colonial period would be based on anything other than the European sovereign state model. In Oceania, European imperialism, along with that of Japan and the US in the later colonial period, have left their mark on the region, although some more distinctively than others. The British legacy has been especially important in the south-west Pacific with first Australia and then 127 Spriggs, ‘Ocean Connections’, 7–27. 128 Felix M. Keesing, The South Seas in the Modern World, rev. ed. (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations/John Day Company, 1945), xxiii. 129 Gordon R. Lewthwaite cited in Herr, Regionalism, 62. 130 Fry, South Pacific Regionalism, 34–5. 131 South Pacific Commission (hereafter SPC), Report by the Secretary-General, South Pacific Commission, on the Fourth South Pacific Conference Held at Rabaul, New Guinea, From April 29 to May 13, 1959 (Noumea: South Pacific Commission, 1959).

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New Zealand becoming established as settler colonies. It was from these locations that much of the push for further British imperial expansion in the region emanated, creating at least a partial ‘British Oceania’ in the south-west Pacific with Australia and New Zealand as proxy powers for some possessions. The substantial British presence also saw the establishment of the WPHC – the first formal regional organization of any kind. The competitive nature of colonial enterprises, however, constrained more extensive forms of cooperation among the European powers. On the other side of the ocean, in addition to acquiring Hawai’i and American Samoa, the US came to dominate the Micronesian subregion, although this occurred largely after the Second World War. Had it joined the League of Nations, it may have been able to limit the Japanese presence by laying claim to parts of the subregion in addition to Guam. France’s possessions also made it an important player in the region and its geopolitical alignment in both world wars ensured that it retained its presence. The same alignment, however, did not help the Dutch in Indonesia or in Netherlands New Guinea, a story we take up in Chapter 4. It is not possible to sum up Indigenous encounters with European colonialism in Oceania in any simple terms. One thing that can be said with certainty, however, is that Island people were no strangers to the machinations of political and social power, including the projection of power over other communities and entailing the use of both force and persuasion: ‘the range of collaboration, co-operation, and resistance we see in the region’s colonial history derives in significant measure from aspects of local political theory and practice’.132 In some parts of the region these included experience of locally constituted forms of empire. Then there is the question of the growth of regional consciousness. Some was stimulated through Pacific Islands Monthly, although its readership was confined largely to the Anglophone Pacific. In the intellectual world of the pre-Second World War period, the Pacific Islands as part of ‘a region’ was barely conceptualized, with most studies confined to individual territories. But given that the study of regions as phenomena in their own right scarcely occurred anywhere before the end of the Second World War, this should not be surprising. There were some centres of interest that took up the notion of a ‘Pacific World’ but, apart from the Japanese version, which accorded more attention to the islands, other centres appear to have focused mainly on countries of the Rim. All this contrasts with the scale of development of regional thinking and organization that was to occur in the post-war period.

132



Peterson, ‘Indigenous Island Empires’, 26.

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Regionalizing Oceania

Early post-war regionalization was instigated exclusively by the colonial powers, or at least those victorious in the 1939–1945 war. Germany had already been forced to withdraw from the Pacific in the First World War and Japan lost all its possessions in the Second World War. The Dutch were unable to reassert control over Indonesia after the Japanese occupation but held Netherlands New Guinea until 1962, at which time it withdrew from the region altogether. France retained control of its territories in eastern Polynesia (still known as French Polynesia), the New Hebrides (jointly administered by the British in an awkward condominium arrangement from 1906 and renamed Vanuatu at independence in 1980), New Caledonia, and Wallis and Futuna. In addition to the New Hebrides, British colonial control extended to Fiji, Tonga (but only as a protected state), Solomon Islands (a protectorate formally named British Solomon Islands Protectorate) and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, now Kiribati and Tuvalu respectively. Pitcairn, with a population of fewer than fifty, is still formally administered by the UK through its high commissioner in New Zealand. In 1947 the US took formal control of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI), which included the Micronesian Islands formerly under Japan’s League of Nations South Pacific Mandate in northern Oceania. These now comprise the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), the Republic of Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), all in a Compact of Free Association with the US. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Guam, along with American Samoa, remain US unincorporated territories. New Zealand’s territories included Western Samoa (now Samoa), the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau, the current political status of which ranges from full independence in the case of Samoa to self-government in the Cook Islands and Niue and non-self-governing status in Tokelau. Finally, Australia’s territories included Nauru, Papua and New Guinea, the last two entities joining at independence in 1975 to become the state of Papua New Guinea. 87

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The broad picture in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War shows that, with the exception of Tonga, which had retained selfgovernment under its own monarchy, becoming fully sovereign in 1970, all of the Pacific Islands and their people were firmly under colonial rule and therefore in no position to dictate the terms of regional organization or to even define ‘the region’. This was left to the founders of the first substantive regional organization, the SPC, established in 1947 by Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, France and the Netherlands under the Canberra Agreement, which emerged at the first full meeting of the region’s colonial powers.1 It did, however, anticipate the involvement of Pacific Islanders. This chapter focuses largely on the development of the SPC during the period of ‘colonial regionalism’ while also considering the wider context in which decolonization and aspects of the Cold War impacted directly on the region. Another important development in terms of defining the regional border with Southeast Asia came with the annexation of Netherlands New Guinea by Indonesia. The provinces of what are now officially designated Papua and West Papua remain part of Indonesia, although self-determination issues are by no means settled and indeed have become enmeshed in contemporary regional politics. 4.1

Prelude to the South Pacific Commission

An important precursor to the agreement establishing the SPC was the Canberra Pact  – sometimes known as the ANZAC Pact  – signed between Australia and New Zealand in January 1944 and containing many of the principles and purposes of what these two prime players saw as a viable regional order in the post-war period.2 Before this, a report produced by Australia’s Department of External Affairs in early 1943 by a young research officer, W. D. Forsyth (later to become a senior figure in Australia’s external affairs bureaucracy), highlighted the key issues for Australia in light of the events of the war in the Pacific to that time, and specifically mentions a ‘South Seas Commission’: Australian Governments since before Federation have frequently insisted on Australia’s vital interest in the affairs of the Pacific Islands and have on several occasions shown their willingness to accept direct responsibility for the control 1

Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Historical Documents, 551, ‘Agreement Establishing the South Pacific Commission’, Canberra, 6 February 1947 (online). 2 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Historical Documents, 26, ‘Australian – New Zealand Agreement 1944’, Canberra, 21 January 1944 (online).

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4.1  Prelude to the South Pacific Commission 89 of Pacific territories…. The present (or pre-war) situation in regard to the control of Pacific dependencies, however, verges on the chaotic. It is not adapted to Australia’s needs nor does it provide adequately for the progress and welfare of the inhabitants of the island territories. While extension of direct Australian control and rationalization of British Commonwealth responsibilities would improve the position, the situation calls for the establishment also of a system of regional international collaboration. The South Seas Commission would cooperate in but not be primarily responsible for a security system – its task would be to facilitate good government and economic and social welfare in the Pacific islands. Participation in such a regional organization, however, would contribute to Australian security.3

Much emphasis was placed on the welfare and ‘betterment’ of Pacific Island peoples in terms highlighting the values of trusteeship – values that were to be formally incorporated in the UN Charter in 1945.4 Several years previously, Lord Hailey had addressed the IPR on the subject noting that the state, rather than the individual, had now become the prime agency responsible for promoting social welfare and living standards, a notion now projected from the domestic to the colonial sphere through the concept of trusteeship. ‘It has given us a much more dynamic view of our responsibilities in promoting the social and economic development of our colonies.’5 Lord Hailey had also proposed the establishment of a Council for the Pacific Zone to deal with dependencies in the region, ‘consisting of the representatives of the sovereign powers concerned’ that he envisaged as having a double function: first, as the local agency of whatever organization may be established by the UN for safeguarding peace in the region, and second, a developmental function concerned with economic and technical issues including health, agriculture and cultural matters. It would also be charged with the periodic review of progress made in promoting self-governing institutions in the dependencies.6 The basic objectives of the trusteeship system were set out in terms of furthering both international peace and security as well as the welfare 3

W. D. Forsythe, ‘The Control of Dependencies in the Pacific’, Pacific Area Research Report, no. 4, March–April 1943, papers of W. D. Forsythe, National Library of Australia (hereafter NLA), MS 5700/14/61. 4 Of the eleven counties originally listed by the UN as trust territories in 1945, four were in the Pacific: Nauru, Western Samoa, New Guinea and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (consisting now of the Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Palau). The remainder were in Africa. 5 Lord Hailey, ‘A British View of a Far Eastern Settlement: Some Fundamental Assumptions’, in War and Peace in the Pacific: A Preliminary Report of the Eighth Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations on Wartime and Post-war Co-operation of the United Nations in the Pacific and the Far East (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, March 1943), 12. 6 Ibid., 13–14.

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and advancement of the Indigenous people, ‘their progressive development towards self-government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned’; ‘to encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion’; and ‘to ensure equal treatment in social, economic, and commercial matters for all Members of the United Nations and their nationals, and also equal treatment for the latter in the administration of justice’.7 A commentary on Australian attitudes to its Pacific region in the early post-war period opined that such high-mindedness was expressed in ‘an exaggerated emphasis on native welfare and development to the neglect of other legitimate interests’, namely, strategic ones.8 Australia and New Zealand were largely concerned to create a robust security regime in the region. Australia, in particular, is said to have undergone a revolution in security thinking as a result of the Pacific War, and ‘a profound interest in the defenses of the arc of islands lying to the north of their continent’.9 The leading article in the December 1944 edition of the Pacific Islands Monthly had spoken of the intertwining futures of Australia and the ‘Islands of the arc’ and the dangers to Australian security posed by the potential swamping of Melanesian territories by ‘Asiatics’,10 a frequent theme in that magazine. One report of the wartime period from another source in the US observed that while Australia had been alert to security issues in the region, British and US sensibilities were slow to develop, even though the years preceding ‘the recent irruption of the Japanese from their mandated islands in Micronesia’ had been marked by ‘a growing consciousness of the strategic importance of the Melanesian islands’,11 further noting that Solomon Islands had become ‘a frontier against Japanese aggression through Micronesia’.12 A commentary from New Zealand on geostrategic issues surrounding the Canberra Pact perceived a very different attitude within the US as 7 United Nations, Charter of the United Nations, Chapter XII: International Trustee System, Article 76 (1945). 8 W. E. H. Stanner, The South Seas in Transition: A Study of Post-war Rehabilitation and Reconstruction in Three British Pacific Dependencies (Sydney: Australasian Publishing Co., 1953), 2. 9 Amry Vandenbosch, ‘Regionalism in Southeast Asia’, Journal of Asian Studies, 4 (4), 1946, 427–8. 10 ‘A Plea for the “Small Man” in the Future of the Pacific’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 14 (5), December 1944, 3. 11 Herbert W. Krieger, Island Peoples of the Western Pacific: Micronesia and Melanesia (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 15 September 1943), 2. 12 Ibid., 6.

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a result of the Pacific War: ‘The Americans regard the Pacific as their show.’13 The analysis suggested, however, that Australia and New Zealand had both status and responsibility and that the Canberra Pact, which had evidently met with ‘scant approval’ in the US, demonstrated this clearly. From a New Zealand perspective, a united front between Australia and New Zealand was especially crucial, for while it was believed that the US would now dominate the Pacific, ‘she will pay some attention to Australia and New Zealand if they act together, but little to New Zealand if she acts alone. The Australian connection is vital to us.’14 The Canberra Pact envisaged a regional zone of defence in the Southwest and South Pacific within the framework of a more general security system based on Australia and New Zealand and ‘stretching through the arc of islands North and North East of Australia, to Western Samoa and the Cook Islands’. The interim administration and ultimate disposal of enemy territories in the Pacific were declared as vitally important to Australia and New Zealand, and further that ‘no change in the sovereignty or system of control of any of the islands of the Pacific should be effected except as a result of an agreement to which they are parties’.15 To this end, the Australian and New Zealand governments decided that the future of the various Pacific territories, and the welfare of their inhabitants, required much greater collaboration between the various authorities, agreeing ‘to promote the establishment, at the earliest possible date, of a regional organisation with advisory powers, which could be called the “South Seas Regional Commission”’. It was further envisaged that the new body would recommend arrangements ‘for the participation of natives in administration in increasing measure with a view to promoting the ultimate attainment of self-government in the form most suited to the circumstances of the native peoples concerned’.16 The idea that a commission would serve the purpose of promoting self-government, another key aspect of trusteeship, would turn out to be unacceptable to France. Finally, the two governments agreed to promote, as soon as practicable, an international conference at which there ‘should be a frank exchange of views on the problems of security, postwar development and native welfare between properly accredited representatives of the governments with existing territorial interests in the South West Pacific area or in the South Pacific area, or in both’.17 In addition to Australia and New 13

L. K. Munro, ‘The Canberra Pact and the Political Geography of the Pacific’, New Zealand Geographer, 1 (1), 1945, 53. 14 Ibid., 54. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid.

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Zealand, the other relevant governments named were those of the UK, the US, the Netherlands, France and Portugal, the last of these having regained control of what is now East Timor (Timor-Leste) after the war. In the event, Portugal was not invited to what was officially called the South Seas Commission Conference, perhaps because it was considered too marginal, as was Chile which, in 1888, had annexed Rapa Nui on the other side of the ocean. Ecuador, which annexed the Galapagos Islands in 1832, was another even more marginal possibility although these islands had no Indigenous population.18 Another consideration may have been that to secure cooperation between six governments, all of whom had been wartime allies, would be difficult enough without involving two more players. In addition, the UK, US, France and the Netherlands had some experience of cooperation in the Caribbean Commission, on which the new organization was substantially modelled. The South Seas Commission Conference was convened in Canberra in January 1947 on the invitation of both the Australian and New Zealand governments. The Australian delegation leader, H. V. Evatt, delivered an opening statement to the conference in January 1947, highlighting the developmental and welfare aims of the new body and the many advantages of a cooperative regional approach: Our objective now is to establish a permanent welfare commission which will devote its activities to the raising of living standards among native peoples in the South Pacific…. Regional action is positively encouraged in the UN Charter. In relation to the economic and welfare field, we have already witnessed the creation of a regional commission in the Caribbean area. It is our determination that an equally equipped institution will now be established in the South Seas entirely devoted to the social and economic welfare of the native peoples.19

References to the Caribbean Commission appear in a number of the speeches made during the conference. Indeed, the memorandum from the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs and the Colonies that followed the Canberra conference compared it directly with the Caribbean Commission, noting its value as an exemplary ‘co-operative effort between colonial Powers … [with] considerable practical benefit in this region both in encouraging international cooperation and in coordinating measures for the advancement of their inhabitants’.20 18

See Roy E. James, ‘The South Pacific Commission’, Pacific Affairs, 20 (2), 1947, 195. 19 Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Historical Documents, 550, ‘Proceedings of the South Seas Commission Conference’, Extract Canberra, 28 January 1947 (online). 20 UK, Cabinet Papers (47), 66, 3 March 1947, 1.

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The Caribbean Commission, originally the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (AACC), was also founded on security concerns, in turn giving rise to a social and economic agenda. It had been established in 1942 as an advisory agency with a focus on agriculture, fisheries, education, housing, health and sanitation, inter-island trade, transportation and the potential for tourism. It deliberately excluded political issues, a limitation insisted on by the British government and prompted by concerns of US hegemony in the British Caribbean.21 In 1943, the Netherlands joined the Commission’s Caribbean auxiliary technical advisory body, the Caribbean Research Council. The latter did not actually meet until 1947, but the move was described as the first overture to another colonial government with possessions in the region.22 In the meantime, another auxiliary advisory body, the West Indian Conference, was established in 1944 as a ‘sounding board for the articulate leadership of the territories’.23 The architects of the SPC adapted much from the Caribbean Commission, including a conference representing local views, and a secretariat.24 By the time of the transformation of the AACC into the Caribbean Commission with an expanded membership (France and the Netherlands became full members in 1945), the US State Department recognized that regional commissions provided an important avenue for influencing policy ‘in those areas of the colonial world where it had vital interests without assuming the financial or administrative burdens of formal empire’.25 The colonial Pacific was to prove another such area. The Caribbean Commission, however, languished after the immediate post-war period and, along with a short-lived attempt to establish a British-inspired Federation of the West Indies, had disappeared by the mid-1960s. The SPC was to enjoy much greater success in the longer term. An early commentary on the Caribbean Commission noted that the participation of ‘natives’ in colonial regionalism generally was rarely considered. Rather, it tended ‘to be regarded as an instrument for their government or an instrument for their betterment, but not as an instrument which would help them to govern and better themselves’.26 But 21

Howard Johnson, ‘The Anglo-American Caribbean Commission and the Extension of American Influence in the British Caribbean, 1942–1945’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 22 (2), 1984, 180–1. 22 James A. Bough, ‘The Caribbean Commission’, International Organization, 3 (4), 1949, 645–46. 23 Ibid. 24 Royal Institute of International Affairs, ‘The South Pacific Commission: A New Experiment in Regionalism’, World Today, 6 (9), 1950, 399. 25 Johnson, ‘Anglo-American’, 198. 26 Bough, ‘Caribbean Commission’, 652. See also Fabian Society, International Action and the Colonies: Report of a Committee of the Fabian Colonial Bureau (London: Fabian Publications/Victor Gollancz, 1943).

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the Canberra Agreement anticipated the involvement of Pacific Islanders and was specifically mentioned in the US Ambassador’s plenary address: ‘The island people must be brought into the program and made to feel part of it. They must find in it a means of expressing their wishes and aspirations. They must have confidence that it is operating in their best interests.’27 The Canberra Agreement in fact departed from the Caribbean model in insisting that delegations from the islands should constitute a gathering of Indigenous people and not one of missionaries and government officials,28 although this was implied rather than explicitly stated in the formal document. The Canberra Agreement, in Article II (2), set out the Commission’s territorial scope as comprising ‘all those non-self-governing territories in the Pacific Ocean which are administered by the participating Governments and which lie wholly or in part south of the Equator and east from and including Netherlands New Guinea’.29 It was therefore through the SPC that the scope of the region came to be defined.30 But the territories covered by the agreement were not set in concrete and the region was to expand and contract in different directions in the years that followed. In 1951 the SPC’s region was extended to northern Oceania to encompass Guam and the US trust territories in Micronesia that incorporated the Caroline, Marshall and Mariana Islands, thereby substantially increasing US interest in the organization. It changed again in 1962 to exclude the former Netherlands New Guinea when Indonesia took control of the territory and Dutch membership of the SPC ceased. Other notable exclusions from the region defined by the SPC were Hawai’i – annexed by the US in 1898 (but not yet the fiftieth state, which occurred only in 1959)31 – and two mentioned earlier: East Timor (a Portuguese colony until 1975, thereafter occupied by Indonesia until 1999 and now independent) and Rapa Nui. There was an assumption just prior to the original South Seas Commission Conference, at least on the part of some observers, that the Commission would ultimately become part of the UN structure.32 But although there was strong support for the new international 27

Robert L. Butler, ‘Address by the Honourable Robert L. Butler, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States’, South Seas Commission Conference, Select Conference Papers, Canberra, 1947, 4. 28 James, ‘South Pacific Commission’, 197. 29 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Historical Publications, 551, ‘Agreement Establishing the South Pacific Commission’, 6 February 1947 (online). 30 Herr, Institutional Sources, 5. 31 Ibid. 32 ‘“The Nations” Overall Pacific Plans  – Plus Russia and the Atomic Bomb’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 16 (10), May 1946, 7.

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organization, the record shows some concern over the nature of UN influence in the region. Among other things, the UN had pressed ahead with the establishment of regional commissions under the auspices of ECOSOC, including an Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE)  – renamed the Economic and Social Commission for Asia in 1974. In addition to membership of the independent countries of the region, ECAFE’s membership included France, the Netherlands, the UK and the US, again acknowledging the interests of colonial powers in the region, albeit in a body in which anti-colonial elements were flourishing. Colonial powers were very much concerned with containing the authority of any such body and sought to establish their superior claims to regional oversight. A commentary on the Caribbean Commission noted that, at the time of the UN’s founding, it was believed that some advocates of colonial regionalism ‘were largely interested in avoiding any international system of accountability’.33 A memorandum from the Australian representative in New York to Canberra in July 1947 opined that ECOSOC itself was dominated by ‘regional and ideological groupings’ rather than those chosen on merit, going on to state that ‘we have consistently endeavoured to establish the conception that along with New Zealand we are representatives of the South Pacific’.34 Following Australia’s election to ECOSOC, H. V. Evatt, then acting prime minister, emphasized the importance of separating the activities of ECOSOC from some of the more obviously political concerns of the UN. ‘The broad objective of the Council should be to develop a comprehensive body of technical, as distinct from political, recommendations to member governments.’35 This was not, however, simply a matter of ensuring colonial control but of preventing the impingement of ‘left/ right’ political issues.36 The exclusion of political matters in terms of the SPC’s own remit was seen as key to the organization’s survival as a functional organization devoted to such mundane but important matters for daily life as atoll sanitation and village nutrition, ‘which would not often attract great political interest’.37 The contrast with the Caribbean Commission is instructive, for it is the eventual politicization of this body that is said to have led to its ultimate demise.38 The SPC, in contrast, is 33

Bough, ‘Caribbean Commission’, 654. 34 Australia, ‘Agreement’. 35 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Historical Publications, 65 Evatt to Pollard, Courtice and McKenna, Canberra, 18 December 1947 (online). 36 Ibid. 37 Herr, Institutional Sources, 12. 38 Ibid., 11.

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still very much alive as a functional, non-political organization. Having said that, its non-political status was to become a major issue in the years to come. 4.2

The ‘Problem’ of Politics in Regional Affairs

The French delegation’s opening address to the 1947 conference emphasized the exclusion of ‘political and ideological problems’.39 The US delegate was equally firm that ‘the proposed commission should not be empowered to deal with political questions or with matters of defense or security’.40 Later commentators noted US concerns to limit any discussion involving its political management of territories in Micronesia.41 This highlights not the relative lack of importance of these matters in the region but quite the opposite. Both French and US attitudes, however, ensured that political issues would continue to be dealt with exclusively by the individual colonial powers and without interference from each other. But, while a political role for the Commission was dropped ‘as the price of French, Dutch and American participation’, agreement to a periodical conference of Indigenous delegates nonetheless ‘gave the Commission network a political potential’.42 Decolonization was on the UN’s agenda at this time but the pressures behind it had little impact in Oceania. This was to change markedly from the 1960s. What of reactions to the establishment of the new organization elsewhere? Pacific Islands Magazine carried just one report, dealing with a motion proposed in the Legislative Council of Fiji by European members, expressing concerns that Fiji had been included as a member without their consent as well as over aspects of the Commission’s purview and operations. These included the fear, on the one hand, of being ‘held 39

Pierre Auge, ‘Opening Address to Plenary Session by the Leader of the French Delegation, M. Pierre Auge’, South Seas Commission Conference, Select Conference Papers, Canberra, 1947, 2. The French Union (Union Française) referred to here was adopted under the constitution of the Fourth Republic in 1946 in which colonies became known as overseas departments or territories and effectively classified as part of France even while retaining a distinct status. The terms ‘empire’ and ‘colonies’ were thereby dispensed with under the rubric of the French Union, which was clearly an attempt to move away from an imperial image, even though little changed in way of substance. See Robert Aldrich, France and the South Pacific Since 1940 (Houndmills: Macmillan), 1993, 66–7. 40 Butler, ‘Address’, 1. 41 Robert C. Kiste and Suzanne Falgout, ‘Anthropology and Micronesia: The Context’, in Robert C. Kiste and Mac Marshall (eds.), Americian Anthropology in Mironesia: An Assessment (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999), 19. 42 W. D. Forsythe, ‘Regional Organisations’, in Problems of Paradise: The Pacific Islands Today, unpublished book manuscript, 1973. Papers of W. D. Forsythe, NLA, MS 5700/14/79, 139.

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back by association with more backward peoples’ or, on the other hand, of being ‘rushed forward too quickly’. There were also fears that the Commission ‘would be dominated by Australia and New Zealand’, with the possibility of ‘interference in the affairs of Fiji’.43 Once again, reassurances were made that the functions of the Commission were purely consultative and advisory and that concerns about political interference were groundless.44 Later, when the permanent location for the SPC’s headquarters was being considered, Suva was proposed, but this was resisted once again because of fears that it may interfere in Fiji’s political affairs.45 Of Islanders more generally, attitudes were inflected with a thoroughgoing paternalism, but their wartime efforts had engendered much goodwill: Pacific peoples have been no passive spectators of war. They have given large sums of money for war purposes, and their men have enlisted enthusiastically … Solomon Islanders, Papuans, Fijians and others have been fighting on the actual battlefronts … Others have rendered invaluable service as agents, guides, stretcherbearers, medical assistants, carriers, and in other ways. The lives of many airmen shot down over enemy-held zones were saved through aid given by natives, sometimes at great personal risk.46

Attitudes about ‘race’, however, persisted with the theme of ‘backward’ versus ‘advanced’ races in the Pacific frequently invoked, as was the idea that those considered more ‘advanced’ should receive special recognition. In promoting the relative superiority of the Polynesians (and Micronesians) vis-à-vis Melanesians through his magazine, R. W. Robson emphasized their friendly, cooperative relations with Europeans and the fact that they had acquired an ‘understanding and acceptance of European standards of life’ and were more worthy of recognition than the ‘undesirable nations in Southern Asia’. Micronesians, he said, were ‘first cousins’ to Polynesians while Fijians were a special case and elevated accordingly.47 In another editorial, Fijians were depicted as ‘one of the best races in the Pacific, and it is not fair to grade them with the more backward peoples embraced by the term “Melanesian”’.48 Robson further suggested that although a political federation of Polynesian people was impractical, a cultural federation could be organized ‘which would 43 ‘Some Fiji Public Men Critical of Commission’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 18 (1), August 1947, 13. 44 Ibid. 45 ‘Politics of South Pacific Com’n’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 24 (10) May 1954, 109. 46 Keesing, South Seas, xix. 47 R. W. Robson, ‘Let the World Hear the Voice of Polynesia!’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 17 (6), January 1947, 5. 48 ‘Editorial Note’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 17 (9), April 1947, 49.

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recognize the Polynesian and Micronesians races as distinctive and desirable [and] which would help to preserve [their] fine character and tradition’.49 And again invoking dangers posed by ‘Asiatics’, Robson opined that ‘all prospects in the Pacific are darkened by the menace of Asia’.50 In Australia, concerns about the ‘Asian hordes’ were ongoing, focusing in later years less on the possibility of population movements than on political influence. It is also noteworthy that while Robson was strongly supportive of the ‘White Australia Policy’ in most respects, he was implacably opposed to its application to Polynesians. As for his vision of an all-encompassing Polynesian organization, it would take almost sixtyfive years before any formally organized group based on the idea of a common Polynesian culture and identity would emerge. 4.3

Establishing the South Pacific Commission

The Agreement Establishing the South Pacific Commission (Canberra Agreement) entered into force in July 1948, although it had yet to be ratified by the governments of France and the Netherlands. Such tardiness notwithstanding, a full complement of commissioners from each country was in place and the business of the new organization commenced in that year. Apart from setting up an administrative structure, a work program was drafted consisting in the first instance of collecting and collating data on such matters as transport services, human quarantine measures and epidemiological information, agriculture and industry, and information on scientists and of public and private organizations with research interests in the region.51 By 1949 the scope had been expanded to include projects in maternal and infant health, diet and nutrition, and diseases such tuberculosis, filariasis and elephantiasis. Additional projects in agriculture, education and training, preservation of archaeological sites and anthropological and linguistic research also featured along with cooperative societies, the built environment and community development.52 Although there was no organic relationship with the UN, the 1949 and 1950 reports remarked positively on the developing relations with the world body and its agencies, including the Food and Agricultural Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural 49

Robson, ‘Let the World Hear’, 5. 50 Ibid. 51 SPC, Report of the South Pacific Commission for the Year 1948 (Wellington: R. E. Owen, Government Printer, 1950), 17–18. 52 SPC, Report of the South Pacific Commission for the Year 1949 (Wellington: R. E. Owen, Government Printer, 1950), 11–19.

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Organization. The practice commenced of inviting observers from some of these, as well as sending observers to a variety of international bodies, thus initiating the ‘internationalization’ of the SPC.53 But there was still a concern, especially for France, about possible UN political interference. By the early 1950s, ‘French intransigence continued to prevent the drafting of a basic agreement which would have allowed the secretarygeneral to negotiate on behalf of the SPC with the specialized agencies on technical assistance projects’.54 But there was also possible institutional jealousy on the part of the then secretary-general, W. D. Forsyth, which inhibited early cooperation with UN agencies.55 The year 1949 saw the Secretariat relocate to Noumea from its interim base in Sydney. France had been a reluctant party to the founding of the SPC, participating mainly because it did not wish to leave the running to the Anglophone countries. But it was keen to have the permanent Secretariat located in Noumea, and this was agreed at the SPC’s 1948 session.56 An Australian media commentary in 1950 proposed that France ‘did not want the South Pacific Commission and did not want it now’, asserting that it joined only because staying out would have damaged France’s prestige and that the offer to host the headquarters in Noumea was no doubt due again to the national prestige factor rather than ‘any love for the new project’.57 An official British report on interim organizational matters provides insight into the jockeying for position among the other colonial powers over the choice of a permanent base, suggesting that Noumea had been a compromise site for the Anglophone counties. Part of the reasoning was that since four of the six member governments were Anglophone, it seemed obvious that the location should be in an Anglophone territory. Other sites considered were Port Moresby, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Western Samoa and Suva. New Zealand objected to Port Moresby because it might ‘give a preponderant influence to Australia’; the Cook Islands and Tonga

53

54 55 56

Ibid., 21–2. Herr, Regionalism, 132–3. Ibid. Ibid., 26. An interim secretariat had been located in Sydney at the premises of the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA). The latter was transformed at the end of the war from a military research unit on civil affairs to a civilian educational and training institution for personnel preparing to serve in Papua New Guinea, initially under the direction of ASOPA Principal, John Kerr. See Bill Goff, ‘The End of a Unique Institution’, AusAID Focus, 13 (1), 1998, 20–22. Kerr later became governorgeneral, and is best known for his role in the 1975 constitutional crisis in Australia during which he dismissed elected Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. 57 ‘How the Nations View Their Role in the South Pacific’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1950, 2 (online).

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raised issues of accessibility, and Tonga was opposed in any case; Western Samoa’s Trusteeship status was thought to raise potential problems with the UN, although these were not specified; and Suva, although preferred by both New Zealand and the UK, was opposed by Australia ‘because of its United Kingdom connections’. Australia had favoured a site on its own east coast, but in the end the Canberra Agreement specified a location in the islands.58 Noumea was the final choice. As for the commitment to Indigenous participation, it was decided to hold the first South Pacific Conference in Suva in 1950 with delegates from Papua, New Guinea, Nauru, New Caledonia and Dependencies, French Oceania (i.e., French Polynesia), Netherlands New Guinea, Western Samoa, Tokelau, the Cook Islands, Niue, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Gilbert Islands, Ellice Islands, American Samoa and the New Hebrides. Tonga was not a dependency and therefore not included as a formal member of the Conference, but was invited to send delegates and advisors.59 Almost thirty years later, this meeting was recalled as a landmark event and a ‘paramount discovery for the people of the Pacific’ marking ‘the birth of a Pacific identity where Micronesians, Melanesians and Polynesians met and agreed that their common home – indeed their common heritage – is the Pacific’.60 Certainly, this body was to foster a sense of common regional identity among Indigenous delegates leading in turn to demands for avenues for Indigenous political expression. This was anticipated by R. W. Robson who, in 1950, noted that the gathering of Indigenous delegates laid the foundations for a future structure, adding that once the immediate concerns for food, health and education were satisfied, ‘they will then wish to spread their political wings’, in which event the machinery of the SPC would prove inadequate.61 He was entirely correct on this point. 4.4

The South Pacific Conference

The Canberra Agreement envisaged that delegates to the Conference, when it was eventually established, should be chosen ‘in such a way as to ensure the greatest possible measure of representation of the 58

Western Pacific High Commission (hereafter WPHC), ‘South Pacific Commission  – Establishment of, 1944–1948’, 11/I SF 37/1, Special Collections, University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services. 59 SPC, Report for the Year 1948, 22–23. 60 SPC, Secretary-General, ‘General Review by the Secretary-General on the Work Programme and Budget and on the South Pacific Commission’s Achievements and Prospects’, Annex III of Report of the Seventeenth South Pacific Conference, Pago Pago, American Samoa, 24–30 September 1977, 44. 61 R. W. Robson, ‘On the Way to a South Pacific Federation?’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 21 (2), September 1950, 69.

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inhabitants’.62 However, ‘a uniform scheme’ was not considered possible ‘since the level of advancement of the inhabitants of these territories varies widely and some (such as those of New Guinea) are still very primitive’.63 This reflected the long-held view of Melanesians as inferior not only in relation to Europeans but the ‘more Caucasian-like’ Polynesians as well.64 Similar themes appeared in publications such as Pacific Affairs,65 although some contributors were also disparaging of local Europeans for the ignorance often displayed in dealing with Indigenous people.66 Pacific Islands Monthly continued to distinguish between ‘primitive’ Melanesians and ‘advanced’ Polynesians (with Micronesians often treated as an afterthought), although Fijians were regularly singled out as an exception on the Melanesian side, their relative superiority being attributed to Polynesian influences.67 The Anglophone powers were also concerned to see whether Indigenous delegates had a sufficient grasp of (Western) civilization to operate effectively within the Conference as well as to bridge cultural differences among themselves, especially as between Melanesian and Polynesian delegates. But the French took a different approach. When the South Pacific Conference met for the first time in Nasinu, Fiji, in April–May 1950, France, in contravention of the spirit of the original agreement, sent a European to represent Indigenous people in their territories, the only colonial power to do so.68 The official report simply noted that the ‘representatives and advisers from these territories were with few exceptions indigenous persons’.69 Against a background of apparently low expectations, the Conference was judged to be a great success and ‘an event of outstanding importance in the history of the South Pacific’.70 Given that some eighty-five people were involved as participants or observers, this was certainly the first major meeting of any kind involving Indigenous representatives from so many different Pacific Island countries. The French delegates must have felt rather conspicuous. In the event, the ten-day meeting, with fourteen 62

63 64 65 66 67



68

69 70

Australia, ‘Agreement’, 2. Ibid. Keesing, South Seas, 10. See, for example, E. S. Craighill Handy, ‘The Insular Pacific: Ethnic Fugue and Counterpoint’, Pacific Affairs, 5 (6), 1932, 487–96. H. Ian Hogbin and Camilla Wedgwood, ‘Native Welfare in the Southwest Pacific Islands, Pacific Affairs, 17 (2), 1944, 136. See, for example, ‘Our South Pacific Islanders Come All Ways: Who Will be Their Representatives at Their Own South Seas Conference?’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 17 (7), February 1947, 38. See Fry, ‘South Pacific “Experiment”’, 183–6. SPC, ‘Report for 1950’, 7. Ibid.

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plenary sessions, yielded forty-three resolutions to be submitted to the Commission, including resolutions on mosquito control, ‘the healthy village’ and ‘the village school’, vocational training, cooperative societies, fisheries methods and the improvement and diversification of food and export crops.71 The Conference delegates were clearly fully engaged with the work of the Commission and more than capable of contributing to it. After this successful beginning, the Conference was to meet every three years, following an agenda focused on the kinds of issues noted earlier, producing reports and making numerous recommendations. In this respect, Indigenous participants appeared not to be seeking to go beyond their remit, at least as far as can be gleaned from the official reports. There was, however, an increasing regional awareness among them. Ratu Mara of Fiji recalls his first Conference in 1953 as ‘a gathering of the tribes’.72 By the third Conference in 1956 the report noted that Indigenous delegates had come to see that ‘they were really neighbours with the same outlook, hopes and problems’.73 The 1965 report emphasized that one of the main points of the Conference had been to encourage regional thinking, so that participants ‘could view problems in a larger context and not in the isolation of one territory’.74 By the 1960s an important shift in perspectives on Indigenous participation in the SPC was evident, reflecting changes in the broader international environment where decolonization had become a major theme. British Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s famous ‘wind of change’ speech to the South African parliament, delivered in February 1960, is widely regarded not merely as a note of warning to the white parliament in Cape Town concerning their apartheid practices, but a major statement of British policy on decolonization.75 Macmillan highlighted the rise of national consciousness throughout the colonized world, the implications of Cold War divisions and the need to devolve a share of political power according to trusteeship principles: In the twentieth century and especially since the end of the war, the processes which gave birth to the nation states of Europe have been repeated all over the 71

Ibid., 8. 72 Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, The Pacific Way: A Memoir (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997). 73 SPC, Third South Pacific Conference, Suva, Fiji, April 23–May 3, 1956 (Noumea: SPC, 1956). 74 SPC, Report by the Secretary-General, South Pacific Commission, on the Sixth South Pacific Conference Held at Lae, Territory of Papua and New Guinea, from the 6th–16th July, 1965 (Noumea: SPC, 1966). 75 Sarah Stockwell and L. J. Butler, ‘Introduction’, in L. J. Butler and Sarah Stockwell (eds.), The Wind of Change: Harold Macmillan and British Decolonization (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 2.

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4.4  The South Pacific Conference 103 world…. [T]he most striking of all the impressions I have formed … is of the strength of this African national consciousness…. The wind of change is blowing through this continent and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact … and our national policies must take account of it … if we cannot do so we may imperil the precarious balance between the East and West on which the peace of the world depends…. [I]t has been our aim in the countries for which we have borne responsibility not only to raise the material standards of living, but also to create a society which respects the rights of individuals, a society in which men are given the opportunity to have an increasing share in political power and responsibility.76

In the UN, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples formally delegitimized imperialism,77 and solemnly proclaimed ‘the necessity of bringing to a speedy and unconditional end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations’.78 At this time, membership of the UN General Assembly had grown to include more countries supporting decolonization of the world’s remaining colonies controlled by European powers. According to one source, the ‘numerical breakthrough’ in the General Assembly occurred in 1955, when sixteen new states were admitted to UN membership, followed by a further nineteen in 1960.79 This swung the ideological balance in favour of what was variously styled the Non-Aligned bloc, the Bandung group or ‘Group of 77’ that emerged from, and saw itself as representative of, the ‘Third World’. This informal alliance ‘provided the intellectual cohesiveness and also the political-tactical competence to secure the adoption of resolution 1514 (XV)’, and without a single expression of dissent.80 Being a declaration without legal force, however, it was safely brushed aside by some countries, as the French colonial presence in Oceania to this day attests. At the time of the 1950 Conference, decolonization was less of an issue although, within most of the individual territories controlled by the UK, Australia and New Zealand, the development of self-governing institutions with a view to full independence at some point in the future was on the agenda. France would not entertain discussion on the subject while 76

Right Hon. Harold Macmillan, MP, address to members of both Houses of the Parliament of the Union of South Africa, Cape Town, 3 February 1960 (online). 77 David Strang, ‘From Dependency to Sovereignty: An Event History Analysis of Decolonization 1870–1987’, American Sociological Review, 55 (6), 1990, 854. 78 UN, Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, GA 1514 (XV), 14 December 1960 (online). 79 Edward McWhinney, ‘Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’, United Nations, 2008, Audiovisual Library of International Law (online). 80 Ibid.

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the US never acknowledged that they constituted an imperial power at all. The US had also insisted that its trust territories in Micronesia be classified in terms of a ‘strategic trusteeship’, which removed it from oversight by the UN Trusteeship Council and its strong ‘anti-colonial ethos’.81 In the meantime, Indigenous leaders in Western Samoa had been pressing for self-government while local political movements had also emerged in Solomon Islands, evincing an explicit anti-colonialism that was blamed, at least by Pacific Islands Monthly, on the large numbers of US servicemen who had passed through there during the war, and whose ‘general attitude was anti-British imperialism’.82 But the more general blame for political agitation in the region, as well as the growing anti-colonial sentiment in the wider international sphere in this period, was laid at the feet of ‘white tribes’ of sociologists, anthropologists, ‘theorists’ of all descriptions and left-wing politicians and their sympathizers suffering a ‘brown brother complex’ that encouraged dissidence.83 In the event, Western Samoa was the first to gain independence in 1962. Nauru followed in 1968 and Fiji in 1970 while, in the same year, Tonga’s status shifted from protected state to full sovereignty. Others were to follow over the next three decades. Netherlands New Guinea, however, followed a very different trajectory. The administration of the territory had passed to the Republic of Indonesia in 1962, itself formally independent from the Dutch since 1949. Netherlands New Guinea then became technically independent in 1969 through incorporation in the Indonesian state. The events surrounding the Indonesian takeover of Netherlands New Guinea, and the context within which this occurred, have significance for later developments in regional politics. 4.5

Indonesia, West Papua and the Redefinition of Region

The Dutch first occupied the territory of Netherlands New Guinea in 1828 although permanent settlement did not occur until 1896, apparently prompted by concerns that some in the Australian colonies had expansionist designs on the western half of the island of New Guinea.84 81

William Fisher and Stewart Firth, Decolonising American Micronesia, Working Paper 2020/4 (Canberra: Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University), 3. 82 ‘“Masinga Lo”, Anti-British Native Movement Is Sweeping over Solomons’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 17 (3), October 1946, 7. 83 See, for example, ‘New Order Planners Bring Chaos to an Exhausted World’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 18 (1), August 1947, 5; ‘Danger in Too Rapid Native Advancement’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 18 (12), July 1953, 13. 84 This section is based partly on Stephanie Lawson, ‘West Papua, Indonesia and the Melanesian Spearhead Group: Competing Logics in Regional and International Politics’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 70 (5), 2016, 506–24.

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4.5  West Papua and the Redefinition of Region 105

The border between Dutch, German and Australian claims had been fixed in 1875 at 141 degrees east.85 In the meantime, Indonesia had declared independence from the Dutch as early as 1945 (although this was not recognized by the UN until 1949) and was strenuously asserting claims to the territory it called West Irian (or Irian Jaya) as a legitimate part of the new republic. Dutch motives for joining the SPC were conditioned by these circumstances. Indeed, it was said that ‘Holland’s solitary and consuming interest in the Commission is to use it as a vehicle for demonstrating to the world that Netherlands New Guinea is an integral part, politically, economically, geographically and ethnographically, of the South Pacific and not of the East Indies’.86 SPC membership was therefore a significant ‘propaganda point scored against Indonesian claims to New Guinea’, and as a prime motive for the Dutch to embrace the work of the Commission with energy and enthusiasm.87 Dutch motivations for retaining the territory also included access to its considerable resources as well as providing a home for Indo-Europeans who found life under the Indonesian regime less than congenial. These motivations had little to do with the welfare of the Indigenous Melanesian people, although this acquired more prominence in the subsequent course of events. The Indonesian claim to the territory rested primarily on the doctrine of uti possidetis juris, which held that the territorial boundaries of post-colonial states should follow those of the former colonial state, the ostensible purpose being to minimize territorial disputes.88 Sukarno applied this to Netherlands New Guinea. But he attempted to claim non-Dutch possessions in the region too, including Portuguese Timor and British colonies on Borneo and the Malay peninsula while also opposing the formation of Malaysia that amalgamated former British possessions.89 Sukarno therefore applied the doctrine very selectively. In the case of Netherlands New Guinea, he also rejected arguments about racial or ethnic difference, suggesting that these were designed simply to undermine the integrity of Indonesia as well

85

Robert Cribb and Audrey Kahin, Historical Dictionary of Indonesia, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004), 313. 86 ‘How the Nations View Their Role in the South Pacific’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1950 (online). 87 Ibid. 88 John Saltford, The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua, 1962–1969: The Anatomy of Betrayal (London: Routledge, 2003), 8. 89 Sarina Khilam, Protest and Punishment: Political Prisoners in Papua: Indonesia (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2007), 8.

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as to deny ‘freedom’ to West Papuans by liberating them from Dutch colonialism sooner rather than later. In addressing the UN General Assembly in 1957 Sukarno said: I am aware of the suggestion that the status of West Irian should be solved on the basis of self-determination on the false and irrelevant claim that the people of the area form a separate ethnic group. This would imply nothing less than our consent to a procedure which would pave the way for further artificially created attempts to break up the national structure of our community … the injection of the principle of self-determination at this late date is an obvious misuse of that principle in order to perpetuate colonial rule. Yet, the very perversion of the principle of self-determination brings to the forefront the crux of the issue at stake: immediate freedom of the people of West Irian.90

The Dutch scheme for the territory actually went beyond the welfare measures promoted by the SPC and embraced the other main principle of trusteeship – that of preparing the territory for eventual independence. Although very little development had occurred in previous years, the Dutch government in 1960 announced a far-reaching program designed precisely to prepare the Indigenous people of Netherlands New Guinea for eventual independence.91 Among the proposed measures was the creation of an elected New Guinea Council envisaged as an embryonic national parliament for the territory.92 Among Papuans themselves, the main division was between ardent nationalists who sought independence sooner rather than later, and those more circumspect about the timing of independence who thought that more time was needed to create an effective Papuan governmental structure before taking on running a sovereign state. Comparisons were made with the chaos of Indonesia’s move to independence as well as that of some African states.93 Among the nationalist group, the possibility of some kind of association with Indonesia was not ruled out, although that was to be negotiated only after independence had been achieved. This group also looked in the other direction, promoting the idea of a Melanesian union encompassing the whole of New Guinea as well as other Melanesian territories.94 All such plans, however, were overtaken by the events of the next few years.

90

Sukarno, ‘Address to the UN General Assembly’, reproduced in Ministry of Information, Republic of Indonesia, West Irian Liberation Campaign, 4, 1957, 7–8. 91 See Justus M. van der Kroef, ‘Nationalism and Politics in West New Guinea’, Pacific Affairs, 34 (1), 1961, 3. 92 Ibid. 93 See C. L. M. Penders, The West New Guinea Debacle: Dutch Decolonization and Indonesia, 1945–1962 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), 425–6; van der Kroef, ‘Nationalism and Politics’, 40–3. 94 van der Kroef, ‘Nationalism and Politics’, 43–4.

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4.5  West Papua and the Redefinition of Region 107

The Dutch had resisted including the territory in negotiations over Indonesian independence in 1949, having argued that the Papuan (Melanesian) people were both ethnically very different and had in any case been administered separately from Netherlands East Indies. The few (Western) educated Papuans of the time, and others aware of these developments, also opposed incorporation in Indonesia.95 When the Dutch announced proposals for the roadmap to self-government, West Papuans had raised the Morning Star flag as a symbol of their independence from both the Dutch and Indonesia. In the meantime, a militarily strong Indonesia, with equipment supplied in part by the Soviet Union, had been pressing its claims aggressively. In 1961, Sukarno delivered his Trikora (‘three commands’) speech, threatening to deploy the entire armed forces of Indonesia to ‘liberate West Irian from the strangle-hold of Dutch imperialism’,96 which was somewhat reminiscent of Japanese claims about liberating Asia from Western colonial powers through militarism.97 Invoking both moral cause and classic power politics, Sukarno also asserted that: Although our claim is just, West Irian will never come under our control if our claim is not substantiated with power … Our struggle must be based on the build-up of our power and the application of power so as to impose our will on the enemy … if the Dutch and the United Nations will not meet our just demand let us apply that power!98

Actions included a military intrusion into West Papua in 1962, prompting concerns about the possibility of large-scale conflict. The UN, now heavily influenced by proponents of the decolonization movement  – many of whom did not see Indonesia as an agent of colonization itself – also pressured the Netherlands and in August 1962 the New York Agreement, signed by both Indonesia and the Netherlands, officially transferred administration of the territory to a UN Temporary Executive Authority but with provision for the phased transfer of full administrative responsibility to Indonesia. Further provision was made for an Act of Free Choice by the Papuan people, to be conducted by the Indonesian

95 Pierre Van Der Eng, ‘Irian Jaya (West Irian)’, in Keat Gin Ooi (ed.), Southeast Asia: A Historical Encyclopedia, from Angor Wat to East Timor (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 663–5. 96 Sukarno, ‘The People’s Command for the Liberation of West Irian’, Department of Information, Republic of Indonesia, 82, 19 December 1961. 97 See Janis Mimura, ‘Japan’s New Order and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Planning for Empire’, Asia-Pacific Journal, 9 (3), 2011 (online). 98 Quoted in Republic of Indonesia c. 1957, 31.

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authorities but observed by the UN.99 Only one critical voice was raised in the UN General Assembly when a representative from Dahomey (now Benin) pointed out that this arrangement ‘would be the first time in UN history that an act of self-determination will be supervised and carried out by the nation to whom the result will be most favourable’. But others ‘spoke confidently of Indonesia’s “spirit under the Charter of the United Nations” to do the right thing when the time came’.100 Throughout the period since 1945, Indonesia had promoted itself as a leading anti-colonial voice on the world stage. It had hosted the famous Bandung Conference of 1955 where, ‘fired with anti-colonial zeal, the participants … sought to challenge a global order still infused with racist hierarchy and imperialism’.101 The Bandung Conference had declared unequivocal support for political self-determination, mutual respect for sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, the right to self-defence, and strict equality for all races and all nations while also condemning colonialism ‘in all its manifestations’.102 A major legacy of Bandung was the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), founded in Belgrade in 1961, through which Indonesia under Sukarno continued to promote a robust anti-colonial stance.103 Indeed, the period between 1945 and 1965 is seen as giving rise to Indonesia’s explicit ‘anti-colonial internationalism’, which has provided the ideological underpinning for its foreign policy approach.104 Indonesia, however, has consistently viewed colonialism through a lens that filters out its own actions in West Papua and elsewhere. In 1965–1966, Suharto usurped power in Indonesia, but nothing changed in policy towards West Irian. An early act of his presidency was to sell a thirty-year licence to US mining company Freeport in 1967 to exploit West Papua’s gold and copper resources, even before the future of the place had been formally determined.105 The 1969 Act of Free Choice 99 UN, Agreement Between the Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands Concerning West New Guinea (West Irian), Treaty Series, No. 6311, 15 August 1962. 100 Quoted in ‘NG’s Border War Hots Up’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 40 (6), June 1969, 34. 101 Andrew Phillips, ‘Beyond Bandung: The 1955 Asian-African Conference and its Legacies for International Order’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 70 (4), 2016, 329. 102 Amitav Acharya, Indonesia Matters: Asia’s Emerging Democratic Power (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2018), 82. 103 Rizal Sukma, Islam in Indonesian Foreign Policy (New York: Routledge, 2003), 3. 104 See, generally, Ahmad Rizky Mardhatillah Umar, ‘The Bandung Ideology: Anticolonial Internationalism and Indonesia’s Foreign Policy (1945–1965)’, Asian Review, 30 (2), 2017, 57–78. 105 David Stott, ‘Indonesian Colonisation, Resource Plunder and West Papuan Grievances’, Asia-Pacific Journal, 9 (12/10), 2011 (online). Stott further notes that Indonesia’s new foreign investment laws were drafted by the Suharto regime with the assistance of the US Central Intelligence Agency specifically to enable Freeport’s access to West Papua’s gold and copper.

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4.5  West Papua and the Redefinition of Region 109

conducted under the Suharto regime is widely considered to have been a complete farce. Indonesian authorities imposed extraordinarily constrained conditions and, in the end, 1,026 hand-picked Papuans were assembled in front of a few UN observers under the watchful eye of the Indonesian military. These Papuans then voted unanimously for incorporation into the Indonesia state, with the Indonesian government subsequently declaring that: ‘The choice of the people of West Irian is absolute. It can not be made void by whomsoever and under whatever pretext.’106 The secretary-general’s report to the UN on the process surrounding the Act of Free Choice – popularly known among West Papuans and their supporters as the ‘Act of No Choice’ – did raise serious doubts about its integrity. The UN representative present at the vote had reported the actions of the Indonesian administration as exercising ‘at all times a tight political control over the population’.107 Indonesia’s own report stated that ‘in West Irian there existed one of the most primitive and underdeveloped communities in the world’ and that to ‘measure the method and conduct of the act of free choice in such a community against purely Western democratic methods and procedures would indeed be erroneous and unrealistic’.108 Thus, in the UN’s twenty-fifth year, which celebrated the theme of ‘Peace, Justice and Progress’, the General Assembly awarded Indonesia sovereignty over West Irian – opposed only by a few African states sympathetic to West Papuan aspirations to genuine selfdetermination.109 This also signalled the end of West Papuan participation in the SPC. It is said that the West Papuans attending the 1962 Conference in Pago Pago ‘wept openly and bitterly in the knowledge they would never again sit together with those that they had come to regard as fellow Pacific Islanders’.110 Support for Indonesia’s claims to West Papua at the UN was influenced both by Cold War concerns about Soviet involvement in the region, on the one hand, and by the ideology of the decolonization movement on the other. The US, supported by Australia (although Australia had previously supported the Dutch position), was concerned to placate Indonesia for fear that it would turn to the communist bloc. To this day, both the US and Australia, as well as New Zealand, continue supporting Indonesia for strategic reasons while endorsing the standard mantra 106



107



108 109 110

Republic of Indonesia, ‘Act of Free Choice in West Irian’, Jakarta, Department of Foreign Affairs, 1972, 12. ‘It’s All Over, Including the Shouting’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 40 (12), December 1969, 25. Quoted in ibid. Ibid. See also UN, ‘Agreement Between the Republic of Indonesia’. Herr, ‘Frontiers’, 41.

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that West Papuan issues come strictly within the ambit of Indonesia’s domestic politics.111 One analyst notes that, from a contemporary perspective, it seems rather bizarre that the most vociferous opponents of colonialism at the UN failed to support the plans for the territory’s full independence set in train by the Netherlands from the 1950s.112 It appears that the basic principles underpinning the entire post–Second World War decolonization movement was ultimately compromised by a doctrine that served to perpetuate some of the injustices of colonialism and, in cases such as West Papua, to create new forms of the phenomenon. The subsequent history of West Papua, and the fate of the Melanesian population there, bears this out. There has also been a tendency to marginalize West Papua in the story of Pacific Islands independence and regional politics, due to a prevailing ‘rhetoric of region’ that saw it end at the Papua New Guinea/Indonesia border.113 In recent years, however, activism on the part of West Papuans and their supporters has seen its ‘return’ to the regional agenda. We take this story up again in due course. 4.6 Conclusion The first formal move to regionalization in Oceania was an entirely colonial affair in which the Indigenous people of the region had virtually no voice. Australia’s and New Zealand’s interests were initially oriented to security concerns, which was hardly surprising in the wake of the Second World War, but the new organization formally eschewed these in favour of a developmental and welfare agenda from which both French and US interests ensured the exclusion of political issues. This was despite the fact that trusteeship was meant to promote political development. The establishment of the South Pacific Conference, however, which brought together Indigenous representatives from around the Island Pacific for the first time, provided an opening not only for Indigenous participation in the new regional organization but also for establishing important informal relations among them, something that had been almost impossible in the absence of such an organization. Apart from anything else, the sheer logistics involved in arranging for delegates to gather from such widely scattered places, some with very limited modes of transport 111



112 113

Esther Heidbüchel, The West Papua Conflict in Indonesia: Actors, Issues and Approaches (Wettenberg: Johannes Herrmann Verlag, 2007), 39, 61. Saltford, United Nations, 8. Stewart Firth, ‘The Rise and Fall of Decolonisation’, in Donald Denoon (ed.), Emerging from Empire? Decolonisation in the Pacific: Proceedings of Workshop (Canberra: Australian National University, July 1997), 13.

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4.6 Conclusion 111

and communications, made physical geography a major challenge. Even so, the Conference established a path through which Indigenous leaders could meet together, express their own interests and participate in ‘regional thinking’. This would lead to major shifts in the trajectory of regionalization and regionalism, especially given the dynamics of the decolonization movement in which they were to become enmeshed. But perceptions of difference between more ‘advanced races’ vis-à-vis ‘primitive peoples’, represented by the Melanesia/Polynesia divide, in particular, continued to resonate, playing into regional and subregional politics in the years to come. Indonesia’s annexation of the former Netherlands New Guinea precipitated the redefinition of the region. The Canberra Agreement was formally amended to adjust the region’s western boundary to 141 degrees east, relocating West Papua to Southeast Asia. ‘The region’ therefore contracted, taking the geopolitical shape that persists to this day. But the advent of the independence era more generally, along with further developments surrounding the Conference, necessitated major revisions to membership criteria and other aspects of the SPC’s structure as well as the emergence of significant Indigenous agency in regional politics. This was to play out in various ways in the post-colonial period while at the same time, and to further complicate the picture, identity politics at a subregional level also came into play.

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5

Transformations in Regional Organization

From the mid-1960s, with Western Samoa already fully independent and other Pacific Island countries on the path to decolonization, there was a pressing need for Pacific Island leaders to not only manage their own affairs as far as development programs were concerned, but to also discuss critical political issues in their own region. The SPC was to undergo reforms to achieve the former goals, but its inherently conservative colonial character meant that it could not provide a venue for the latter purpose. The eventual solution to problems in this context was twofold. First, reforms were to finally give a large measure of control to Indigenous leaders. But if the SPC was to survive as an effective technical and development organization, and keep the French within its fold, the agenda could not be opened up to political issues. This led to the second solution: the formation of an entirely new regional organization to serve as a venue for wide-ranging discussions on political and other issues in the shape of the South Pacific Forum. What appears unusual about this organization is that its membership included, from the beginning, two of the ‘metropolitan’ powers: Australia and New Zealand. As we shall see, these two countries had been especially keen to see Island leaders form a new body and worked behind the scenes to encourage moves in that direction. And they were also keen to be part of it. It was also during this period that Ratu Mara of Fiji established himself as a major figure in regional politics, initially through his criticisms of colonial regionalism and subsequently in his role in the Forum. Mara therefore often appears as the ‘voice of the Pacific’ at this time. His prominence in regional affairs, however, also provoked some resentment among other Island elites who did not always share his views or ambitions. Mara’s position is also interesting because of an apparent contradiction between his stance in the SPC, where he strongly opposed colonial control, and his views of political order within Fiji where, for a time, he was equally opposed to independence from the UK. For its part, however, the UK was determined to wind up its obligations in the Pacific – a position that appears in stark contrast with French attitudes in particular. It would therefore be a 112

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5.1  Reforming Regionalism 113

mistake to assume a situation in which the colonial powers were all aligned on one side of a divide, resisting moves by an equally united group of Island leaders, all agitating for decolonization, on the other. 5.1

Reforming Regionalism

Even by the beginning of the 1960s the provisions of the original Canberra Agreement under which the SPC had been established were scarcely fit for purpose in an era in which decolonization was emerging as a major dynamic in global and regional politics. The whole structure of the SPC reflected the colonial nature of the institution and although the South Pacific Conference was embedded in its structure, its status was clearly subordinate. When Western Samoa achieved independence in 1962, the difficulty of fitting it into the colonial framework of the SPC became apparent. Then, as other countries moved to independence, the continuing predominance of the colonial powers became increasingly anachronistic.1 Ratu Mara recalls that by this stage, the feeling among Indigenous delegates was that the constitution and procedures of the organization were too rigid, and that the attitudes of the administering powers ‘were at best too paternalistic, and at worst arrogant and autocratic’.2 But some of the metropolitan powers were alert to the need for reform. Ahead of the 1965 meeting in Lae, for example, a New Zealand report observed that ‘it would be better if reform came before this conference: if not it must surely come soon afterwards’.3 It was anticipated that, at Lae, the Island delegates would at least be invited to determine the works program for the next period. But they were presented instead with a works program that was largely unalterable. Technically, this inflexibility was because of budget constraints. But these were in turn due largely to French machinations. No one metropolitan country could increase its contribution without the others increasing theirs in proportion, and if the French refused to increase theirs, no other country could either. And this is what occurred to forestall any real agency being exercised by Island delegates. Beyond control of the works program, there had also been talk of a major revision of the SPC’s guidelines.4 Mara had come to the 1

Fry, ‘Regionalism’, 461. 2 Mara, Pacific Way, 170. 3 New Zealand, Department of External Affairs, From Wellington to Apia, 1 October 1965. Archives New Zealand (hereafter ArchNZ), IT1W 2439 114 Record No. 92/1/13, Part No. 1, ‘South Pacific Commission – Conferences’ [09/1962–11/1965]. 4 Stuart Inder, ‘New Membe’r and a New Direction for SPC’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 35 (11), November 1964, 11.

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meeting with proposals backed by Fiji’s governor, Sir Derek Jakeway (also Britain’s senior commissioner on the SPC), to promote a better deal for Islanders in the organization’s affairs, but was completely frustrated, remarking that the Commission was simply ‘an exclusive club’ for metropolitan governments.5 If taken at face value, this suggests that the metropolitan powers were all lined up on one side in opposition to Island leaders on the other. But three of the five metropolitan governments – the UK, Australia and New Zealand – were also keen to see reforms occur and were often just as frustrated, especially with French obstructionism. A confidential 1968 New Zealand report provides an interesting snapshot of how matters were shaping up in the organization. France, it said, remained determined to restrict the influence of Island delegates, engaging in interminable ‘nit-picking at recommendations made by the conference’ while other Commissioners ‘soon allowed themselves to be goaded … by the constant sallies of the French Senior Commissioner’.6 A suggestion that territories might make a separate financial contribution to the SPC’s budget to give them a greater sense of responsibility was also objected to by the US, concerned that their own territories might then think that they could act in the own right. Interestingly, it was also noted that the UN had evinced little enthusiasm for providing SPC funding through its aid program because, in addition to the islands being considered too small to fit their kind of programs, the SPC was regarded as too much of a colonial club. There were also some critical remarks in the report about Mara and his tendencies to ‘petulance’.7 The momentum building for greater control came to a head at the Lae Conference, mainly over the ban on political discussion. The more general context, as Mara put it, concerned the moves to independence, something to which he was actually opposed for his own country at the time but which was nonetheless a topic he wanted to discuss: In 1962 Western Samoa had become independent and Nauru was on the way. In Fiji we were trying to stem the tide of independence whipped up by agitation at the United Nations. We wanted to talk about it, to hear the views of the main countries in the South Pacific Commission. But we were not allowed. France was the most insistent on this point, probably on account of its own vulnerable position 5

Quoted in Robert Langdon, ‘South Seas Regional Council May Grow out of Lae Talks’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 36 (8), August 1965, 23–4. 6 New Zealand, Department of External Affairs, Wellington, to Prime Minister, 27 February 1968, ArchNZ, ABHS W4628 6958, Box 29, Part 10, ‘Political Affairs  – Regional Arrangements – South Pacific Commission, 1966–1969’. 7 Ibid.

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5.1  Reforming Regionalism 115 in the Pacific, because of both its overseas territories there and its nuclear-testing programme at Muruoa Atoll…. I walked out of the conference and the rest of the delegates followed.8

Mara’s comments present an apparent contradiction. On the one hand, he wanted Indigenous delegates to have much more say in the Commission and accused the colonial powers of arrogance. On the other, he was strongly opposed to independence for Fiji and resented pressures at the UN pushing for rapid decolonization. Indeed, most Indigenous Fijian leaders of Mara’s generation had been strenuously resisting the ‘wind of change’, arguing consistently against decolonization. How is this apparent contradiction between Mara’s views on colonialism within the SPC and colonialism within Fiji to be explained? The answer is to be found largely within Fiji’s domestic context, and a long history of close relations between the dominant chiefly groups of eastern Fiji and the colonial authorities. Mara had much more of a sense of partnership with the British authorities, at least at a personal level, than of subordination. British colonial rule was nothing if not hierarchical (and certainly not democratic), but it was a hierarchy that had long co-opted Indigenous elites. Mara felt entirely comfortable in this setting. Another factor was the presence of a large Indo-Fijian population – descendants of migrants brought in from India to provide cheap plantation labour and often portrayed as threatening Indigenous interests. Apart from accommodating the Indigenous hierarchy, the British colonial system was regarded as a protective mechanism ensuring the paramount rights of Fiji’s Indigenous people (now generally known as Taukei) over those of other groups. Relevant aspects of Fiji’s colonial experience is discussed further when we come to consider the idea of the ‘Pacific Way’ as articulated by Mara. For now, we may surmise that Mara found interactions with other colonial powers within the Commission – France in particular – far less congenial than those he enjoyed with Fiji’s British colonial administration and that, at the time of the Lae Conference, he had no desire to see off. A Fijian participant in the SPC in this period confirms that Fiji’s internal politics were different from the regional sphere, with Fijians very close to British colonial administrators, ‘but because regional politics involved quite different considerations, so the relationship with [other] colonial powers was different’.9 8

Mara, Pacific Way, 170, emphasis added. 9 Jioji Kotabalavu, former secretary for foreign affairs for Fiji, later CEO of Prime Minister’s Office in Fiji under the Qarase government; former CEO of the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission (SPC’s Geoscience Division), personal interview, Suva, 13 September 2014.

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The UK, however, was committed to divesting itself of burdens in a region remote from its own strategic interests. In addition to a precarious financial situation at home, crises in other parts of the world had confronted the British government in the mid-1960s and, in January 1968, it decided to withdraw its forces from ‘East of Suez’ – a phrase subsequently entering the lexicon of foreign affairs to signal a major turning point in Britain’s history as a global power.10 British colonial ideology at this stage also embodied a telos with decolonization the logical end point. But if British colonial rule in Fiji had done much to bring local people into the administration, it had a very poor record in some other places. The Solomon Islands, for example, was an embarrassment: ‘The BSIP [British Solomon Islands Protectorate] government had provided neither education nor medical care; serious development for the benefit of inhabitants had never been on the agenda; and the state had always disqualified “primitive” Solomon Islanders from having any formal role in their own governance.’11 A system of indirect rule was instituted rather belatedly, and was purportedly grounded in selective elements of ‘native custom’ entailing some recognition of traditional leaders. The colonial government, however, was glaringly deficient in its knowledge of local social and political structures, which varied considerably throughout the islands, and could scarcely manage the process let alone implement a viable system.12 The deficiencies of colonial rule in the Solomons, including timely and appropriate preparation for self-government, were no doubt a factor in the near total breakdown of state functioning in more recent times, as set out in Chapter 9. The UK was not the only colonial power supporting moves to independence in the region. Much the same applied to New Zealand and Australia, even when there was little or no pressure from the territories in question. Leaders in Niue, for example, needed persuasion (by New Zealand) that independence was a viable option, although in this case there was a guarantee of continuing New Zealand responsibility for administrative and financial assistance as well as free access to New Zealand.13 All this was in complete contrast with the situation in the French territories where colonial authorities steadfastly refused to entertain independence as a viable political option, and tolerated political 10

See Gill Bennett, Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 95. 11 David W. Akin, Colonialism, Maasina Rule and the Origins of Malaitin Kastom (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2013), 5–6. 12 Ibid. 13 Radio New Zealand, transcript of interview with Mitiaiagimene Young Vivian, former SPC secretary-general and former premier of Niue, recorded 1995 (online).

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reforms only so long as they tended to preserve French rule.14 Such attitudes, which held firm across the French political spectrum, went hand in hand with a sense of national greatness – indeed an obsession with ‘la grandeur Française’,15 which had been inflated rather than undermined by the humiliation suffered in the world wars and which was played out across the French colonial world. Another account, however, says that in 1957 France had decided to set New Caledonia and French Polynesia on the path to autonomy by introducing a law providing for self-government, the loi-cadre, which allowed for genuine local decision-making. When de Gaulle came to power in 1958 it appeared that he would support this move and use it to underpin a new Communauté Française or French Commonwealth. But this never really materialized, and neither did self-government for France’s Pacific territories. Interestingly, conservative French scholars are wont to ‘accuse the British, and their Australian and New Zealander surrogates, of “inflicting” independence on their Pacific colonies after World War II’.16 However, if France had not been determined to pursue an independent nuclear capability to consolidate its status and prestige in the international sphere, which in turn required testing grounds in the Pacific, perhaps it, too, may have inflicted independence on its Pacific territories, given the huge cost of maintaining them. But since the Sahara Desert could no longer be used for testing due to the war in Algeria, French Polynesia proved a suitable alternative. As a result, the French Polynesian Council of Government was abolished in 1963 to prevent an autonomy movement developing, and the same treatment was meted out to New Caledonia. The result was that France was perceived, if it wasn’t already, as a reactionary power in the Pacific.17 We take up the story of France and its problematic role in regional politics again in Chapter 8. The UK was already a nuclear military power, having tested its weapons in Australia in the 1950s and on Christmas Island (now part of Kiribati) until the early 1960s. The UK therefore had its own independent nuclear capability and was in a weak position to criticize France for attempting the same. Australia and New Zealand, however, were to 14 Tony Smith, ‘A Comparative Study of French and British Decolonization’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 20 (1), 1978, 72, 84. 15 Ian Taylor, The International Relations of Sub-Saharan Africa (New York: Continuum, 2010), 52. 16 de Decker cited in Chappell, ‘“Africanization”’, 302. 17 Paul de Dekker, ‘Decolonisation Processes in the South Pacific Islands: A Comparative Analysis Between Metropolitan Powers’, Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, 26 (355), 1996, 358.

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become strong opponents of testing in the Pacific and in this they were more or less at one with their Island colleagues. In the meantime, following the altercation in Lae, a reform process was initiated and Mara was invited to submit proposals for the amendment of the constitution of the SPC, which he did in 1967.18 One participant recalls that most of the SPC ‘metropolitans’ were ‘sensitive enough to appreciate the aspirations of Pacific Islanders involved in the SPC and to recognise them as ready to take on the business of running regional affairs, and so did not stand in the way of change’.19 The reforms provided for a much stronger input from Indigenous delegates, including scheduling the Conference annually rather than triennially, but they did not involve a political agenda, including issues of trade. This led to a group of Indigenous leaders taking matters into their own hands by forming a small regional body of their own  – the Pacific Islands Producers’ Association (PIPA). The impetus is said to have come in 1964 when Mara, as Fiji’s chief minister, was negotiating a banana export contract with New Zealand and realized that to get a better deal it was essential for island countries to cooperate. PIPA was therefore designed to operate as something of a commercial pressure group.20 PIPA is also seen as a prelude to more significant moves by Indigenous leaders to establish a broader body with a political agenda that went ‘beyond bananas’.21 By the early 1960s, the SPC’s conference was still only a triennial event although it had been able to take at least some initiatives. One of these added to a deepening of inter-island regional relations and the development of regional identity at a different level. A South Pacific Games had first been suggested at the Conference by an Indo-Fijian delegate, Dr A. H. Sahu Khan, at the 1959 meeting in Rabaul and approved by the Commission in 1961. A South Pacific Games Council was established in 1962 and the first games held in Suva in 1963. It was among the first officially sponsored regional events that brought together Island people other than political and bureaucratic elites. This was to be followed in 1972 by the first Festival of Pacific Arts, again in Suva. Both continue to thrive as pan-regional events. 18

Mara, Pacific Way, 170–1. 19 Kotabalavu, interview. 20 Sione Kite, ‘The Microstates of the South Pacific: An Examination and Analysis of their Membership in the Commonwealth as Compared with the Importance of their Membership in Regional and International Organisations’, unpublished MA thesis, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, 1974, 22; Sandra Tarte, ‘Regionalism and Globalism in the South Pacific’, Development and Change, 20 (2), 1989, 183; see also Mara, Pacific Way, 168. 21 Kotabalavu, interview.

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Also notable are the logistical difficulties of bringing together delegates from around the Pacific in the early years. In 1962, Pacific Islands Magazine reported that around seventy delegates from eighteen Pacific territories were to attend the Conference in Pago Pago, going on to describe the routes planned to get there. Micronesian delegates sponsored by the US would travel from their various islands via Hawai’i and then on to Pago Pago; Cook Islanders would travel on a Royal New Zealand Air Force aircraft from Rarotonga to Pago Pago via Apia; Tokelauans and Niueans would travel by sea, French Polynesians direct by air while those from most of the other countries – Tonga, Netherlands New Guinea, Papua, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Hebrides, Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia and the staff of the Commission – would travel via Suva.22 So although roundly criticized in many respects, it was still the only organization capable of bringing Island leaders together at all at this stage. And there is no question that the opportunities it presented were highly valued, including the opportunity for Indigenous delegates to talk, at least informally, about political issues. Even so, by the early 1970s, the SPC was an organization under siege.23 Despite some reforms, it was unable to respond to the changes of the decolonizing region. But, as suggested earlier, this was not due to attitudes among all the colonial powers involved. The weight of evidence clearly points to French intransigence, highlighted not simply by leaders such as Mara but by other colonial powers too. In 1969, a New Zealand External Affairs memorandum noted ‘that New Zealand’s natural place lay among those advocating reform … rather than among those who looked for obstacles to its evolution…. Even a slight change would be seen by the French as the thin end of the wedge.’24 But frustration with the French did not mean that there were any serious moves to push them out of the SPC. Another report observed that: While we knew that Ratu Mara favoured changes and would, if necessary, be prepared to see the French forced out of the Commission, there was reason to question whether his views were generally shared by the territories…. Albert Henry [of the Cook Islands] certainly did not want to see the French forced out.25 22

‘The South Seas Will Meet at Pago Conference’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 32 (12), July 1962, 21. 23 Kiste, He Served, 61. See also John Eccles, ‘Not So Much Togetherness Now’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 41 (9), October 1970, 18. 24 To New Zealand High Commission, Canberra, from Secretary External Affairs, Wellington, 8/5/1969, ‘Quadripartite Consultations on the South Pacific Commission: Proposal for Review Committee’, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5. 25 To New Zealand High Commission, Canberra, from Secretary External Affairs, Wellington, 14/7/1969. Subject ‘Quadripartite Consultations on the South Pacific’,

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A report from Washington emphasized the need to keep the French ‘within the fold if Pacific cooperation is to be of any significance in the future’ and that they ‘must not be forced out by the pace of change’. It continued: It is possible that other territories may attempt to soften the impact of Ratu Mara’s approach. But to hold him in check essentially it is necessary for the British to … put it to him that if he wishes to push the point he does so at the risk of forcing out some of the richest and most populous Pacific territories—New Caledonia and Tahiti. (Blackburn has also said privately that if Ratu Mara thinks that a leader of a country the size of Fiji can bounce the United States into radical amendments of the Canberra Agreement ‘he has another thing coming’). The point was made to us that Australia and New Zealand could influence the situation by ‘stiffening up’ their response to approaches from the territories by pointing to the changes that have already taken place and by stating that the territories have not yet reached the constitutional state of development necessary for altering the Agreement.26

Regionalism, as it stood then, was still seen to be stronger with the French inside the SPC tent rather than outside it, and neither the other metropolitan powers nor the majority of Island leaders wanted to see them depart. Nonetheless, a political agenda was still to be pursued. Meanwhile, there was another important development – one initiated by the Commonwealth group and which took place outside the SPC. This was the founding of the USP, which began operations in 1968 at a campus situated on the site of a former Royal New Zealand Air Force base at Laucala Bay in Suva and with a charter issued by Queen Elizabeth II. Although established via a 1967 Fiji Legislative Ordinance, it was to serve the region more broadly. The ‘moving spirits in this endeavour’ were the UK and New Zealand, with participation from Australia.27 The specific recommendation came from a 1965 Higher Education Mission to the South Pacific, although there had been discussions in the 1960s in Fiji’s Legislative Council about the possibility of establishing a university college.28 The Mission’s report in 1966 recommended that a fully autonomous university be established ‘to serve the needs of the English speaking territories of the South Pacific’.29 At this stage, tertiary qualifications

26 27

28 29



attachment ‘Notes of a Meeting with Sir Gawain Bell on Monday 9 June’, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5. From New Zealand Embassy, Washington, to Secretary, External Affairs, Wellington, 11 December 1969, ‘Quadripartite Consultations on South Pacific: Review of South Pacific Commission’, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5. Ball, ‘Regionalism’, 243. University of the South Pacific, ‘Treasure of the Past  – The Humble Beginnings of USP’, n.d. (online). Jacqueline Leckie, ‘Foundations’, in Jacqueline Leckie (ed.), A University for the Pacific: 50 Years of USP (Suva: University of the South Pacific, 2018), 26.

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were restricted to a small (and largely male) elite among the islands. But for newly independent countries, and those with independence or self-government in sight, a greater pool of educated local people to serve in the public services and the professions as well people with skills in a range of other areas was needed.30 USP enrolments grew from an initial 154 to around 30,000 in 201731 with three campuses in Fiji as well as campuses in Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, with students also coming from other countries in the region and beyond. The location of the main campus in Suva, however, also enhanced Fiji’s position as a regional centre. Beyond that, the founding of USP with a central campus also provided students with the opportunity to socialize with peers from around the region, just as the SPC conferences had for delegates in earlier years. Previously, younger generations had little or no contact outside their own communities and, although there has always been a tendency to socialize within national groups, USP still provides an important point of contact for younger generations on a much wider regional basis than they may otherwise experience.32 5.2

The Political Agenda

By the early 1970s, much discontent among Island countries revolved around nuclear testing and was first raised at the Conference in 1970. Although clearly ‘political’, the Conference chair ruled it a health issue as well, given the effects of radiation fallout. The French delegation nonetheless walked out. The subject was dropped and remained off the agenda for the next two years, mainly because of concerns about pushing the French too far. At the 1973 Guam Conference, however, it was again introduced and, again, the French walked out. But on this occasion discussion continued and a resolution passed condemning French nuclear activity in the region. A study around this time suggested that Australia and New Zealand, both active in the broader political sphere in opposing French testing, played a significant role, and ‘gave the Island 30 Ibid., 29. See also Uentabo Fakaofo Neemia, Cooperation and Conflict: Costs, Benefits and National Interests in Pacific Regional Cooperation (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1986), 36–41. 31 Ibid., 150. 32 For further insights on the USP experience, as well as the close connection between USP and the ANU over the years, see Stewart Firth and Vijay Naidu (eds.), Understanding Oceania: Celebrating the University of the South Pacific and its Collaboration with the Australia National University (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019).

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leaders the psychological assurance that they would not be deserted by their two immediate Metropolitan neighbours in their insistence that the matter be given a full airing’.33 By this stage, the South Pacific Forum had been established as a body where political matters could be discussed but, apart from Australia and New Zealand, its Island membership was limited to the small number of countries that had so far gained independence or self-governing status, and so for most Island leaders the Conference remained their sole venue for discussion. In the same year as the Guam Conference, with adequate reforms still not realized and matters reaching a crisis point, the leader of the Australian delegation (from the Australian Labor Party) summed up the general contradictions within the SPC: The 1947 Canberra Agreement was a paternalistic document, based on a separation of the controlling metropolitan powers and their subject colonies. While the Agreement played a significant and valuable part in the economic, social and political development of the region, it has become increasingly out of step with the times. It is anachronistic that we have a South Pacific Commission, comprising the metropolitan powers, plus in recent years the independent Island states of the region, sitting in judgement over recommendations of the South Pacific Conference, at which only the Pacific Island states and territories have a vote.34

The statement went on to note that a de facto merger of the Conference and Commission sessions (de facto because of the difficulties in amending the Canberra Agreement) had received unanimous support from all the voting members of the Conference. But although this was hailed a success, the statement also mentioned continuing difficulties with France: The French delegation walked out of the meeting … when the Cook Islands introduced a draft resolution condemning French nuclear testing in the Pacific…. The support given by Australia to the resolution on this matter  – one not normally dealt with by the SPC – must be seen in the light of France’s disregard of the interim order of the International Court of Justice and on the detection over a widespread area of Australia of radioactive fallout from the French tests.35

The resolution was adopted by ten votes to five with American Samoa, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Niue and the New Hebrides opposing (Wallis and Futuna, and French Polynesia, were not present). However, the votes against did not mean that the testing was considered acceptable, 33

Kite, Microstates, 20. 34 Australia, Parliament, Report of the Australian Delegation to the Thirteenth South Pacific Conference, led by Hon. Don Willesee, Special Minister of State, Guam, 11–20 September 1973 (Canberra: Government Printer, 1974). 35 Ibid.

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but rather they ‘reflected the concern of some Island delegates that acceptance of the resolution might provoke the withdrawal of France from the Organisation’.36 By 1973, matters had reached crisis point and a meeting to review the SPC was scheduled for the following year. In the event, the meeting produced a memorandum of understanding (MOU) allowing some structural reform without requiring a constitutional amendment – a much more cumbersome business.37 Under the proposal, the Conference would become the organization’s governing body and take control of the entire work program, although budgetary matters and the nomination of senior officials would remain with metropolitan powers. This was approved at the 14th meeting in the Cook Islands in 1974.38 At the next year’s meeting, however, it seemed that dissatisfaction had not been assuaged. Ratu Mara again appeared as a major critic, arguing that the metropolitan powers still wielded too much influence and that the development needs of Island people were not being met. There was also concern by now that the functions of the SPC and the Forum overlapped too much and so another review conference was scheduled for Nauru in 1976.39 These ideas became cast as a debate about establishing a Single Regional Organization (SRO). In the meantime, decolonization was gathering pace. By 1970 Fiji, Tonga and Nauru had joined Western Samoa and the Cook Islands as independent entities. And with independence came greater political assertiveness. French nuclear testing remained a particularly thorny issue, but the French delegation continued to insist that it was a political matter precluded from discussion.40 The time was clearly ripe for a major change in the nature of the relationship between the metropolitan powers and the Pacific Islands – a change that the SPC with its entrenched modus operandi could not accommodate. Following the eventual establishment of the Forum, Mara summed up the sentiments of the time: ‘the Forum sprang from a feeling of frustration with the South Pacific Commission and Conference. Not perhaps so much with what it was doing as what it was not doing.’ The key problem was, obviously, the constraint on political discussions, ‘and as more of us neared or reached 36 Ibid. 37 See SPC, Report of the Fourteenth South Pacific Conference, ‘Memorandum of Understanding’, Annex C, Rarotonga, the Cook Islands, 25 September–4 October 1974. 38 Kiste, He Served, 62. 39 Ibid., 63. 40 Stuart Doran, Australia and the Origins of the South Pacific Forum (Canberra: Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2004), 5.

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independence we felt the need for a meeting place without such restriction’.41 The establishment of an entirely new regional organization with an explicit political mission as well as a wider range of economic objectives was now firmly on the agenda. As one former secretary-general observed, although the SPC had never intended doing so, ‘it promoted the very conditions favouring the development of a political agenda by bringing together the leaders of the different Island communities, giving them the opportunity to discuss common problems, to realize the extent of their common interests and to provide a means for the public expression of their needs and desires’.42 The establishment of the Forum as a politically oriented body took some pressure off the SPC in this respect, although the latter organization continued to undergo other reforms to give greater authority to Island leaders. In 1976, for example, a Samoan was appointed as secretary-general43 – indicating a shift in the balance of power within the organization. An advantage that the SPC also continued to enjoy over the Forum was its much more extensive membership. The secretarygeneral’s review in 1976 noted that it was still ‘the only organization in existence which brings together all the people of the Pacific, whatever their status. It includes all the territories – independent, self-governing and dependent, English and French-speaking’.44 That remains the case today. By 1976, the SPC was also able to list forty-five organizations from around the world with which it cooperated and from which it was often able to gain additional project funding.45 The SPC  – now the Pacific Community – remains the principal development organization in the Pacific Islands, attracting funding from a wide range of donor organizations and with a broad suite of cultural, scientific and technical programs. In implementing these, the organization has remained strictly apolitical and makes no value judgements when it comes to domestic political concerns, decolonization issues or regional crises, none of which affect its operations – including its ability to distribute funding. 41 Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, ‘National Press Club Address’, Canberra, 15 November 1979, National Library of Australia (NLA) ORAL TRC 701/A (transcript, quoted with permission). 42 T. R. Smith, third secretary-general of the SPC, quoted in SPC, Meeting House of the Pacific: The Story of the SPC 1947–2007 (Noumea: SPC, 2007), 82. 43 SPC, Meeting House, 92. 44 SPC, Report of the Fifteenth South Pacific Conference, Nauru, 29 September–8 October 1975, Annex A, ‘General Review by the Secretary-General on the Work Program and Budget, and on the Commission’s Achievements and Prospects’, 38, emphasis in original. 45 SPC, Sixteenth South Pacific Conference, ‘Report by the Secretary-General-General on the Previous Year’s Activities’, Annual Report, Noumea, 1976, 58–64.

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Its apolitical status has therefore turned out to be an advantage in later years, enabling it to remain aloof from episodes of political turbulence and continue its work without becoming embroiled in negotiating responses to crises – sanctions against coup-prone Fiji since 1987 being a major case in point.46 5.3

The Move to Political Regionalism

The establishment of the South Pacific Forum was clearly conceived as providing for an Island-led body and a venue for political discussion in the absence of the major colonial powers. Or, as it turns out, at least some of them. There is no question that France’s presence in the SPC thwarted anything that smacked of ‘politics’ getting onto the agenda due mainly to its determination to retain its Pacific possessions at all costs, allied with an equally strong resolve to achieve world status as a nuclear power. This made continuing colonialism in French Polynesia essential given the prime location of Muruoa Atoll in the Tuamotus, and the lack of viable alternatives. In the event, close to 200 nuclear devices were detonated, spreading radioactive fallout over a huge area. But the French were not the only ones. The US had conducted similar tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 while Britain, as noted earlier, had used remote territory in central Australia between 1956 and 1963 as well as Christmas Island. French nuclear testing, however, was to continue well into the 1990s ensuring that France’s presence in the region provoked continuing hostility at a number of levels and occupied a significant place on the regional political agenda. In contrast, the UK by the late 1960s was keen to divest itself of major responsibilities in the region and therefore encouraged greater political involvement in regional affairs by Islanders while also urging Australia and New Zealand to take on more responsibility. Like the French, the US had no interest in encouraging political activity and played no role in the move to establish a body dedicated to such matters – except to the extent that their own objections to political discussions in the SPC had further encouraged the move. The US was at the time dealing with discontent in its TTPI amid discussions over the future political status of the island groups there. In the face of demands for greater autonomy, the US aimed to ensure its own security interests rather than fulfil its obligations under the UN trusteeship agreement. But this was a time in which the metropolitan powers were ‘about to be 46

Cameron Diver, Deputy Director-General, Secretariat of the Pacific Community, personal interview, SPC Headquarters, Noumea, 11 October 2016.

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drawn into South Pacific affairs on terms laid down by the Islanders, not by themselves’.47 It is not clear exactly where the concrete proposal for a new regional body originated but it appears to have grown as an idea favoured by at least some of the metropolitan powers from around 1965, especially following the Lae Conference walkout, when informal talk of a ‘Regional Council’ to give Island leaders a greater say in political and economic affairs was in the air.48 The very idea of such a council was an important move in the direction of decolonizing regionalism. In 1967, the British Secretary of State for the Colonies reportedly stated that ‘Britain had been doing some serious “homework” on the possibility of forming the small Pacific groups of islands into viable trading and political associations’, and he expected Australia and New Zealand to take a proactive role. ‘With former colonial territories all over the world depending on her for aid, [Britain] finds herself saddled with scattered South Pacific islands in an area which is rightly an Australian and New Zealand responsibility.’49 The records of the WPHC for 1967 also mention the possibility of forming a ‘Pacific Consultative Council’, which Britain clearly wanted to promote.50 Australian records of a quadripartite consultation held in Washington in the same year show that Britain had given much thought to how ‘the four administering powers in the region should encourage the emergence of a grouping to replace colonial relationships’, and provided the following extract from the British papers: The most important function of the grouping would be to provide a forum in which leaders of the territory governments can discuss regional affairs…. Membership would be a crucial question. The best course might be to leave it to a founding group (perhaps W. Samoa, Tonga and Fiji) to work out a formula. Alternatively, the group might be a specifically ‘post-colonial’ one, admission to which would constitute a ‘birth certificate’ for a territory that had shed its colonial status.51

47 Stuart Inder, ‘Like the South Seas, We’ve Widened Our Horizons’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 41 (8), August 1970, 83. 48 Robert Langdon, ‘South Seas Regional Council May Grow Out of Lae Talks’, Pacific Islands Monthly, August 1965, 21. 49 ‘Britain Seeks New Ways of Running Its Island Realm’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 38 (3), March 1967, 9–10. 50 WPHC, ‘Administration  – General: Four Power Talks on South Pacific’, 100–3, 1967, CF345/6/Y, Special Collections, University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services. 51 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Political and Social Research Section, National Archives of Australia (NAA), File 277/1/1, ‘Notes on the Origin of the South Pacific Forum’, 29 June 1973, 2.

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The same source suggests that the British idea was ‘probably a further development of a proposal which they put forward after the Lae South Pacific Conference in 1965’, believed to have been developed as a means of reducing British responsibilities and ‘to satisfy the superficial thinking of Ratu Mara of Fiji expressed at Lae’.52 Another British paper, dated June 1968, discussed in further quadripartite consultations in Canberra, indicated continuing interest in promoting the idea but noted that, ideally, the initiative should come from the island territories themselves and that pressure from the metropolitan powers might prove counterproductive. The paper went on to propose a robust form of regional association: One possibility … is to encourage the island territories to form a central forum – some form of ‘Pacific Consultative Assembly’ … at which island leaders could discuss political and other matters of mutual interest or concern … Such an Assembly would no doubt be composed of territory members only…. it is in the interests of both metropolitan governments and the territories that the latter should not develop into a collection of mini-states without any form of cohesion, but that, in the interests of stability in the area, they should be encouraged to work together so far as geographical difficulties permit and to regard themselves as a Pacific family…. Given the acceleration in political evolution which can be detected at any rate in Fiji and Tonga, it seems to us a matter of some urgency to attempt to reach a common view on whether any progress in the direction of increasing cohesion amongst territories in political fields is possible and if so how it might be promoted or facilitated by the metropolitan governments.53

An initial response from New Zealand noted that British policy had ‘for some time been directed towards finding ways to reduce and finally terminate their colonial responsibilities in the area’,54 but there appeared to be little demand from the territories themselves, and it was noted that ‘it would be better to let political cooperation grow from existing associations rather than attempt to impose a new body for which there was at present no spontaneous demand’.55 It was agreed that time be set aside at the next SPC Conference for some general debate at which the more ‘sophisticated’ territories could air their views. Ratu Mara was reported 52

Ibid., 3. 53 UK, Pacific Consultations Canberra, June 1968. ‘Future Relationships Within the Area’, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5. 54 New Zealand, Department of External Affairs, Wellington to New Zealand High Commission, Canberra, 10/7/68, ‘Four-Power Consultations’, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5. 55 From New Zealand High Commission, Canberra, to Secretary External Affairs, Wellington, 19/7/1968. ‘Quadripartite Consultations on the South Pacific’, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5.

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as stressing the need for important territorial leaders to be present, but the New Zealand papers also noted that Mara’s statement ‘had no doubt been prompted by a wish to inflate his own importance’.56 Whether such acerbic comments about Mara reflected similar attitudes among other Island leaders is another matter, although there is little doubt that Mara’s influence (and Fiji’s position generally) in regional affairs did provoke a certain resentment. One Australian report mentioned that Fiji, under Ratu Mara, had by the early 1970s ‘made clear its claim to speak for the South Pacific in international affairs – a claim yet to be established with the other island states and territories, which appear to entertain some doubts and suspicions in relation to Fiji’.57 A later report on general SPC matters commented that ‘[i]t would be fair to say, and no doubt Ratu Mara would agree, that Fiji’s approach to the SPC since about 1964 has been characterized by pretty continuous sniping at, and occasional broadsides against, the Commission’.58 By the beginning of the 1970s, Australia had developed a position on how matters could be moved forwards. One report noted disillusionment with the French in the SPC, and evinced sympathy with the British idea of a new regional body. There was also concern at prospects for Papua and New Guinea. Australia did not want it to be ‘sucked into the cockpit of Asia’. A ‘real political context’ in the South Pacific would provide it with a genuine alternative.59 Another report noted that ‘whether Papua-New Guinea is to be considered a part of the region depends essentially on political decisions to be taken by indigenous leaders in the Territory’.60 These factors explain why Australia was keen to involve Papua New Guinea in the affairs of the Forum at the earliest possible opportunity, as well as to promote it within the SPC, although this was to provoke the ire of Mara, as we see shortly. Another Australian concern was longstanding Russian interest in Papua and New Guinea, as evidenced by repeated requests to the territory by the Russian ambassador in Canberra and by Soviet journalists, as well as in the UN, ‘where it has adopted a doctrinaire anti-colonial attitude expressed in propagandist terms, sometimes violently so’. On 56 Ibid. Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Canberra, Policy Planning Paper, ‘Australian Policy in the South Pacific’, LP.4/71 Rev.1, 5 October 1971, 4. NAA, A1838, 280/18 Part 1. 58 From K. Desmond to Rowen Osborn, High Commission, Suva, September 1971, NAA, A1838, 280/18 Part 1. 59 Desmond to Osborn, 1971. 60 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Canberra, Policy Planning Paper, ‘Australian Policy in the South Pacific’, LP.4/71 Rev.1, 5 October 1971, 4. NAA, A1838, 280/18 Part 1, 16. 57

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Papua New Guinea’s attainment of independence, ‘the Soviet Union can be expected, in the context of its policy of developing a significant presence in South-East Asia, to move quickly to enter into diplomatic relations with Papua-New Guinea, to establish a mission there, to offer aid, especially scholarships, and to seek to develop trade’.61 The US position at the time was almost identical to the French as far as political evolution and regional cooperation were concerned. The US was also said to support stronger elements of subregionalism given that there were three major groupings, namely, Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesian, scattered over a vast area, and that the development of functional relationships at a subregional level might be more practical. Even so, the US ‘intended to discourage any relationships that might lead to independence movements or conflicting loyalties, especially in the US territories to the North’.62 The US version of subregionalism might therefore be seen as directed to insulating its own interests in northern Oceania from wider regional developments, especially in Polynesia where moves to independence had gathered pace. As for the SPC, the US position had not changed since the previous year when the report of its SPC delegation insisted, in the face of continuing criticisms, that ‘the Commission was no longer a paternalistic body but one in which the territories and metropoles could sit as equals to discuss common problems and that the revitalized Conference would give annual direction to the Commission’s work program’.63 The notion that the Island leaders really did sit as equals, however, was not shared by most of the other participants, including Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand’s Norman Kirk, the Labour Party leader who was to become prime minister in 1972, issued a proposal in 1968 to ‘meet many of the political deficiencies in the regional scene’, suggesting that a Pacific council of parliamentarians modelled along the lines of the Nordic Council be established. It could ‘include Australia, New Zealand, and the mini-states of the south-west Pacific which have common historical, cultural and legal traditions, and common interests’, and which could be extended at some future point to encompass 61 Ibid. 62 From New Zealand High Commission, Canberra, to Secretary External Affairs, Wellington, 3 September 1968, ‘Quadripartite Consultations on the Pacific: US views of British Proposals for Regional Cooperation’, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5. 63 ‘Report of the United States Delegation Thirtieth Session, South Pacific Commission, October 10–20, 1967’, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5.

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neighbouring Southeast Asian and other Pacific nations. Kirk’s vision extended to: • The development of a two-way immigration policy based on equality and ignoring questions of race, colour and religion. • The establishment of a South Pacific ‘forum’ to handle political and economic problems in the region. • The setting up of an Asia-Pacific central cash fund to aid regional development and to harness the power of the economic giant Japan.64 The Kirk proposal was the first (as far as can be judged from the records) to use the term ‘South Pacific forum’, although obviously not yet as a formal name. Australia’s approach to the region at this time sometimes appeared rather languid, at least at prime ministerial level. In addition to supporting Indonesia on the issue of West Papua, a media report by Pacific Islands Monthly’s R. W. Robson complained of how little interest had been shown by conservative Prime Minister John Gorton. The latter had apparently passed through Hawai’i and Fiji on his way back from a meeting in London of Commonwealth prime ministers in January 1969, but displayed no interest in acquiring a deeper understanding of events in the region as he went. This was at a time when Fiji was moving closer to independence and when the prospect of civil strife seemed to be a real possibility. Robson highlighted the strategic importance of Fiji’s location in the region and went on to set out the implications for regional security once Britain had withdrawn from the region, including the fact that Australia would very soon have to take much more responsibility.65 Two years later, at the inaugural meeting of the Forum, all those leading the delegations were heads of government, except Australia. Even when the second meeting was held in Canberra in 1972, Australia’s Prime Minister McMahon attended only at the opening ceremony, after which Australia’s participation was left to the foreign affairs minister.66 Even so, the record indicates that Australia, as well as New Zealand and Britain, favoured moving towards a political body and, while not pushing it too far publicly, encouraged Island leaders in that direction in their confidential discussions, much of which would have occurred at a

64

Norman Kirk, ‘South Pacific Council Proposals’, Socialist International Information, 17 August 1968, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5. 65 R. W. Robson, ‘Australia’s Role in the South Pacific’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 40 (2), February 1969, 31. 66 Kite, Microstates, 25.

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bilateral level since the larger gathering was only ever held at SPC meetings. And if conservative Australian prime ministers of the period sometimes appeared indifferent, the cabinet papers and other documents of the time show that serious attention was being paid to regional development at other levels. Also, although dissatisfaction had been expressed with the prospects of reform in the SPC, especially by Ratu Mara, albeit with some support from Nauru and the Cook Islands, and with Western Samoa and Tonga also offering criticisms from time to time, a 1969 New Zealand report said that other territories appeared ‘content with current arrangements’.67 By early 1970, there was still no overt movement by Island leaders to forge ahead with a new political body, indicating uncertainty or ambivalence about such a move. Towards the end of 1970, a New Zealand report said that of the ‘many political forums that have been suggested, none seem yet to have got off the ground, perhaps because none of the prospective fathers has wished to run the risk of siring a white elephant’. Reports from the 1970 SPC Conference, however, indicate continuing dissatisfaction among some Pacific Island countries, although it was not always channelled effectively. ‘That was a conference marked in its first week by timorous, unproductive attempts to state the reforms desired, and marked in its second week by headstrong delegates using French nuclear testing as a target for their rising anti-colonial emotions.’ Fiji was again singled out as the country pressing hardest for self-determination inside the SPC. But Western Samoa’s prime minister, Tupua Tamasese Lealofi IV, also ‘acted as a catalyst in an attempt to convene a meeting of Prime Ministers of the independent states for early 1971’. He favoured the idea of the SPC becoming a political forum, ‘an arena where he could criticise French nuclear testing, a forum for trade, aviation and shipping co-operation’. And after observing the 10th Conference in Suva, Tamasese reportedly said that ‘he felt the organisation was so inadequate he wanted a Polynesian Prime Ministers’ meeting’.68 According to the report, however, this idea was expounded only in generalities. It also mentioned that earlier variants had included suggestions of a South Pacific Commonwealth grouping, although nothing had come of it.

67

To New Zealand High Commission, Canberra, from Secretary External Affairs, Wellington, 8 May 1969, ‘Quadripartite Consultations on the South Pacific Commission: Proposal for Review Committee’, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4188, Record No. 301/4/1, Part No. 5. 68 From Secretary of Foreign Affairs to: Ambassador, NZ Embassy Washington, 9 December 1970, ArchNZ, PM 304/4/1.

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5.4

The South Pacific Forum

We have seen that Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa had already taken a significant initiative in establishing PIPA in 1965. Although it existed for less than a decade, it signalled a broader engagement by Island leaders acting in their own right. In 1968 its terms of reference were extended to encompass joint ventures as well as regional transport, fisheries and island handicrafts.69 By 1970 it had a constitution, an annual conference and subsidiaries and, by 1971, an advisory committee consisting of the prime ministers of Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa, the Cook Islands’ premier, and the leaders of government business of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and of Niue. In practice, however, its annual meetings were generally attended only at ministry (of agriculture) level. Although its constitution did not mention a political role, it did not preclude one and PIPA could have evolved to provide a political voice.70 Indeed, at its 7th session in Apia in 1972, it registered a strong protest against continuing French nuclear testing in the region.71 Its operations, however, were limited by financial constraints, given that contributions to its core funding were raised only among its fairly small membership. PIPA membership did not include any of the metropolitan powers, leading one observer to suggest that the exclusion of Australia and New Zealand ‘may have had a good deal to do with the establishment of the Forum’,72 implying that these two metropolitan countries played a central role in promoting it. However, the Forum is usually seen as an Islander initiative, or more especially an initiative of chiefly leaders.73 According to one source, it was within PIPA – at their 6th meeting in Tonga in April 1971 – that discussions first took place about forming a larger regional body, apparently on the initiative (once again) of Fiji’s Ratu Mara who was then tasked with taking matters forwards.74 But this followed several years of encouragement by Australia, New Zealand and the UK, all of which were keen to see a specific initiative emerge from among Island leaders. A significant public statement about the possibility of a new organization had come from another Island leader earlier in June 1970. The Cook Islands’ premier, Albert Henry, had publicly declared that the South Pacific region needed a ‘mini-United Nations Organisation’ 69

Kite, Microstates, 23. 70 M. Margaret Ball, ‘Regionalism and the Pacific Commonwealth’, Pacific Affairs, 46 (2), 1973, 241. 71 Kite, Microstates of the South Pacific, 24. 72 Ball, ‘Regionalism’, 243. 73 Kotabalavu, interview, 2014. 74 Kite, Microstates, 24.

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operating independently of the SPC and catering for political discussion. While Henry believed the SPC should remain in place he was equally convinced that Island leaders required their own, separate organization. ‘The SPC is still a paternal body, formed by metropolitan powers and it’s still a metropolitan power showcase, despite the trend for more say for the Islanders.’75 But he added that ‘soap box politics’ by Island leaders should have no place in the SPC but rather in a different kind of organization. Not all metropolitan powers, however, should be excluded and Henry had in fact approached Australia and New Zealand for support for a new regional body, without which he thought it was unlikely to succeed. These countries, he said, were in any case an integral part of the Pacific while the US, Britain and France were not. He noted in particular that he had not consulted the French ‘because their attitude is dogmatic’.76 Whatever role Henry, Mara and other Island leaders played, New Zealand, supported by Australia, was certainly proactive in instigating the first meeting of the Forum, and not strictly behind the scenes. In December 1970, the New Zealand minister for Island and Maori affairs announced publicly that he would encourage ‘a political forum where island countries can meet on equal terms with Australia and New Zealand’.77 This obviously took place in advance of PIPA’s April 1971 meeting, so it seems that it was an error to credit that meeting (and Mara) with having actually initiated the first Forum meeting. Kotabalavu recalls New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake being asked to convene a meeting of Island leaders in Wellington and, ‘having asked for such assistance, it was felt that NZ [New Zealand] must be asked to join, and Australia too, as without them the Forum would not be viable. They were both in the region – not like ‘metropolitan’ powers – and so were regarded differently.’78 To move matters forwards, the New Zealand prime minister issued a formal letter of invitation to leaders of the independent and self-governing countries – the Cook Islands, Fiji, Nauru, Tonga and Western Samoa – as well as Australia, to a meeting in Wellington in 1971. This meeting was to be the effective founding moment of the South Pacific Forum. With respect to Australia’s and New Zealand’s inclusion, this was unusual for a ‘Third World’ regional organization and has created certain anomalies.79 75 ‘Albert Henry Wants a New South Pacific Forum’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 41 (6), June 1970, 26. 76 Ibid. 77 Quoted in Ball, ‘Regionalism’, 243. 78 Kotabalavu, interview. 79 Peter Brown, Australian Influence in the South Pacific (Canberra: Australian Defence College, 2012); see also Herr, ‘Frontiers’, 51; Sandra Tarte, Fiji’s Role in the South Pacific Forum, 1971–1984, unpublished BA(Hons) thesis, University of Melbourne, 1985, 9.

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A media report of the time suggested that self-determination movements in the South Pacific differed from such movements elsewhere in wishing to maintain close colonial contacts, attributable to ‘few feelings of strong antagonism to vestiges of colonial influence’ as well as ‘the desire to use their colonial contacts for economic assistance, for diplomatic assistance, and for migration opportunities’.80 Even so, the exclusion of the US, France and the UK signalled a shift away from direct involvement by great powers and, in the absence of France in particular, facilitated discussion of the most vexed political issues of the time: decolonization and nuclear testing. At the UN in 1972, a brief statement about the Forum by Fiji’s deputy prime minister, Ratu Sir Edward Cakobau, suggested that it grew out of the needs and wishes of all those who were party to its founding, reflecting the probability that credit was due all round. The organization, he said, ‘was called to answer the need of small newly independent Island nations to reach out beyond the confines of their own shores to share the common experience of Government’, adding that, it also ‘helped to meet the wish of New Zealand and Australia to establish a post-colonial relationship’ with the island states.81 New Zealand’s self-image at the time was that it was ‘reasonably well regarded’ among Island leaders, as evidenced by the fact that they had chosen to come to Wellington for their inaugural meeting, although other options may have been in short supply. Suva may have been a suitable venue, but Mara was no doubt sensitive to the fact that his prominence in regional affairs could provoke resentment. The newly independent Island countries were also going to expect more of New Zealand by way of advice and assistance ‘and, so long as it is not too obvious, leadership’. New Zealand sources also mentioned that ‘Ratu Mara [is] not happy over the Australian presence in Wellington [but we have] emphasized that … dislike of Australia was a luxury none of us can afford’, and that instead of taking the negative line that Australia simply does not ‘understand the Pacific and was only interested in its commercial exploitation, it would be much more productive … to take the opportunity provided by the forum to influence Australian thinking in more positive directions’. Elsewhere it was reported that: ‘The island states are a trifle nervous of Australia,’82 but it was also observed that ‘Western Samoa

80

Anthony Haas, ‘Self-Rule in the South Pacific’, Observer Foreign News Service, no. 27789, 1 June 1970. 81 Quoted in Tarte, Fiji’s Role, 42. 82 New Zealand, Department of External Affairs, ‘Confidential: South Pacific Forum, Wellington: 5–7 August 1971, Brief for New Zealand Delegation’, ArchNZ, ref: ICW2266 2, record no. 327.

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would welcome a greater Australian presence’.83 These remarks illustrate perceptions about certain differences between Australia and New Zealand in their approach to the islands, and varying images of these two countries among Island leaders. More generally, the New Zealand briefs noted that it was a good time to start building a ‘new style of regional solidarity’, and that the Forum was ‘a good start’ while also noting that the SPC must still be supported ‘and so far as possible brought up to date to deal with the new situation’.84 Senior Australian officials were at least aware of some negative attitudes towards Australia and had the capacity to reflect critically on Australia’s shortcomings. A candid assessment of Australia’s role in the region was presented in a substantial policy planning paper relating to general regional developments produced soon after the Forum’s first meeting. On the question of Australia’s reputation, it said that: Unfortunately, one cannot escape the conclusion, despite past official optimism on this score, that the islanders tend not to like what they see. Despite the widespread notion in Australia that there is a basic fund of goodwill towards Australia in the islands, Australia has a poor image which arises directly from a combination of persistent factors: Australia’s restrictive immigration policy in the face of islander over-population and limited employment opportunities, especially for educated islanders … Australia’s heavily, and in most cases increasingly, favourable balance of trade … the widespread view which some islanders have come close to expressing officially, that Australia has in the region an economic asset for which it neither feels nor exercises any real responsibility beyond its own benefit; the association of Australians with racially discriminatory practices in the Islands themselves; in all, a feeling that Australia is concerned only for its own interests in the region, principally commercial profit, and too indifferent to the welfare of the islands to assume the responsible leadership for which it is naturally fitted by its geographic and economic position, and which, it is becoming increasingly clear, island leaders wish it to assume.85

The report further observed that Australia’s standing in the region could be improved if they were seen to cooperate politically with Islanders ‘on a basis of equality’.86

83

New Zealand High Commission, Suva, outward telegram, ‘Confidential, South Pacific Forum, 30 July 1971’, ArchNZ, ref: ABHS W5399 6942 Box 158, record no. API 301/1/2. 84 New Zealand, Department of External Affairs, ‘Confidential: South Pacific Forum, Wellington: 5–7 August 1971, Brief for New Zealand Delegation’, ArchNZ, ref: ICW2266 2, record no. 327. 85 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Canberra, Policy Planning Paper, ‘Australian Policy in the South Pacific’, LP.4/71 Rev.1, 5 October 1971, 4. NAA, A1838, 280/18 Part 1, 29. 86 Ibid.

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But if Australia’s attitude was problematic, it was not the only one. Another comment in the New Zealand briefing papers produced ahead of the first Forum meeting mentions the attitudes of Polynesian leaders towards Melanesians. ‘One tendency which should if possible be checked is the apparent preference of the Polynesians to ignore or exclude the Melanesians from their counsels.’87 These remarks point to an emergent Melanesia/Polynesia subregional political divide that played into aspects of both the SPC and the Forum in its early years. Correspondence from the Australian high commissioner in Suva reported on a meeting with Mara, noting that with respect to the forthcoming inaugural Forum meeting, ‘he is implacable in his antagonism to any form of participation by PNG [Papua New Guinea]’. Some of Mara’s comments are quoted verbatim: ‘Why is Australia always pushing PNG?’; ‘Why equate independent countries with PNG?’; ‘If there is participation in any form by PNG the Forum will not be held.’ But it was not only within the Forum that Mara attempted to exclude Papua New Guinea influence. The correspondence also noted Mara’s ‘emotional and illogical’ reaction to the candidature of a Papua New Guinean, Oala Oala-Rarua, for the position of SPC secretary-general that Australia was sponsoring. Mara reportedly stated that ‘if Oala is elected it will be the end of the Commission’ and ‘Who has ever heard of Oala?’88 Given that Oala-Rarua had been a Papua New Guinea delegate to the 1970 SPC Conference in Suva, and that he had spoken out strongly against the prohibition of political discussions, Mara’s latter remarks here are disingenuous. Mara knew perfectly well who he was, and his comment can only be interpreted as suggesting he was a person of no importance. A comment in another report of a meeting with a Nauruan senior commissioner said that Nauru had supported the appointment of Oala-Rarua and ‘spoke with distaste’ of the ‘Fijian pressures’ exercised in the matter.89 The Australian report cited earlier also noted that, although generally more supportive than Mara, negative attitudes were sometimes evident from Western Samoa and Tonga. The report continued: ‘Ratu Mara is conscious of his aristocratic Polynesian ancestry. He is a blood relation to the Prime Minister of Western Samoa and Tonga. I believe that he 87 New Zealand, Department of External Affairs, ‘Confidential: South Pacific Forum, Wellington: 5–7 August 1971, Brief for New Zealand Delegation’, ArchNZ, ref: ICW2266 2, record no. 327. 88 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Inward Cablegram, from Australian High Commission, Suva, to Foreign Minister, Canberra, re: ‘Pacific Forum Wellington Meeting’, 4 July 1971, NAA, A1838, 280/18, Part 1, ‘South Pacific Commission (SPC) – Fijian Policy’. 89 Australia, Office of Australian Representative, Nauru Island, to Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs, NAA, 223/3/1 no. 442, 17 December 1971, 2.

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sees PNG in the image of a primitive upstart nation and by virtue of its numbers likely to take leadership in the Pacific from the more sophisticated Polynesians.’90 With independence on the horizon, however, both Australia and New Zealand were concerned to keep Papua New Guinea oriented to the Pacific Islands region rather than see it turn towards Southeast Asia. Whatever Mara’s attitude to Papua New Guinea at the time, it appeared to change within a relatively short period of time. Kotobalavu recalls that, as the Melanesian countries moved to independence, Mara developed close personal relations with leaders such as Michael Somare of Papua New Guinea and Ati George Sokomanu of Vanuatu. In addition, leaders from Solomon Islands and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands had ties to Fiji and to Ratu Mara due to their participation in the WPHC, and many had also been educated in Fiji. ‘So it was easy for them to arrive at decisions by consensus based on personal friendships or mutual deference.’91 Mara’s letter requesting that New Zealand organize the first meeting of the Forum had also suggested that the relevance of Western-style democracy in Island politics was an appropriate topic for discussion.92 This was probably related at least partly to Fiji’s particular demographic mix, but perhaps also to his Polynesian chiefly identity. Mara had never faced a general election – having achieved his formal leadership positions by appointment under British colonial rule – and would not do so until 1972. Campaigning for votes was not quite ‘chiefly’, and the possibility of losing was no doubt humiliating. Australian perspectives on the general moves to create a political forum at this time were summarized in March 1971 by foreign affairs minister Lesley Bury. Referring to a detailed cabinet submission, he stated that this document: [A]rgues a case for Australia and New Zealand participation in consultative arrangements that we believe the independent countries of the Pacific … wish to establish to avoid the restrictive and inhibitory framework of the South Pacific Commission and Conference, where deference has now to be paid to French and, to a lesser extent, American, objections to wide-ranging discussions. 90

Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Inward Cablegram, from Australian High Commission, Suva, to Foreign Minister, Canberra, re: ‘Pacific Forum Wellington Meeting’, 4 July 1971, NAA, A1838, 280/18, Part 1, ‘South Pacific Commission (SPC) – Fijian Policy’. 91 Kotobalavu, interview. 92 A copy of this letter was not found in the New Zealand archives, but is summarized in an Australian document: Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Political and Social Research Section, ‘Notes on the Origin of the South Pacific Forum’, 29 June 1973, NAA, 277/1/1, 7.

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The Departments of Trade and Immigration accept and endorse the argument that although closer association with island governments exposes to criticism our trade imbalance and restrictive immigration policy, that is something that would occur in any case, and is most effectively dealt with against a background of political co-operation and consultation. The Department of Defence concurs in the references to our interest in the peace and stability of the area, and the possible deterioration in our strategic position if some of the Territories involved became unduly influenced by countries unfriendly to us. The Department of External Territories accepts the assessment of the inadequacies of the South Pacific Commission to meet new political needs and the desirability of taking these up in a more limited Commonwealth grouping. They believe Papua and New Guinea should be associated from the outset with the new proposal. The Government of New Zealand has already endorsed the concept and appears to have been fairly active in canvassing island opinions in the Polynesian Territories…. Having established a common position with New Zealand, we should inform the British, the Americans and the French of our intentions, and proceed with approaches to the Islanders.93

The full submission also stressed that if ‘Island interest and support is to be maintained, the initiative for the creation of a separate political forum must come from the Islanders themselves’.94 And on the broader view of regionalism, it was considered important for everyone’s interests, including those of the territories, that: [T]he latter should not develop into a collection of mini-states without any form of cohesion. On the contrary, they should be encouraged to develop a regional consciousness and to work together so far as geography permits. The greater the cohesion of the region the better it will be able to deal with external forces, and where necessary to resist external penetration without the need for assistance….95 …I believe we should go beyond mere encouragement, and … should do what we can to influence Island thinking towards the inclusion of ourselves and New Zealand in a forum…. Our participation at an early stage would be preferable to delaying, and perhaps risking the development of arrangements from which we were excluded.96

Immediate consultations with New Zealand were recommended ‘with a view to agreement in principle on the desirability of encouraging the 93

Australia, Minister for Foreign Affairs (Leslie Bury), ‘Political Consultation  – The South Pacific’, Canberra, March 1971, NAA, A1838, 280/18. The full submission is enclosed with these papers. 94 Ibid., 10, emphasis added. 95 Ibid., 10. 96 Ibid., 11–12.

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Islanders to take the initiative in setting up a new political forum separate from the South Pacific Commission and Conference’.97 It is relevant to note that neither the French nor the Americans were opposed to the formation of a new body with political aspirations. On France, the submission observed that it was ‘not opposed to the Islanders having a political assembly, but it will be up to the Islanders to create this assembly if they feel that the Conference is not sufficient’.98 Also noteworthy are the comments on the effects of a new political body on the SPC: [T]he diversion of political debate and frustration from the SPC and its organs would enable it more efficiently to discharge its primary function as an aid and technical assistance agency … the Conference has attracted the interest of Island leaders more for its forum than its aid aspect … following the creation of a new forum (with or without our cooperation), their interest in the SPC could well diminish. This would be unfortunate. Nevertheless, the French attitude effectively leaves us the straightforward choice between either allowing political strains to continue to build up to danger levels in the SPC, or allowing a new forum to be set up both as a desirable step in its own right and as a safety valve for the SPC.99

In organizing the first meeting in Wellington, invitations were sent out by New Zealand Prime Minister Keith Holyoake in July 1971 to the heads of government of Fiji, Tonga, Western Samoa, the Cook Islands and Nauru. The invitation to Ratu Mara, which was more or less identical to the others, set out what had obviously been discussed informally in the period immediately preceding: On behalf of the Government of New Zealand I should like to invite you to join with the Prime Ministers of Western Samoa and Tonga, the President of Nauru, the Premier of the Cook Islands, and representatives of the Australian Government, to discuss, privately and informally, a wide range of issues of concern to the South Pacific as a whole. I believe that you and your colleagues would be glad to have an opportunity to have talks in such a forum, at a time when more and more Pacific nations are assuming full responsibility for the running of modern administrations and economies. The New Zealand Government is firmly of the view that the future well-being of the people of the South Pacific can be assured only by the close cooperation of all, and is glad to host a meeting which will serve to strengthen the ties between us.100 97 98 99 100

Ibid., 20. Ibid., 10. Ibid., 13. New Zealand High Commission, ‘Formal Letter of Invitation from the PM to Ratu Mara’, 6 July 1971, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950 Box 4191 Part no. 1, Title: Pacific Islands: Political Affairs  – South Pacific Forum: Delegations [06/71–06/75], 1971–1975.

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The first meeting of what would officially be called the South Pacific Forum was held in Wellington on 5–7 August 1971 with the heads of government of Fiji, Tonga, Western Samoa, the Cook Islands and Nauru in attendance along with the New Zealand prime minister and the Australian minister for external territories. An Australian policy paper produced shortly afterwards described the event as ‘an encouraging start’: The proceedings were businesslike, cordial, devoid of controversy, and covered many subjects of common concern to the islands: Communications, trade, investment, tourism, law of the sea, oceanic resources, development, French nuclear tests, education and others. There was no aid-begging. The island leaders … valued the participation of Australia and New Zealand, and looked to them for practical help and guidance. They used the meeting to start to co-ordinate, at the highest level, the activities in which their countries engage together, and to engage the attention and help of Australia and New Zealand. It was clear that all present saw the value of such consultation, and that they wished it to be continuing and regular.101

The Forum was off to a good start, despite Australia being the only country not represented by a head of government. Some discussion items clearly overlapped with matters already dealt with at the SPC, a problem that would soon lead to the SRO debate. In the meantime, it seemed that with a venue for political discussions at last available, at least some of the frustrations of the past could be left behind. But the future of the Forum still provoked doubts, especially given ongoing reforms in the SPC. A speech delivered by Tamasese in September 1970, just before the first Forum meeting, pointed out the potential for the region to be subdivided. He noted that already with PIPA and the USP there was a tendency for the Commonwealth territories and governments ‘to congregate to themselves to the exclusion of others’. Forum membership would also consist only of Commonwealth countries. With that in mind, Tamasese noted that the SPC would continue to provide the only venue through connecting all the ‘peoples of the South Pacific’.102 5.5 Conclusion The emergence of the South Pacific Forum signalled a new direction for regional organization. Its founding may be seen as a challenge to the SPC but it is probably more accurate to see it as having saved the 101



102

Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Canberra, Policy Planning Paper, ‘Australian Policy in the South Pacific’, LP.4/71 Rev.1, 5 October 1971, 4. NAA, A1838, 280/18 Part 1, 29–30. Australia, Department of External Territories, ‘The Future of the South Pacific Commission, the 1971 Conference/Session’, 29 October 1971, 5. NAA, A452, 1968/ A452.

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SPC from rupture. Ratu Mara had been a prominent figure in stoking tensions in the SPC, but other Island leaders had also played a role, if not quite so publicly. In the event, with politics shifted to an alternative venue, further reforms could be undertaken within the SPC, making it somewhat less colonial in character by giving Island participants a major role while retaining membership of all the metropolitan powers. For although France had proved to be the most difficult member by far, neither the other metropolitan powers nor most of the Indigenous leaders wished the French territories, and all the people in them, to be excluded from what was still the region’s principal organization and which would certainly have been weaker without them. Australia and New Zealand had been equally frustrated with the lack of a venue for political discussion, especially at a time when a number of former territories had already become independent or self-governing, and with the prospect of Melanesian territories joining them in the near future. And if Australia had not always appeared to be fully engaged with the region, at least at the prime ministerial level, New Zealand was very closely attuned to developments there. The record also shows that Australia and New Zealand played a key role in establishing the Forum, although they were concerned not to be seen as pushing too hard. Britain, now proactively decolonizing in the region, was just as keen to see local leaders taking control over their own affairs and engaging in regional affairs in their own right with Australia and New Zealand also taking more of a lead. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the UK was probably the first to promote the idea of a separate Indigenous-led regional organization with a political agenda. In addition to highlighting the fact that the metropolitan powers scarcely operated as a single bloc, and that there was a very clear difference in outlook and policy between those resisting political developments and those encouraging it, this chapter also has shown that differences, and sometimes tensions, existed between Island leaders as well. Apart from the dominance of Fiji under Mara’s leadership sometimes aggravating other Island leaders, there was also a clear tendency among some Polynesian leaders to look down on their Melanesian counterparts. These differences were to have implications for ‘the Pacific Way’ and identity issues more generally in regional politics.

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6

Regionalism the ‘Pacific Way’

The transformations that took place in the wake of decolonization included changes not just in the organizational arrangements reviewed in Chapter 5 but in discourses of regional identity as well. Given the recently acquired sovereignty of former colonial states, these discourses were bound to reflect a certain assertiveness among the Island elites who had led their countries to independence, acquiring a new status and identity in the international sphere in the process. This was initially expressed through the idea of a ‘Pacific Way’, which, in its simplest formulation, indicates a way of doing things unique to the Indigenous people of the region. As with any form of identity it therefore asserts difference, which then raises the question of different from whom, or what, and how? The initial formulation of the Pacific Way took place in the context of decolonization, but it was by no means hostile to all the colonial powers in the region. Over time, however, it did take on a certain postcolonial resonance in asserting a Pacific Island identity in contrast with the West, or at least certain aspects of it. More specifically, it entailed the affirmation of traditional modes of politics vis-à-vis Western modes. Concepts of ‘tradition’ invoked in this context, however, generally had a distinctive Polynesian flavour and did not necessarily accord with expressions of identity in the Melanesian subregion, even though sentiment in Melanesian countries was generally much more anti-colonial. This highlights some of the ambiguities of regional identity and politics in the emergent post-colonial period. The discussion begins with an account of the context within which Ratu Mara first articulated his notion of the Pacific Way. This includes developments in Fiji in the period leading to independence and Mara’s relationship with the British colonial administration. We saw previously that Mara had initially resisted independence and, at the time he launched the idea of the Pacific Way on the international stage, his views were anything but anti-colonial, at least as far as his own experience with the British in Fiji were concerned. The approach taken in examining the initial articulation of the Pacific Way is therefore a straightforward application of contextual/ interpretative methodology in the historical investigation of ideas, at least 142

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insofar as the method aims to identify what was actually meant at the time the phrase was uttered.1 This exercise in contextualization makes it difficult to read his early espousal of the Pacific Way as embodying any of the sentiments usually associated with postcolonial thought. Section 6.2 examines another important articulation of the Pacific Way by an expatriate academic commentator from USP, and in which we find a much more critical approach to colonialism. But we also find a judicious appraisal of the Pacific Way’s Polynesian associations, something that, in the longer term, undermined its ability to function as a panPacific identity. Another relational aspect of identity standing in contrast with, or in opposition to, the West concerns approaches to diplomatic and political conduct. Again, the Pacific Way’s Polynesian associations are pertinent, for they are more directly implicated in an aversion to the competitive nature of Western democratic politics. A common assertion has been that the Pacific Way is based primarily on traditional modes of ‘consensus politics’, claimed to be democratic in their own way, thereby introducing a relativist approach. Section 6.3 explores this issue partly in comparative perspective, noting that the positing of consensus politics as an alternative to adversarial (Western) democracy has often been deployed in other post-colonial settings as a culturally more authentic expression of political values. 6.1

Ratu Mara and the Pacific Way

When Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara introduced the ‘Pacific Way’ in a speech to the UN General Assembly in October 1970, its specific reference point was Fiji’s recent transition to independence.2 In contrast with other parts of the world, Mara noted that this had been achieved without great drama or political turbulence and, further, that this had also been the experience of other new states of the Island Pacific to date: Many speakers have commented on our peaceful transition to independence … But this is nothing new in the Pacific. Similar calm and orderly moves to independence have taken place in Western Samoa, the Cook Islands, in Nauru, and in Tonga. We like to think that this is the Pacific Way, both geographically and ideologically. As far as we are authorized by our friends and neighbours, and we do not 1

See Quentin Skinner, ‘Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas’, in James Tully (ed.), Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 29–67. 2 This section is based partly on Stephanie Lawson, ‘“The Pacific Way” as Postcolonial Discourse: Towards a Reassessment’, Journal of Pacific History, 45 (3), 2010, 297–314. The date of Fiji’s official independence was 10 October 1970, ninety-six years to the day that Fiji became a British Crown Colony.

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arrogate to ourselves any role of leadership, we would hope to act as representative and interpreter of that voice.3

A point easily missed in reading the passage too quickly is that the model of an orderly transition highlighted here embraces not just Pacific leaders but colonial powers as well, or at least the UK in this instance, for independence was achieved cooperatively on both sides and without the drama often experienced in other regions. A similar sentiment was expressed four years later when the Cook Islands Premier Henry, remarking on the reforms undertaken by the SPC in 1974, hailed this as ‘an occasion of decolonization and a fine example to the rest of the world of regional cooperation the Pacific Way’.4 Again, this statement encompassed actors on both sides of the equation, although it certainly glossed over the difficulties presented by France in reform processes. The point, however, is that although celebrating decolonization, it did not do so in an oppositional way but rather in a congratulatory sense embracing all parties. Mara also distanced himself and his region from African countries – noting that the latter had been especially vocal in the campaign for decolonization within the UN, which Mara had expressed strong opposition to. ‘The views of African peoples seem to be taken for granted as the views of all indigenous people. This is not the case in the South Pacific.’5 But as we see shortly, the disassociation from the African experience was selective. The last sentence of Mara’s Pacific Way statement, while expressing caution in pushing himself forward and thereby provoking resentment among his neighbours, nonetheless signalled regional leadership aspirations. At the time, Fiji was the only Pacific Island country to have joined the UN and would be the only Pacific Island voice there for several years.6 Despite Mara’s emphasis on not assuming any leadership role, such statements were often construed as exactly that, especially given his dominant role in the SPC.7 As for the Pacific Way itself, since its application was at this stage limited to independent countries lying largely within the 3 Reproduced in Mara, Pacific Way, 238. 4 Quoted in SPC, Meeting House, 82. 5 Quoted in ‘Fiji Prepares to Join the United Nations’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 41 (10), October 1970, 27. 6 Papua New Guinea was the next to join in 1975, then Samoa in 1976, Solomon Islands in 1978, Vanuatu in 1981, the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia in 1991, Kiribati in 1992, Nauru and Tonga in 1999 and Tuvalu in 2000. See United Nations, Member States, www.un.org/en/member-states/. The status of relations with New Zealand means that Niue, Tokelau and the Cook Islands are not separately represented at the UN, and the same applies to other island countries that remain territories of the US, France, Chile or Great Britain. 7 Tarte, Fiji’s Role, 42.

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south-west Pacific it was scarcely an all-encompassing term. But it was soon to gain much broader currency and capacity. There was also to be a shift in what it meant to do things the ‘Pacific Way’ as other commentators and interpreters inevitably expanded its ambit and reinterpreted its message. Mara’s own articulation of the term went no further than the few sentences quoted earlier, so we must look to other sources for further insights into exactly what he meant by it. By placing it in the context of his own position, interests, experiences and so forth we can better understand his speaking position in the period leading up to and immediately after Fiji’s independence, from the nature of British colonialism in Fiji to the proper mode of conducting diplomatic relations. Mara’s memoirs, published in 1997 under the title The Pacific Way: A Memoir,8 provide personal reflections along with a number of speeches reproduced in their original form, including the UN speech. With a publication date of almost thirty years after Fiji’s independence, Mara had ample time for reflection on all things colonial and post-colonial as well as the Pacific Way idea itself. But despite the title of his memoirs, we find disappointingly little on the substance of his Pacific Way. Even so, the memoirs provide a rich source of Mara’s feelings and attitudes, especially with respect to Fiji’s colonial past, making it possible to contextualize his original articulation of the Pacific Way. A speech delivered following negotiations at Whitehall on the new constitution for an independent Fiji in early May 1970, and therefore almost contemporaneous with his UN speech, illustrates his sense of attachment to the UK. Even allowing for the fact that homilies and platitudes are invariably deployed on such occasions, and sometimes put a polite face on more troubled relations, there is nothing to suggest that Mara’s speech masked a negative attitude towards the colonial relationship: Today marks a long journey … close on one hundred years … Through it all, we have had the help and guidance of the United Kingdom. Many of her traditions are firmly grafted, not only on our political institutions, but on our whole national life. The rule of law, parliamentary democracy, respect for the rights of minorities, a sense of fair play, give and take, are all taken for granted in Fiji, but they are, in a very real sense, a legacy from the British. Should we ever wish to forget the British – which God forbid – it would not be possible. Your ways and your ideas are too much part and parcel of our own.9

What Mara’s speech did mask, however, is a certain antipathy to democracy. This is evident in later speeches, which suggest that 8

Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, The Pacific Way: A Memoir (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997). 9 Mara, Pacific Way, 104.

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the African one-party model might be better suited to Pacific Island states: Are those African countries right who have tried the Westminster democratic pattern only to find that the real answer to their problems, and the way to progress, was through one-party government … all would be better working for the common aim rather than engaging in the façade of two or more party governments, much of which is sterile and unproductive.10

Clearly, this was an aspect of the African experience that Mara found more compelling. Mara’s views on the colonial relationship are also evident in his account of Fiji’s official celebrations on the actual day of independence: 10 October 1970. Mara recollects seeing films of independence ceremonies elsewhere, where the British flag had been lowered and the new one raised to frenzied cheering, a spectacle he did not think ‘appropriate to our relationship with the British Crown’. Rather, the Union flag was to be ‘lowered with the quiet dignity and respect our long association warranted’.11 Of the last colonial governor, Sir Robert Foster, who immediately became Fiji’s first governor-general, Mara said: ‘He had been guide, philosopher, and friend throughout all the process to independence.’12 The warmth of Mara’s feelings was perhaps accompanied by a certain nostalgia for a bygone era. By 1970, however, Mara was ready to grasp the opportunities presented by independence, changing his tune somewhat on the nature of the colonial relationship. Just months before independence, when asked what Fiji would gain by this, Mara’s immediate reply was ‘self-respect!’ Asked whether Fiji had not had self-respect in the past, he said: ‘Not when you are ruled by people sent from another country, whose ideas are different from yours, who tell you what to do and who you have to follow.’13 Another account of the independence celebrations, recorded in a biography of Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau (the first Indigenous governor-general of Fiji and later president), reinforces the image of a close relationship between Fiji and Britain, including the monarch as standing at the head of the entire Fijian chiefly edifice: On the day [of independence] the vast crowd was respectfully silent as the Union flag was lowered for this was not a celebration of the end of British rule…. The bonds that linked Fiji and the British Crown were stronger than ever…. 10

Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, ‘Currents in the Pacific’, Dillingham Lecture, East-West Centre, Hawai’i, 30 June 1975, reproduced in Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Selections from the Speeches of the Right Honourable Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (Suva: Government Printer, 1977), 123–32. 11 Mara, Pacific Way, 109. 12 Ibid. 13 ‘It’s a “Matter of Self Respect” that Fiji Should Be Independent’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 41 (6), June 1970, 24.

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6.1  Ratu Mara and the Pacific Way 147 For people living outside Fiji this warm affection by the Fijian people for the Queen and her family may be difficult to understand. But as Ratu Penaia says, ‘We are accustomed to a chiefly system and the Queen is our highest Chief. She is an extension of our system.’ … On this day, despite the fact that Fiji and its people assumed full responsibility for their own destiny, Prince Charles was the undisputed highest chief in the land.14

But if relations between leading Fijian figures and the higher echelons of the British establishment were characterized by mutual warmth and regard, it was not necessarily so with other Western leaders or their representatives. A meeting between Mara and US Secretary of State W. B. Rodgers, who came to lobby Mara for support on the two-China policy during the 1970 UN session, prompted this recollection: ‘I was amazed at the brashness of the man – no sevusevu, no offering, no introductory niceties. Straight into his case, almost telling us what to do.’15 Mara’s next visitor was ‘a very different sort of man, British Foreign Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home’. Mara goes on to describe a jovial meeting with sherry and sticky buns during which various foreign policy matters were discussed amiably along with some chit-chat about cricket. The whole meeting, said Mara, ‘was an object lesson in diplomacy vakaturaga, in a chiefly fashion’.16 This last remark reveals much about Mara’s sense of both himself and his relationship with the former colonial power. Especially noteworthy are the strong class overtones. The American is brash and clearly ‘without class’. Mara and Douglas-Home, in contrast, share a comfortable, mutual understanding that comes with tacit acknowledgement that each belong essentially to the same social rank – an understanding that evidently transcends other differences. Mara may well have been an Indigenous Fijian (albeit with some Tongan and European ancestry), while Douglas-Home was thoroughly Anglo-Saxon, but this difference was not one that made a difference in this particular context. And while Mara clearly felt that the US secretary of state was patronizing, there is no hint of it with Douglas-Home. The former colonizer and colonized are very much at ease with each other. This accords with David Cannadine’s interpretation of British imperialism, which unsettles some basic assumptions of postcolonial theory and 14

Daryl Tarte, Turaga: The Life and Times and Chiefly Authority of Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, G.C.M.G., K.C.V.O., K.B.E., D.S.O., K.St.J., E.D. (Suva: Fiji Times, 1993), 93–4. 15 Mara, Pacific Way, 120. Sevusevu refers, literally, to Fijian kava presentation ceremonies but also embraces understandings of relative rank, sociality, hospitality and ‘ceremoniality’ more generally. 16 Mara, Pacific Way, 120.

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Orientalism. Cannadine’s Ornamentalism argues that because much recent scholarship has been primarily concerned with a critique of British imperialism in terms of its ‘production of derogatory stereotypes of other, alien, subordinated societies’,17 it has tended to miss the fact that, although race certainly played a significant part in how the British saw their empire, it was as much a ‘class act’ in which race did not automatically align with class when it came to social hierarchy.18 Among the prime examples Cannadine cites is from Fiji’s early colonial period during Sir Arthur Gordon’s tenure as governor. It is widely acknowledged that Gordon saw in the eastern chiefly elite a social class comparable to his own. And so did his wife. She refers in her correspondence to the ‘undoubted aristocracy’ of highranking Fijians with their ‘well-bred manners’. Most telling is a remark about her nurse who evidently looked down on these Fijian women as belonging to ‘an inferior race’. Lady Gordon continues: ‘I don’t like to tell her that these ladies are my equals, which she is not!’19 Thus the higher echelons of British society, when encountering Indigenous hierarchies with their own elites and rituals, by no means saw an incommensurable alien ‘other’ against which they defined themselves as wholly superior, as the Orientalist paradigm has it, but often perceived a comparable social class. Viewed in this light, the encounter between Mara and Douglas-Home seems very much a case of each seeing the self in the other, thereby producing a mutually congenial comfort zone based on common perceptions of rank, status and, indeed, a common elite culture: vakaturaga. Another aspect of class hierarchies concerns the attitude of Indigenous chiefly leaders towards the lower ranks in their own societies. And again, this is comparable to elite British attitudes towards their own lower classes. The most significant of Mara’s chiefly predecessors in Fiji was his uncle, Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, who viewed ordinary Fijians in terms at least as patronizing as many colonial officers, if not more so. Sukuna himself was part of Fiji’s ‘chieftocracy’, whose members acted as faithful and trusted compradors for the colonial state.20 Of the common Indigenous Fijian mentality, Sukuna frequently played down any ability 17

Cannadine, Ornamentalism, xvii. 18 This accords with the point that the British working classes were often characterized in racial terms, suggesting that the relationship between domestic and overseas versions of culture and authority is more complex than has previously been supposed. See Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, Colonial Discourse and Post-colonial Theory: A Reader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 17. 19 Cannadine, Ornamentalism, 59. 20 Steven Ratuva, ‘Man versus Myth: The Life and Times of Ratu Sukuna’, in Stewart Firth and Vijiay Naidu (eds.), Understanding Oceania: Celebrating the University of the South Pacific and Its Collaboration with the Australian National University (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 233.

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to appreciate the finer points of politics beyond village affairs, attributable partly to lack of education but also to a certain ‘racial mindset’. One irony is that Sukuna himself opposed English-language education for villagers, fearing they may develop ideas above their station, revealing not a colonized mindset but a thoroughly conservative one.21 One legacy for ordinary Indigenous Fijians, ‘protected’ from outside influences under Sukuna’s dispensation, was disempowerment in a developing context that saw Indo-Fijians better able to take advantage of educational and business opportunities and so place a section of their community in a stronger economic position, which was fiercely resented by Indigenous Fijians in later periods.22 This was to fuel the flames of Indigenous nationalism, contributing much to Fiji’s ‘coup culture’. Yet another aspect of class attitudes within Indigenous Fijian society concerns attitudes held by high Polynesian chiefs such as Mara towards those considered to be Melanesian. Here it is worth emphasizing that although often placed in the Melanesian group, most studies of Fiji point to a mixture of both Melanesian and Polynesian influences. Other observers agree. ‘There is a very definite difference between Polynesian and Melanesian culture areas. Fiji sits on the divide, the West [of Fiji] more Melanesian and then shifting gradually to the more Polynesian culture of the East. This has been observed over a long period of time and still holds true.’23 Ratu Mara, himself a paramount chief from the eastern province of Lau, partly colonized by Tongans in an earlier period, certainly considered himself as occupying a place in a distinctively Polynesian hierarchy. A note in his field diary during his time as a colonial district officer in Ba Province in 1957 also confirms that he regarded Melanesians as ‘other’ and leaves us in little doubt about his own sense of self. The diary recounts an incident concerning a local community in the rugged interior of the main island of Viti Levu, which he described as ‘Melanesian’ in a sense that rendered it ‘other’. The point of contention was about the location of a new school building: I adopted an autocratic attitude in order to cope with the typically Melanesian turn of mind which had made a faction to insist on a most inaccessible site in spite of all reasonable arguments against it. It was amazing how well I carried the day ruling with a rod of iron. 21

Many of Sukuna’s ideas were expressed in his speeches in the Legislative Council, a selection of which appear in Deryck Scarr (ed.), Fiji: The Three-Legged Stool – Writings of Sir Lala Sukuna (London: Macmillan Education, 1983). See also Brij V. Lal (ed), British Documents at the End of Empire, Series B, vol. 10, Fiji (London: The Stationery Office, 2006), lvii. 22 Ratuva, ‘Man Versus Myth’, 239. 23 Kotabalavu, interview, 2014.

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I have come across this Melanesian attitude of unreasonable obstinacy in Namosi…. I consider that people who lead a hard life like the hill tribes are not so amenable to dialectics. They however respond quickly and willingly to stern, autocratic commands.24

These comments emphasize the desirability of a distinctly Polynesian style of autocratic leadership  – a style projected from the national through to the regional stage. The dominance of this model throughout the colonial period, and for the first few decades of independence, is partly due to British colonial influence. The larger-scale hierarchical polities of eastern and southern Fiji, headed by autocratic paramount chiefs whose status was largely ascribed, were features familiar to a European interpretive lens and had led early colonial officials to regard eastern Fijians as more amenable to their schemes of what we would now call ‘good governance’.25 This is one reason why a chiefly figure such as Mara would have been serving as a district officer in a more typically ‘Melanesian’ area. Returning to the Pacific Way, another observation worth noting occurred within the context of Mara’s early engagement with the UN when he evidently pondered how Fiji could make a useful contribution: ‘I had coined the phrase “The Pacific Way” and felt we could speak from our own experience of resolving differences on the basis of mutual understanding. We felt this most strongly in relation to racialism  – a constant topic at the United Nations … [and one] … where I felt we may be able to help.’26 But Mara’s experience with matters of race was not that which is of concern to most postcolonial analysts, namely, the dynamics of European racism in relation to people of non-European descent, and which generally entailed the oppression of the latter by the former. Fiji’s political history since the early colonial period had certainly been dominated by matters of race, but the dynamics were of a very different kind. From the time that Indian indentured labourers were brought to the colony in the late nineteenth century, racial issues revolved around the interests of Indigenous Fijians vis-à-vis those of Indo-Fijians, with the relatively small numbers of Europeans aligning themselves politically with Indigenous Fijians. To the extent that Fiji’s path to independence was troubled by matters of race, it related to accommodating demands for the paramount rights of Indigenous Fijians over those of Indian descent.27 24

Source courtesy of Robert Norton, notes from Fiji National Archives research. Namosi is a province on the main island of Viti Levu located to the west of Suva. 25 See, generally, Lawson, Failure of Democratic Politics. 26 Mara, Pacific Way, 117. 27 See Lawson, Failure of Democratic Politics, 158–194.

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From the late 1950s the colonial government had canvassed the prospects for greater multiracialism in Fiji’s political institutions and while this appealed broadly to Indo-Fijians, Indigenous leaders put up considerable resistance. The constitution of independent Fiji, when finally agreed upon, saw some change from a colonial system that had long institutionalized racially based communalism – a system fully supported by both Indigenous leaders and the white settler population. But neither the new constitution, nor Mara’s own version of ‘multiracialism’, was intended to provide political equality for Indo-Fijians. Indeed, Mara’s vision of multiracialism entailed the continuing dominance of Indigenous Fijians in politics, and the continuing dominance of Indigenous Fijians themselves by their chiefs.28 When talks on constitutional development began in 1961, chiefly members of the Legislative Council viewed any reform that moved the country closer to independence as anathema, especially given that it was bound to entail enhanced political rights for Indo-Fijians who had become the majority community in Fiji. Mara had himself declared outright opposition to independence, suggesting that when the high chiefs ceded the Fiji Islands to the British Crown, they regarded it as a permanent arrangement that made Fiji an integral part of the UK, akin to a Channel Island. Interestingly, this is exactly how France viewed its Pacific territories. Other chiefly figures were much more explicit about their opposition to granting Indo-Fijians more political rights,29 while colonial authorities described local European attitudes as sharing ‘a fairly extreme “Fijian conservative” line’.30 On the UN Decolonization Committee, Mara had complained that ‘the committee tended to be dogmatic and doctrinaire and would have every territory independent immediately, irrespective of economic viability, or indeed the wishes of its people’.31 Elsewhere, in the context of discussions about the SPC, Mara again castigates forces within the UN during the 1960s that were pushing decolonization for remaining colonies: ‘In 1962 Western Samoa had become independent and Nauru was on the way. In Fiji we were trying to stem the tide of independence whipped up

28 Ibid., 164, 191–4. 29 CO 1036/612, no. 50, 1 May 1961, [Constitutional Development]: letter from E. R. Bevington to H. P. Hall on the debate in the Legislative Council in Lal, British Documents: Fiji, 93. 30 CAB 134/2403, PFP(63)3, 9 April 1963, ‘Future Policy in Fiji’: CO note for Cabinet (Official) Committee on Future Policy in the Pacific. Annex D: ‘Estimated voting strengths based on universal adult suffrage’, in Lal, British Documents: Fiji, 181. 31 Mara, Pacific Way, 117–18.

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by agitation at the United Nations.’32 This was at least partly in response to the UN resolution on the implementation of the declaration on the granting of independence which held that the ‘inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence’.33 Some other commentators have largely ignored sentiments such as Mara’s or provided distorted accounts. One author even asserts that: ‘In the context of the eventual attainment of independence in the South Pacific, Fiji’s Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara … began to give a series of addresses concerning the Pacific Way based in part on the views of Ratu Lala Sukuna, who struggled for Fijian independence until his death in 1958.’34 This statement is an extraordinary perversion of the historical record. Neither Sukuna nor any other figure among Fiji’s chiefly elite ‘struggled’ for independence. If anything, they resisted for as long as they could, reflecting a colonial history that had largely served their interests for the best part of a century.35 Sukuna had not questioned the wisdom of his chiefly predecessors in ceding the Fiji Islands to the British Crown,36 nor do any of his speeches indicate a desire for independence, let alone a struggle. On the contrary, his 1948 annual report as secretary of Fijian affairs showed alarm at the prospect: ‘Is there going to be … orderly political development or precocious demands for self-government and even complete independence?’37 Correspondence between Sukuna and the British governor of the time, Sir Ronald Garvey, belies any hint of dissatisfaction on Sukuna’s part with the state of colonial relations. In February 1958, Sir Ronald’s personal note to Sukuna thanked him for his ‘unfailing support and guidance’, adding that ‘[y]our wise counsel … coupled with our close friendship … will be a memory I shall cherish for many long years’.38 This is scarcely the type of colonizer/colonized relationship bound up in dynamics of domination and resistance. 32

Ibid., 170, emphasis added. For a valuable commentary on the UN’s decolonization activities see James H. Mittelman, ‘Collective Decolonization and the UN Committee of 24’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 14 (1), 1976, 41–64. 33 UN, General Assembly, Resolution 1654 (XVI), ‘The situation with regard to the implementation of the Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples’, 27 November 1961. 34 Haas, Pacific Way, 9, emphasis added. 35 See Lawson, Failure of Democratic Politics, esp. pp. 81–123. 36 Fiji’s eastern chiefs voluntarily ceded the Fiji Islands to the British Crown, having twice petitioned the British to accept them as a Crown Colony. For details of the circumstances see ibid., 48–58. 37 Fiji, Legislative Council, Secretary for Fijian Affairs, Annual Report (CP27/1948), 3, quoted in Deryck Scarr, Ratu Sukuna: Soldier, Statesman, Man of Two Worlds (London: Macmillan Education, 1980), 163, emphasis added. 38 Reproduced in Scarr, Fiji: Three-Legged Stool, 157.

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Another summation of Sukuna’s role further illustrates the dynamics of the colonial relationship through which the British not only used chiefs such as Sukuna to maintain order and control, but which worked the other way around as well, illustrating a different kind of agency: Until his death in 1958, Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna was the seminal influence and voice on matters regarding the Fijian people. Sukuna had the right bloodlines. He was the best-educated Fijian in his time. Sukuna was a war hero. He was mannered in the way the English loved. The British Colonial Administration found him useful as an interlocutor for the Fijian people. Sukuna himself was not averse to manipulating the British Colonial Administration to protect what he regarded as Fijian prerogatives: retention of the traditional system by preserving the Fijian way of life in the villages.39

It would not do to suggest that every moment of the relationship between the British colonial administrators and Sukuna, Mara and other Indigenous Fijian leaders was so congenial, and there were obviously occasions of disagreement over policy and practice. However, no serious disputes or major incidents concerning the Fijian elite appear in the records.40 There were dissident movements among other Indigenous Fijians during the colonial period, although some of these were as much against the chiefly elite as against the colonial regime.41 But dissent among Indigenous Fijians expressed in opposition to a colonial regime 39

Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, ‘Keynote Address: Governance in Fiji – The Interplay Between Indigenous Tradition, Culture and Politics’, in Stewart Firth (ed.), Globalization and Governance in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2006), 290, emphasis added. See also Robert Norton, ‘Britain’s Dilemma in Decolonizing Fiji’, Journal of Pacific History, 37 (2), 2002, 133–56, which details the considerable power and influence that Sukuna wielded in the colony. 40 Some incidents of mild discord between Sukuna and British colonial administrators are recorded in Scarr, Ratu Sukuna. The extensive collection of official correspondence contained in Lal, British Documents: Fiji is a readily accessible collection of verbatim material from the late colonial period showing the variations in attitudes, assessments, opinions and perceptions of various colonial officials, often expressed frankly since they were confidential at the time. There is little to suggest serious discord between the administration and various groups within the Fijian community, including chiefly leaders, except in relation to the issue of internal self-government and independence that Indigenous Fijian leaders largely opposed. 41 Colonial rule was initially resisted by some Indigenous Fijians in the central and western parts of Viti Levu who were subjugated by forces supplied largely by the eastern chiefs under the direction of the new British colonial regime. The same central and western regions subsequently gave rise to other dissident movements, but these were easily contained by the colonial state. For an account of some of these during the early colonial period, which also reveals the dynamics of consent, collaboration and opportunism as well as resistance, see Robert Nicole, Disturbing History: Resistance in Early Colonial Fiji, 1874–1914 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009). See also John D. Kelly and Martha Kaplan, Represented Communities: Fiji and World Decolonization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 121–42.

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that bolstered Indigenous elite privilege and created an effective partnership with them have no place in Mara’s version of the Pacific Way. But was it the case that Indigenous elites who collaborated in the system of colonial rule were merely dupes of the colonizers or had so lost their sense of self as to have had their entire mindset colonized? To take such a line would be both simplistic and patronizing. Both Sukuna and Mara were highly intelligent and very well educated. Both were also very much a product of their own social system, and their own particular status within that system as high chiefs and for which they were trained from a young age. The fact that they moved easily between these two worlds further suggests that the class contexts within which they operated in each system were highly commensurable. As another commentary observes, ‘Ratu Mara was considered urbane, sophisticated and comfortable in a range of settings – from cocktail parties to international meetings – and was held up as the paragon of a statesman prised in the practice of international affairs’.42 Those who did struggle for independence within Fiji were Indo-Fijian leaders, reflecting a very different attitude to colonialism that was indeed experienced as oppressive.43 The Indo-Fijian community, however, has usually been excluded from the ambit of the Pacific Way along with other non-Islander minorities. Not only do they constitute an ‘alien presence’, but they have been portrayed time and again by nationalists as a threat to the interests of Indigenous Fijians who were urged over the years to stay united behind their chiefly leaders, thus reinforcing the conservatism of the existing order.44 In summary, Mara’s original articulation of the Pacific Way was scarcely anti-colonial but rather posited as an object lesson in model behaviour, as evidenced by the independence processes so far experienced in the region. ‘Mara’s Way’ also embodied the importance of traditional leadership through which chiefly values formed the basis for political conduct. There were obvious class factors at work too, supporting an interpretation of his Pacific Way as encompassing elitist elements that provided much common ground and harmony of understanding between colonizer and colonized revolving around a shared commitment to conservative values. If anything, Fijian chiefly values were more conservative than those of the British colonial administration. All these factors are at odds with postcolonial critiques that see nothing but the 42 Corbett and Connell, ‘The “Promise”’, 308. 43 Robert Norton, Race and Politics in Fiji, 2nd ed. (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1990), 40. 44 On the political dynamics involved see Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy, 37–78.

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dynamics of domination and resistance. Important as these may be in some contexts, a sole focus on these dynamics ignores the convergence of class hierarchies and ideologies that were at play in some colonial systems. Ironically, it was a non-Indigenous intervention that gave the Pacific Way its ‘postcolonial’ edge in the years to come. 6.2

‘Crocombe’s Way’

Although Mara’s 1970 UN speech indicated that Fiji might act as the ‘representative and interpreter’ of an emergent ‘Pacific Way’, it could scarcely remain within the confines of his original formulation. The term soon achieved much greater currency, while also attracting other commentators who inevitably expanded its ambit. The most influential formulation appeared some five years later, authored by the New Zealand–born academic Ron Crocombe, in a pamphlet some fifty pages in length that gave it more of a postcolonial flavour.45 In composing his account of the Pacific Way, Crocombe claimed not to be presenting a systematic research exercise but rather a study based on ‘observing what ideas and actions seem to be associated with the term when it is used in various parts of the Pacific’.46 He went on to suggest that the term’s success, following Mara’s UN speech, was ‘probably because it satisfies both psychological and political needs’ in helping to ‘fulfil a growing demand for respected Pacific-wide identifying symbols’ and because an effective unifying concept ‘can reduce the extent and intensity of neo-colonial dependency of the island countries on the richer Pacific borderlands’.47 The broader history of colonialism in the Pacific, Crocombe said, ‘left a common unpleasant taste in the mouths of islands people: a common humiliation, a common feeling of deprivation and exploitation’.48 These were not exactly the sentiments embodied in Mara’s formulation. As for the essential meaning of the Pacific Way, Crocombe proposed that it defied specificity. Rather, it encompassed ‘a core of basic ideas and emotional responses plus a range of other meanings which can be attached to it according to context’.49 But only Islanders could ascribe new meanings to it. For others to attempt this, Crocombe continued, ‘would be regarded as presumptuous or illegitimate. We [i.e., non-Pacific 45

Ron Crocombe, The Pacific Way: An Emerging Identity (Suva: Lotu Pasifika Productions, 1976). 46 Ibid., p. 3. 47 Ibid., p. 1. 48 Ibid., p. 13, emphasis added. 49 Ibid., p. 2.

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Islanders] can only observe and follow.’50 This is scarcely advice which Crocombe himself took, but it does resonate with the strong tendency in postcolonial analysis to privilege Indigenous voices as more authentic and to accord legitimacy to non-Indigenous voices only to the extent that they appear to agree with Indigenous perspectives. But this raises the question of which Indigenous voices and perspectives? Crocombe had at least one answer to this in pointing to the fact that the term’s currency was restricted largely to the ‘mobile elites’ of Pacific Island societies  – politicians, senior government officers, church leaders and so on – whereas for villagers it had little or no meaning at all. For theirs was ‘not a Pacific world’ but rather one with limited horizons, confined to the village and their own island, perhaps extending occasionally to encompass their national territory, but not beyond it.51 Crocombe identified a core elite for whom the Pacific Way had particular significance, consisting of Fiji – rather obviously – as well as Tonga and Western Samoa. It therefore applied primarily ‘to an inner group of English-speaking, tropical islands of the south Pacific; and only secondarily and with less intensity of involvement or meaning to all other Pacific islands, depending on the nature and extent of their connection with the inner group’.52 Crocombe noted that a key feature of the ‘inner group’ was an entrenched system of hierarchical hereditary chieftainship typical of Polynesian forms. He also suggested that in the Pacific Way discourse, the differences between these highly stratified hereditary hierarchies on the one hand, and the ‘bottom-up’ egalitarian systems of societies in other parts of the Western Pacific  – often characterized as Melanesian  – on the other hand, tended to be minimized, ‘for the development of Pacific unity necessitates a playing down of internal differences and a maximizing of similarities’.53 The main point of reference here is the commonly applied distinction between Polynesian and Melanesian ‘types’ discussed earlier. Crocombe further suggested that the chiefly ideology emanating from the core island groups had considerable influence over the broader region so that ‘the idea of chieftainship had become an accepted part of the Pacific Way, even though there is some vacillating between valuing privilege and 50 51 52 53

Ibid., p. 4. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., p. 9. Ibid., p. 11. The institution in Papua New Guinea of an honours system in which those made a Grand Companion of the Order of Logohu are styled ‘Grand Chief’ probably reflects the idea of a Polynesian paramount chief. Thus Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare’s full form of address was: Rt Hon. Grand Chief Sir Michael T. Somare MP GCL GCMG CH CF KStJ.

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valuing its opposite – equality’.54 He went on to warn, however, that if the Pacific Way became too closely identified with an elite or with the older generation, it may well lose its appeal to a broader cross-section of Pacific people, noting that those inclined to switch cultural allegiances are generally those with the least opportunity to enjoy the more highly valued activities within their own cultural settings. Other commentators also noted the strong emphasis placed on the virtues of traditional chiefly rule,55 the ‘exaggerated mystique of custom’ that legitimated the power of chiefs56 and the propensity of chiefly elites not only to adopt a lifestyle mimicking former colonial rulers but also to exploit their own people in ways ‘sometimes even worse than their colonial masters before them’.57 Epeli Hau’ofa’s reflections on the Pacific Way suggests that in the early years it generated a certain buzz among students at the USP in the mid1970s, where it chimed with ‘the immediate postcolonial euphoria and expectations’ of the period.58 Similarly, a 1983 account of ‘Melanesian socialism’ actually devotes considerable space to the Pacific Way, describing it as possessing a ‘Polynesian flair’, although with some resonances for ni-Vanuatu elites educated at the USP where it had become popularized.59 Also noted was the extent to which the Pacific Way ideology supported the interests of an elite dependent on ‘tradition’: ‘It seeks to ensure that people will have low aspirations and not question authority.’60 Another study discusses the Pacific Way as setting the people of the Island Pacific apart from others, especially Europeans, but went on to note that it ‘was also general enough to gather in, for Polynesians at any rate, the notion of a unity based upon common descent and traditions’,61 and ‘very clearly supported the interests of traditional elites in places like Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa’.62 54

Crocombe, Pacific Way, 12. 55 Michael C. Howard, Fiji: Race and Politics in an Island State (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1991), 7. 56 Alan Ward, ‘The Crisis of our Times: Ethnic Resurgence and the Liberal Ideal’, Journal of Pacific History, 27 (1), 1992, 90. 57 Uentabo Neemia, ‘Decolonization and Democracy in the South Pacific’, in Ron Crocombe et al. (eds.), Culture and Democracy in the South Pacific (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1992), 3. 58 Epeli Hau’ofa, ‘A Beginning’, in Eric Waddell, Vijay Naidu and Epeli Hau‘ofa (eds.), A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands (Suva: University of the South Pacific, 1993), 126. 59 Michael Howard, ‘Vanuatu: The Myth of Melanesian Socialism’, Labour, Capital and Society, 16 (2), 1983, 183. 60 Ibid. 61 Antony Hooper and Judith Huntsman, ‘History and the Representation of Polynesian Societies’, in Jukka Siikala (ed.), Culture and History in the Pacific (Helsinki: Finnish Anthropological Society, 1990), 11, emphasis added. 62 Ibid.

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Hau’ofa, too, had been an early critic, suggesting that the Pacific Way was an elitist identity sustained by various regional institutions and bureaucracies that served as a club for Indigenous political leaders. By the late 1970s, Hau’ofa was arguing that the ruling classes of the South Pacific were increasingly culturally homogeneous, spoke the same language (English) and shared the same ideologies and material lifestyles. ‘It is the privileged who can afford to tell the poor to preserve their traditions’ while they ‘secure greater advantages for themselves.’63 He went on to draw particular attention to parts of Polynesia where aristocratic rule and church influences combined to associate tradition with stability and other social and political goods. Ironically, at the same time that they were being urged to maintain traditional order, the poor were encouraged to be innovative and entrepreneurial in pursuing ‘development’.64 The evaluation of the Pacific Way as sustaining elite privilege is comparable to a critique of how the British aristocracy did so over generations: They laid down a strict set of rules for the rest of society, but lived by a different standard…. Such was their sense of entitlement that they believed  – and persuaded others to believe – that a hierarchical society with them placed firmly and unassailably at the top was the natural order of things. Even to suggest otherwise, they implied, was to shake the foundations of morality.65

As for Crocombe’s interpretation of the Pacific Way, this differs from Mara’s formulation in two important respects. First, Mara’s contains no hint of hostility to colonial rule in terms of his own experience in Fiji  – an experience that brings into question some taken-for-granted assumptions underpinning the dynamics of self–other relationships and representations embedded in conventional postcolonial approaches. Figures such as Mara and Douglas-Home readily saw the self in the other, and more readily than in those occupying low socio-economic status in their own societies. Crocombe’s treatment, on the other hand, emphasizes that colonial rule was a source of humiliation for all those subject to it – whether they realized it or not. This is much more in keeping with the postcolonial style of critique and its assumptions concerning self–other relations. 63 Epeli Hau’ofa, ‘The New South Pacific Society: Integration and Independence’, in Antony Hooper, Steve Britton, Ron Crocombe, Judith Huntsman and Cluny Macpherson (eds.), Class and Culture in the South Pacific (Auckland and Suva: Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland and Institute for Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific, 1987), 7. 64 Ibid., 12. 65 Chris Bryant, ‘How the Aristocracy Preserved Their Power’, Guardian, 7 September 2017 (online).

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Second, Mara infused his Pacific Way, at least implicitly, with the values of traditional Polynesian chiefly authority. Crocombe incorporated these in his expanded version of the idea, but not uncritically, and sounded warnings about the potential abuse of elite status. Mara, of course, never questioned the legitimacy and efficacy of traditional chiefly institutions and practices and, indeed, they are inextricably associated with his Way. As we have seen, these institutions and practices underscored a thoroughly conservative approach to social and political life. But they incorporated other values as well. Foremost among these was the value of ‘consensus politics’, said to reflect traditional political practices within Pacific Island societies. When figures such as Mara were confronted with the necessity to compete for power in democratic elections, which of course held the prospect of defeat, democracy soon became a target of critique and competitive democratic politics became contrasted with consensus politics that, in turn, became closely associated with the Pacific Way. 6.3

Consensus Politics the Pacific Way

Decolonization took place in the wake of the Second World War – an event that gave rise to a widespread conviction that democratic institutions and practices were vastly superior morally and in almost every other way to those of the defeated fascists and militarists in Europe and the Pacific. This was further reinforced by the dynamics of the Cold War, which strengthened the antipathy to authoritarian communism throughout much of the West, although right-wing authoritarianism was rarely an issue. Decolonization itself was based on the principle of national self-determination, linked in turn not just to the doctrine of state sovereignty but also to the democratic principle of popular sovereignty. Most of the constitutions of the newly independent countries were therefore drafted to reflect basic values of representative democracy, usually with the participation of the departing colonial powers whose own institutions left their distinctive imprint.66 In most cases, however, the political institutions of the newly independent states also reflected local particularities. This certainly occurred in the Pacific Islands, giving rise to a region of considerable diversity in political institutional arrangements. British, Australian and New Zealand 66 These issues are also discussed in Stephanie Lawson, ‘The Pacific Islands Since Independence’, in Anne Perez Hattori and Jane Samson (eds.), The Pacific Ocean Since 1800, vol. 2 of Paul D’Arcy (ed.) The Cambridge History of the Pacific Ocean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 683–704.

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colonizing powers, in particular, had introduced forms of representative government during the colonial period designed to prepare their colonies for independence. These were also tailored to the specific circumstances of each colony, often with special provision for the incorporation of traditional Indigenous institutions and practices, including chiefly leadership. As we have seen, models of hierarchical Polynesian chiefly rule found particular resonance with conservative British notions of good order, and these had been incorporated into colonial governance structures. This also accorded with the practice, introduced by the British in various parts of the empire, of indirect rule, which enhanced the capacity for cultural adaptation.67 On independence, these special provisions were generally retained in the new constitutions, albeit with some modifications. This produced hybrid systems incorporating elements of both Western parliamentary democracy and local cultural traditions or, more accurately, neotraditional practices since these had often undergone change since colonization. As with most other parts of the former colonial world, however, the practice of democratic politics in the Pacific Islands has encountered numerous difficulties. In the Melanesian subregion, as discussed previously, interconnected problems of weak political parties and fluid allegiances, corruption and money politics, poor leadership and governance, and lack of state capacity more generally has been highly problematic. But if these factors have made it difficult for democracy to flourish, perhaps they have also made it difficult for authoritarianism to take hold. This may also be attributed to social systems characterized as small scale and relatively egalitarian (at least among males) to the extent that leadership is usually non-hereditary and leaders do not sit atop fixed hierarchies. This has given rise to ‘an uneven process of elite consolidation in highly heterogeneous contexts where leadership is continually contested’.68 An exception to the more general landscape of politics in Melanesia is, once again, Fiji, which has historically shared much in common with its Polynesian neighbours. It is in the western Polynesian subregion that we are most likely to hear that democracy, by virtue of its Western origins, is essentially at odds with pre-existing political cultures. There is much truth in this since many of the values embodied in Polynesian forms are indeed highly 67

Richard Herr, ‘Cultural Adaptation of the Westminster Model: Some Examples from Fiji and Samoa’, Australasian Parliamentary Review, 30 (1), 2015, 72. The French and the Dutch also used indirect rule to varying degrees. 68 Jon Fraenkel, ‘The Hidden Order in Melanesian “Disorderly Democracy”’, Australian Study of Parliament Group, annual conference, Sydney: New South Wales Parliament, 2 October, 2014. Quoted with permission from the author.

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authoritarian and certainly non-democratic. A common argument is that the adversarial style of Western democratic politics is essentially incompatible with what is said to be the strong elements of consensus politics and decision-making in Polynesian societies based on the value of nonconfrontation. Western democracy, at least in this subregion, has therefore been depicted as a ‘foreign flower’ unable to take root in local soil.69 A further claim is that consensus decision-making, along with other aspects of traditional political cultures and the values on which they are based, are essentially democratic, but in their own way, as well as being a much better ‘fit’ in the context of local politics than any introduced institutions could ever be, and therefore likely to deliver more effective governance and greater political stability.70 While ‘democracy’ is seen as the ultimate political good, ‘consensus’ also carries with it strong positive overtones, implying as it does an inclusive mode of deliberation which produces outcomes that all participants can support, even though they may not agree on every detail. This may appear even more attractive when the contrast is made with adversarial, majoritarian systems in which a simple plurality of those participating carry the day, with the minority seen as ‘losers’. Democracy, on this account, is invariably depicted as a zero-sum game. The simplicity of the contrast between these basic models is appealing, especially to the extent that it conforms to a West/non-West dichotomy. But it glosses over other considerations. In the first place, we must question whether ‘consensus’ really is lacking in Western democracies. As shown earlier, consensus politics at the EU level is well entrenched, but a closer look at the formation of governments in many parts of the West also reveals that, at the national level, coalitions are frequently formed between contending parties, that the cooperation of independents is often involved and that there may be a significant measure of bipartisanship on policy issues. Further, some models of Western democracy are based squarely on consensus, notably the consociational model, which requires a ‘grand coalition’ of contending parties and derives from European experiences of dealing with problematic social cleavages within the electorate.71 The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg are 69

Peter Larmour, ‘“A Foreign Flower?”: Democracy in the South Pacific’, Pacific Studies, 17 (1), 1994, 45–77. 70 See, generally, Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy. 71 For the original formulation of the model see Arend Lijphart, ‘Consociational Democracy’, World Politics, 21 (2), 1969, 207–25; and for a summary of debates about models of democracy arising in the wake of Lijphart’s work see Matthijs Bogaards, ‘Comparative Political Regimes: Consensus and Majoritarian Democracy’, in William R. Thompson (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) (online).

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well-known cases of consensus politics where ‘[t]raditionally, decisionmaking has been characterized by broad involvement, power sharing and making compromises’.72 The tendency to contrast majoritarianism with consensus-based models also ignores the fact that a functioning, adversarial system of government and opposition, as in Westminster-style politics, actually requires a high degree of consensus about the value of the system itself and acceptance of the legitimacy of political opposition as part of that system rather than something that sits outside of it or undermines it. This is key to the doctrine of democratic constitutionalism that cannot work without a very strong consensus on the rules of the game and the extent to which they underpin political legitimacy. Moreover, it is a system in which power, over the longer term, is actually shared due to the peaceful alternation in office between major parties (and, where applicable, various coalition partners). The most significant challenge to this model in recent years has been Donald Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat in the US presidential elections of November 2020, although that is another story. But what, exactly, is meant by consensus politics the Pacific Way? Given that the model promoted in this context is said to derive from traditional sources, this question must be approached initially by reference to the domestic political sphere. And, given the centrality of Fiji, Tonga and (Western) Samoa in establishing the central point of reference for the values and practices embodied in the Pacific Way, these countries lend themselves first and foremost to analysis. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Pacific Way was imbued with elements of pre-existing formulations of ‘national ways’ in these three countries, namely, anga fakatonga (the Tongan Way); fa’aSamoa (the Samoan Way), of which fa’amatai (the traditional chiefly structure of governance) is central; and vakaviti (the Fijian Way), although vakavanua – translated roughly as ‘the way of the land’ – is a more commonly used term. Although these ‘national ways’ are themselves partly the product of post-contact developments in politics and society and have not descended in pristine condition from the pre-contact past, they are generally taken to reflect all that is authentically and distinctively traditional in the respective island groups. Anga fakatonga encompasses a wide range of beliefs and practices from the level of everyday life through to the broader sphere of national 72

Jan Beyers, Hans Vollaard and Patrick Dumont, European Integration and Consensus Politics in the Low Countries: Observations on an Under-Researched Relationship, SPS 2014/04 (Florence: European University Institute Working Papers, 2014), 1.

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politics.73 It incorporates the entire system of status and ranking in Tongan society for the monarch, nobles and commoners. Central to anga fakatonga is the notion of fonua. Although it refers literally to land, country or earth as well as womb, fonua represents much more as it constructs people and place as an organic whole, including the entire social system within which they operate. One observer says that in contemporary Tonga, fonua embodies notions of Tongan nationhood and positive self-identification that come into play in contrasting positive Tongan values with negative Western ones. The latter include a secular lifestyle as opposed to a spiritual relationship with God, and the assumption that Western values privilege money and work above family.74 Christianity, incidentally, has not merely been incorporated in, but has become central to, anga fakatonga, with all the contradictions elided. Tongan leadership has often been depicted as autocratic and nonnegotiable, but it is said that certain other values come into play to mitigate these qualities, including ’ofa (love), mateaki (loyalty), fetokoni’aki (reciprocity) and faka’apa’apa (respect).75 Nonetheless, these operate alongside other longstanding values that include obedience to authority within a rigid status system. This is further reinforced in language. The term for ‘commoner’  – tu’a  – has strongly negative connotations and stands as a spatial metaphor when applied to social positioning where it is conceptually linked to ‘low’. Other derogatory terms used to refer to commoners translate as ‘foolish thing’, ‘foolish talk’ and ‘eaters of the earth’.76 In contrast, ideal personhood is associated with ‘chieflyness’, which constitutes ‘an idiom for characterizing virtuous behavior’. It relates not only to leadership positions but is also ‘a generally employed idiom for evaluating and controlling commoner behavior’.77 Traditional values are enshrined in such institutions as the fono, which translates more or less as ‘public meeting’. This might suggest a forum for dialogue and deliberation as part of a process of consensus politics and decision-making. But an account of the functioning of the traditional 73 Helen Morton, ‘How Tongan Is a Tongan? Cultural Authenticity Revisited’, in Deryck Scarr, Niel Gunson and Jennifer Terrel (eds.), Echoes of Pacific War (Canberra: Target Oceania, 1998), 152. 74 Steve Francis, ‘People and Place in Tonga: The Social Construction of Fonua in Oceania’, in Thomas Reuter (ed.), Sharing the Earth, Dividing the Land: Land and Territory in the Austronesian World (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2006), 358. 75 Seu’ula Johansson Fua, ‘Conceptualizations of Leadership in Tonga’, in John Collard and Anthony H. Normore (eds.), Leadership and Intercultural Dynamics (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing), 119. 76 Helen Kavapalu, ‘Power and Personhood in Tonga’, International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, 37 (April), 1995, 18. 77 Marcus quoted ibid.

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Tongan fono, which includes the role of the matāpule (talking chief), indicates otherwise. Although commoners had absolutely no voice in governmental affairs they were assembled in what was called the fono, to hear orders from their chiefs. Anciently the fono was employed as a means for telling the people what to do in connection with work or war. Every adult in a district had to attend. At such gatherings the chiefs and their matapules did the talking, commoners could not speak and had no representatives. Such also is the practice in modern Tonga. Chiefs and sometimes matapules had a voice in decisions, though usually it was the duty of the matapule to convey the chief’s orders to the people.78

A more recent account of a fono suggests that the dynamics have scarcely altered: In the fono I participated in, only a few questions were asked, and they were all calls for clarification since the messages that the matāpule … was delivering were regarded as somewhat complicated. No discussion or decision-making stage followed the delivery of the messages by the matāpule.79

The whole structure of the traditional fono therefore appears to represent the very antithesis of deliberative, inclusive, consensus decision-making. Fa’aSamoa also incorporates a host of practices from the everyday level of family and village life through to the national political arena. As with Tonga, fonua is a central element binding together people, land, ocean, ancestors and leaders in a continuum of past, present and future. It is also holistic in the sense that all Samoans are included – none excluded. The central element of fa’aSamoa is fa’amatai  – matai being the term designating bearers of chiefly titles of which there are around 16,500 in a total population of just under 200,000.80 A complex system of ranking means that matai themselves occupy varying positions in broader hierarchies of status and power that extend outwards and upwards from family and village groups to the national sphere. The Samoan constitution at independence restricted both the franchise and eligibility for elective office to matai and reforms in 1990 only went as far as extending voting rights to all adults. Given that only around 7 per cent of matai title holders are female, and that some villages prohibit women from holding matai titles at all,81 this clearly limits opportunities for women in politics. 78

Gifford quoted in Giovanni Bernardo, Language, Space and Social Relationships: A Foundational Cultural Model in Polynesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 27. 79 Ibid. 80 Samoa, Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development, Women: Matai and Leadership Survey (Suva: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2016) (online). 81 Ibid., 3.

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The election of a female prime minister in 2021 was therefore against the odds. At the same time that the national franchise was extended to all citizens, the powers of the village fono were strengthened and extended as a means of placating hard-line traditionalists opposed to reform. Defenders of fa’amatai argue that while it is a hierarchy, it is holistic, providing for a system of belonging rather than creating inequalities among classes. According to this perspective, fa’amatai cannot be understood as creating a system of exclusion and social stratification in a Western sense. And it is belonging within this system that defines being Samoan.82 Even so, non-matai are quite definitely excluded from elective office. The institution of the fono is also present in Samoa, although it provides more opportunity for participation than the Tongan version due to there being many more matai. There are also different types of fono involving particular groups – for example, a fono komiti fafine is a women’s village committee that meets to discuss and organize matters from the production of mats to public health issues. Another is fono o tupua ma le aumaga where untitled men might meet to organize work. But the most important fono are usually for matai only.83 Further, key political decisions are made among the elite in private while the fono may function more as a ceremonial occasion.84 And because deference to authority is a hallmark of Samoa’s social and political ethos, deliberation is highly constrained and the power of the leading chiefs rarely questioned. As Meleisea notes, ‘our cultural principles disapprove of questioning, challenging or criticising our chiefs, and by extension our government’.85 With explicit reference to village fonos controlled by leading local chiefs, Meleisea adds that, following the strengthening of their authority in 1990, rural Samoans increasingly ‘see fa’aSamoa as another word for oppression’.86 Meleisea’s analysis also suggests that constraints imposed under the contemporary system are actually more onerous than they were in earlier times. 82

Serge Tcherkézoff, ‘Hierarchy Is Not Inequality – In Polynesia for Instance’, in Knut M. Rio and Olaf H. Smedel (eds.), Hierarchy: Persistence and Transformation in Social Formations (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009), 310–11, 316. 83 Alessandro Duranti, The Samoan Fono: A Sociolinguistic Study, Pacific Linguistic Series 8 – no. 80 (Canberra: Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University), 17. 84 Keesing cited in Andrew Arno, ‘Impressive Speeches and Persuasive Talk: Traditional Patterns of Political Communication in Fiji’s Lau Group from the Perspective of Pacific Ideal Types’, Oceania, 56 (2), 1985, 127. 85 Malama Meleisea, ‘Governance, Development and Leadership in Polynesia: A Microstudy from Samoa’, in Anthony Hooper (ed.), Culture and Sustainable Development in the Pacific, 3rd ed. (Canberra: ANU-E Press, 2005), 80. 86 Ibid., 85.

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For Fiji, vakavanua has a complex of meanings associated with the physical environment, inclusive of land, sea, plants and animals, and a spiritual dimension linking ancestors to present kin, all of which find expression in the person of the turaga (chief).87 The notion of vakavanua also embodies the same close links with Christianity that characterize anga fakatonga and fa’aSamoa. Vakavanua is linked in turn to concepts associated with the turaga. As we saw earlier, vakaturaga denotes things carried out ‘in a chiefly manner’. The chiefly practices that dominated in Fiji throughout the colonial period and into the first few decades following independence were based largely on those of the eastern and southern parts of the Fiji Islands where Polynesian influences were strongest and where legitimate political authority was embodied in strict hierarchies. The practices and values associated with these more conservative and hierarchical forms were adapted by the colonial administration and made uniform throughout Fiji. Taken together, the unity of chiefs, land and church came to be expressed in an ‘ontology of tradition’ during the period of colonial rule, which ‘incorporated events, persons, and institutions into a single fixed narrative about “the Fijian way of life” or vakavanua’.88 It was within this system that Mara rose to prominence in the colonial administration and from there gained a similarly prominent profile in regional politics. A study of political communication in Mara’s home province of Lau, where Tongan connections are closest, observed the extent to which formal speech by chiefly figures was designed not to persuade listeners, for persuasion would indicate that they had some choice. ‘When wellmarked hierarchy exists … persuasive public speech is inappropriate because it assumes that people may or may not respond.’89 And while Fijian chiefs were no doubt alert to the feelings of their people, ‘this did not mean implementing decisions that were the result of consensus arrived at by conciliar deliberation. On the contrary, chiefs were expected to show initiative, to lead rather than follow.’90 And people were expected to maintain unity and close ranks behind their leaders, values ‘which political actors frequently find it to their advantage to invoke’.91 87 See Winston Halapua, Tradition, Lotu and Militarization in Fiji (Lautoka: Fiji Institute of Applied Studies, 2003), 83–5. 88 Henry Rutz, ‘Occupying the Headwaters of Tradition: Rhetorical Strategies of NationMaking in Fiji’, in Robert Foster (ed.), Nation Making: Emergent Identities in Postcolonial Melanesia (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 75. 89 Arno, ‘Impressive Speeches’, 135. 90 John Nation, Customs of Respect: The Traditional Basis of Fijian Communal Politics (Canberra: Development Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1978), 154. 91 Ibid., 153.

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Another study explains that Indigenous Fijian ‘selves’ are commonly understood as more sociocentric than egocentric. This relates to ‘the epistemological and ontological connectivities’ inherent in the concept of the vanua ‘as a framework for knowing and living’ and that socialization processes induce younger people to be silent in the presence of older people, for women to be silent in the presence of men, for commoners to be silent in the presence of members of chiefly figures, and so on. ‘Moreover, traditional Fijian culture is a powerful inhibitor on overt conflict, at least within the group. It therefore restrains participants from appearing in any way contradictory or confrontational in a discussion setting.’92 All this suggests that consensus politics in a traditional setting may take place among a small elite, in private, while those lower down the social order are expected to accept decisions made on their behalf in silence. If they are already persuaded through socialization processes that the power and authority vested in the elite is legitimate, and ultimately sanctioned by God, then they do not need to be persuaded about any particular policy or course of action. It follows that many of the values embodied in Polynesian forms are indeed highly authoritarian and certainly at odds with key aspects of liberal democracy that endow even the lowliest members of society with political legitimacy and agency. To the extent that Mara’s Pacific Way embodies such values, they are comparable to those of the ‘ASEAN Way’ in neighbouring Southeast Asia, a brief account of which provides further insight into the phenomenon of consensus politics. 6.4

Comparative Perspectives

ASEAN is a product of both the Cold War and of decolonization, formed in 1967 by five independent Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. Its membership now includes all ten countries of the region with Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar joining in subsequent years. ASEAN’s purpose was to provide for cooperation on issues ranging from economic, social and technical matters to security. The newly independent states were fragile and their external environment subject to Cold War dynamics of superpower rivalry. But the organization survived and, in 1976, ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation was drawn up by the 92

Isimeli Waibuta Tagicakiverata and Pam Nilan, ‘Veivosaki-Yaga: A Culturally Appropriate Indigenous Research Method in Fiji’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31 (6), 2017, 549.

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founding members, formally establishing non-interference in the domestic affairs of member states as the foundation for regional order.93 Indeed, throughout ASEAN’s existence there has been an overriding concern to preserve all elements of state sovereignty and give virtually nothing up to a regional body, even though that body is valued. The idea that full consensus must be achieved before any decision is made – and even then accepting that any such decision was non-binding  – ensured that policy formulation was painstaking. Even so, its value as a means of social engagement and interaction among political elites in the region has been important, even if it has achieved only a thin version of a regional society. Despite some progress towards democracy among members, ASEAN is still sometimes described as a ‘club of dictators’ bent on maintaining state sovereignty and non-interference, not just in the name of independence but in defence of authoritarianism and militarism in domestic politics.94 The case of West Papua is especially noteworthy, although the coup in Myanmar and the plight of minorities such as the Rohingya people has achieved more notoriety in recent years. Authoritarianism among ASEAN countries has very often been justified in terms of cultural traditions, accompanied by the claim that because liberal democracy is a Western cultural artefact, it simply isn’t suited to Asian countries. This culturalist argument was first promulgated by political leaders in Singapore, initially under the rubric of ‘Confucian values’ due to the fact that Singapore’s majority population is ethnically Chinese. The assumption was that Confucian values, being derived from Chinese cultural traditions, were a better cultural fit for Singapore and that politics and government should reflect these values rather than Western liberal ones. One problem was that Confucian values were not inclusive of other communities in Singapore  – mainly Indians and Malays whose own traditions encompassed Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Christianity – and so the discourse shifted to a more flexible, one-size-fits-all set of ‘Asian values’ that could embrace virtually anyone of Asian descent.95 The specific values put forwards as ‘Asian’ included ‘harmony’ and ‘consensus’ underpinned by obedience to and respect for authority and conformity with the social order. The ASEAN Way is similarly characterized as incorporating harmony and consensus as core values. These, 93

David Martin Jones, ‘Security and Democracy: The ASEAN Charter and the Dilemmas of Regionalism in South-East Asia’, International Affairs, 84 (4), 2008, 735. 94 When Philippines President Duterte, infamous for his murderous policy against alleged drug offenders, took his place at his first ASEAN meeting, at least one media headline said ‘Duterte at Home in ASEAN Club of Dictators’. See Standard (Hong Kong), 7 September 2016 (online). 95 For a detailed discussion see Lawson, Culture and Context, 147–64.

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together with ASEAN’s informal processes, are contrasted with those of the West, which are posited as fractious, adversarial, majoritarian and legalistic.96 The Asian values discourse was carried forward on a tide of impressive economic growth in the early post–Cold War period. It was very explicit in attacking Western democracy and the liberal values and lifestyle that accompany it on the one hand, and in justifying authoritarian one-party rule on the other. It became somewhat muted in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Even so, the notion that consensus politics as a culturally authentic mode of politics and diplomacy derived from a set of values common to Asia continues to underpin ASEAN’s identity and remains prominent in its discourses. Turning to the African continent, we find almost identical themes of consensus politics as culturally authentic, again in contrast with Western modes. Over the decades these themes have been prominent in discourses opposing political and civil rights and democratic procedures more generally in favour of authoritarian modes, often expressed in ideologies supporting the one-party state.97 Ethnographic studies in African contexts have also identified the extent to which public consensus serves as an ideological idiom in situations where consensus arising in a particular gathering was actually a ‘skilfully managed illusion’ obscuring ‘backstage realities’. It has also been said that the notion of consensus politics as genuinely traditional ‘is more of a charter for modern politicians than an accurate reflection of history and ethnography’.98 In summary, notions of consensus politics as the authentic cultural expression of Pacific, Asian or African values has been a common theme promulgated primarily by Indigenous elites in post-colonial contexts. These values have been contrasted consistently with a conception of Western democracy as inherently agonistic and therefore alien to nonWestern contexts. Such assumptions have been repeated often enough that they have become truisms. On closer inspection, however, stereotypes constructed around the West/non-West dichotomy tend to break down. Although public contestation is indeed central to Western democratic practices, consensus also plays a key role, especially when it comes to the 96

Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order, 2nd ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 77–80. 97 See Paul Nursey-Bray, ‘Consensus and Community: African One-Party Democracy’, in Graeme Duncan (ed.), Democratic Theory and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 96–111. On related themes in a broader comparative context see Stephanie Lawson, ‘Conceptual Issues in the Comparative Study of Regime Change and Democratization’, Comparative Politics, 25 (2), 1993, 183–205. 98 William P. Murphy ‘Creating the Appearance of Consensus in Mende Political Discourse’, American Anthropologist, 92 (1), 1990, 25, 36–7.

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‘rules of the game’ that support the legitimacy of opposition and contestation as well as succession of government. Consensus at this level therefore stabilizes the political system and supports the democratic process. As for regional diplomatic culture, we have seen that consensus rather than majoritarianism underpins much of the actual decision-making within the EU, and is entirely appropriate to procedures in a regional organization where membership is voluntary and where the political dynamics differ accordingly. On the other hand, where consensus politics has been promoted as the culturally authentic basis for domestic politics, at least as practised in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, the evidence suggests that it is more likely to work in support of authoritarianism insofar as this version of consensus works to delegitimate critical political discourse and dissent. In view of these points, we may well question the extent to which concepts of ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’ are used to empower, legitimate and authorize some at the expense of others within the society in question.99 6.5 Conclusion The advent of independence brought a whole new set of dynamics into the play of regional politics and produced important contradictions. Ratu Mara, the leading figure among Island leaders of the time, embodied a number of these. On the one hand, Mara railed against the dominance of colonial powers in the SPC, seeking thoroughgoing reforms to give Indigenous elites much more agency within the organization. On the other, his early articulation of the Pacific Way reflected elements of his own, much more congenial experience of British rule within Fiji and the sense of partnership that underscored it. That system had worked to sustain chiefly power, providing much common ground between colonizer and colonized, revolving around a shared commitment to conservative values and all that these entailed in terms of elite privilege. These factors are at odds with critiques that see nothing but the dynamics of domination and subordination, or domination and resistance, in colonial relationships while glossing over issues of Indigenous hegemony in post-colonial settings. So although discourses of resistance to ‘Western impositions’ may be radical in some contexts, they can also be highly conservative when aimed at preserving traditional modes of authority and legitimacy. Examining consensus politics in comparative perspective reinforces these points. 99

More detailed analysis may be found in Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy and Stephanie Lawson, ‘Democracy and the Problem of Cultural Relativism: Normative Issues for International Politics’, Global Society, 12 (2), 1998, 251–70.

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Mara’s ‘Pacific Way’ also had strong Polynesian overtones, producing another set of contradictions that compromised its integrity as a unifying ideology in a region where other identities were coming into play. As the Melanesian countries were moving to independence in the mid1970s, a discourse of ‘Melanesianism’ emerged as an alternative expression of identity, becoming manifest in the ‘Melanesian Way’. Apart from marking off a boundary between Melanesians vis-à-vis Polynesians and Micronesians, the way in which the Melanesian Way was articulated was more profoundly anti-colonial from the start. In regional politics, this was to play out in a number of interesting ways.

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7

The Politics of Subregional Identity

The division of the islands of Oceania into the subregions of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia may rightly be criticized on a number of grounds, but the salience of these subregions for those encompassed within them has added another layer to regional politics in the postcolonial period. The MSG emerged in 1983 as a political grouping within the South Pacific Forum and is the longest standing and most prominent of the subregional organizations. In northern Oceania, the MPS has met annually since 2001 while the MCES, established in 2003, meets biennially. The PLG, first convened in November 2011, has for the most part been an annual event. All operate independently of the metropolitan powers. There are other divisions within the Island Pacific that could come under the rubric of subregionalism, including the split between Anglophone and Francophone countries. There is also a Smaller Island States (SIS) group within the Forum. Issues raised by these groupings are considered in Chapter 8. The main concern here, however, is not with varieties of subregionalism such as these, but with how the tripartite division of Oceania has given rise to significant subregional organizations that are now key actors in regional politics. We have seen that the national formulations of Fijian, Tongan and Samoan ‘Ways’ have been articulated in opposition to Western democratic values that traditionalists have often branded as ‘alien’ in the context of both national and regional politics. But in the Melanesian subregion, apart from Fiji, there have been different resonances. The Melanesian approach to valuing their own traditions and customs, encapsulated in ‘kastom’ discourses, have certainly had a distinctive anti-colonial slant. But they have not evinced an explicit anti-democratic stance. At another level, the fact that the Pacific Way was akin to a ‘Polynesian Way’ in its early manifestation was perhaps one reason why a discourse of ‘Melanesianism’ emerged as an alternative expression of identity from the mid-1970s as most Melanesian countries moved to independence. Until recently, Micronesia has demonstrated the weakest of the subregional identities in Oceania. The idea of a common Micronesian 172

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culture has rarely been expressed and subregional organizations have been formed largely around pragmatic issues. Most Micronesian countries, however, do share something in common in terms of their colonial histories and ties to the US, although this does not apply to Nauru and Kiribati, which, until recently, were much more oriented to their more southerly neighbours. In the context of contemporary Forum politics, however, they have now combined to push an explicit Micronesian identity vis-à-vis the other two subregions. This illustrates the point that shifting political contexts largely determine how identities are deployed. Another question is whether trends in subregionalism will seriously undermine either of the principle regional organizations. At least up until 2020, when the impasse over the Forum secretary-general’s position came to a head, there seemed to be no real reason why they should, and to some extent they have complemented the wider bodies. The emergence of these groups also reflects the complex nature of relationships between Forum members. The Forum itself has recognized that it needs to be relevant to each of these expressions of identity, acknowledging that although it tends to focus on the broad regional agenda, ‘yet increasingly it is clear that there are subregional issues, or issues relevant to particular groups of member states, that could be meaningfully addressed … by adopting an effective subregional approach’.1 7.1

The Melanesian Way and Kastom Discourses

The ‘Melanesian Way’ first gained prominence through a series of articles by Papua New Guinea public intellectual Bernard Narokobi, published in the Post-Courier between 1976 and 1978, just after Papua New Guinea gained independence from Australia.2 These articles were collected, together with some critical commentaries by a number of other contributors and a foreword by African scholar Henry Olela of the University of Papua New Guinea’s Philosophy Department (who was well versed in négritude ideas and Afrocentrism), and first published in 1980.3 A similarly titled volume was produced by Kanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou not long afterwards, focusing primarily 1

Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Review Team, Review of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat –Draft Report, May 2012, 25 (online). 2 This section draws substantially from Lawson, ‘Melanesia’. 3 Ton Otto credits Henry Olela with putting all the articles together and editing the book. See Ton Otto, ‘After the “Tidal Wave”: Bernard Narokobi and the Creation of a Melanesian Way’, in Nicholas Thomas (ed.), Narratives of Nation in the South Pacific (Amsterdam: Harwood Publishers, 1997), 33–64.

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on Melanesian identity and culture under French colonial conditions in New Caledonia.4 The latter volume followed a major festival of Melanesian art in Noumea that not only reflected a growing nationalism among Melanesians (who now used the formerly derogative word ‘Kanak’ as a positive assertion of their Indigenous identity)5 but also resonated with the broader ideas of both Pacific and Melanesian Ways current at the time.6 This illustrates, among other things, the relationship between nationalist and regionalist ideas and the layering of identities. In the context of the Kanak experience, it has also been pointed out that ‘nationalist ideologies have in fact been forged by exalting values common to all Melanesians’, a move that differs from projects drawing on ‘abstract designs for emancipation’.7 The latter, however, have played their part as well. Narokobi’s work was informed primarily by his own experiences in Papua New Guinea and no doubt directed largely to a national audience, but his analysis extended to the whole Melanesian subregion, described as ‘inhabited by people who are of neither Asian nor European stock’ nor of ‘African or Polynesian’.8 With respect to the ‘Melanesian Way’, Narokobi claimed not to be the originator of the term, nor even to be fully cognizant of what the word ‘Melanesia’ means. He said he took it to be a European word that ‘probably means negroid or black’ or even ‘native or kanaka’.9 He also refused to give the Melanesian Way a clear definition, suggesting that any attempted definition of what amounted to ‘a total cosmic vision of life’ was at best trite. But the primary purpose of asserting a Melanesian Way, with or without a clear content, was in no doubt: Over the centuries, Melanesians have come to see themselves as they are understood and written up by foreigners. Melanesians are walking in the shadows of their Western analysts, living under dreams and visions dreamt 4

Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Kanaké; The Melanesian Way, trans. Christopher Plant (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1978). The book was originally published in 1976 as Kanaké: Mélanésian de Nouvelle-Calédonie, which better reflected its localized focus. See also Jean-Marie Tjibaou, ‘Recherche d’Identité Melanesienne et Société Traditionelle’, Journal de Société des Océanistes, 32, December 1976, 281–92. 5 See Robert Aldrich and John Connell, The Last Colonies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 153. 6 Alban Bensa and Eric Wittersheim, ‘Nationalism and Interdependence: The Political Thought of Jean-Marie Tjibaou’, Contemporary Pacific, 10 (2), 1997, 374. 7 Eric Wittersheim, Melanesian Élites and Modern Politics in New Caledonia and Vanuatu, DP 98/3 (Canberra: State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program, Australian National University, 1998), 2. 8 Narokobi, Melanesian Way, 4. 9 Ibid., 8.

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by Westerners…. Unless we succeed in establishing a philosophical base, founded on our ancient virtues, we stand to perish as a people of unique quality, character and dynamism.10

This passage highlights the anti-colonial character of Narokobi’s Melanesian Way and a concern to mark it off from Western perceptions. Its postcolonial credentials are therefore apparent, especially in contrast with Mara’s original formulation of the Pacific Way. The fact that Narokobi’s ‘Way’ was profoundly anti-colonial from the start also renders it more readily comparable to the négritude movement of postcolonial Africa that was developed explicitly to counter colonial racist attitudes through the reaffirmation of local ways.11 Tjibaou’s work also reflected an engagement with broader ideas of the time about the circumstances of colonized people and their exploitation as undereducated and generally disempowered. Neither Tjibaou’s nor Narokobi’s critiques, however, amounted to a rejection of Western ways, but rather they call for a judicious blending of local and Western practices.12 Even so, Narokobi’s Melanesian Way, in particular, is distinctly oppositional in a way that Mara’s Pacific Way was not. It has been said that Narokobi imposed upon himself the task of defending an imagined ‘we’ against an – equally imagined – ‘them’, the latter referring to various agents or representatives of colonial and metropolitan powers and the ‘we’ to all Melanesians.13 One conclusion is that the Melanesian Way, although not a strictly nationalist narrative, nonetheless performed a ‘nation-building’ role within Papua New Guinea and was at times used in arguments against secessionist movements.14 But it was readily available as a motif in the context of subregional cooperation, as subsequent developments attest.15 Another relevant point about Indigenous self-representation is that even if Narokobi’s Melanesian Way was seen ‘primarily as a contradiction of Western denigrations of a generic “primitive” or “traditional” 10

Ibid., 9. 11 See Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy, 2–3. Here, however, I invoked too close a comparison between the ‘Pacific Way’ and the négritude movement, which I now think is not applicable to ‘Mara’s Way’, although the later development of the Pacific Way is more comparable. Otto also sees the Melanesian Way as directly comparable to the idea of négritude. See Otto, ‘After the Tidal Wave’, 60. 12 See Gregory Bablis, ‘A Melanesian Icon: Professor Bernard Mullu Narokobi (Ca 1940– 2010)’, paper presented to the Pacific History Association conference, University of Goroka, September 2010. Narokobi’s birth year is omitted in the title because it is unknown. 13 Otto, ‘After the Tidal Wave’, 39–40. 14 Ibid., 61. 15 Ibid.

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mode of life’, it did not rely on Western representations of Melanesia but, rather, sought to generate its own more positive associations.16 In the movement from colonialism to independence the idea of Melanesia therefore became Indigenized, and divorced from any association with inferiority.17 And so, with independent status for the countries of the Melanesian region – New Caledonia excepted – together with the emergence of concepts such as the Melanesian Way, the word ‘Melanesia’ itself moves from a term of disparagement to one of affirmation, providing a positive basis for contemporary identity. The same may be applied to Melanesian kastom discourses that overlap with, but are not identical to, either Tjibaou’s or Narokobi’s notion of a ‘Melanesian Way’.18 Kastom (generally taken to be a Pijin word for ‘custom’, ‘culture’ or ‘tradition’) emerged as a topic of interest in anthropological literature on Melanesia, especially from the early 1980s when Roger Keesing and Robert Tonkinson edited a special journal issue on the subject.19 The contributions explored the politics of the phenomenon, especially in terms of the ‘reinvention’ of traditional culture in contemporary politics. Leaving aside the complex debates about the ‘invention of tradition’ and issues of authenticity (and inauthenticity) that the contributions raised, the concern here is with how kastom is implicated in identity formation. Keesing’s opening speaks first in general terms of the systematic denigration of ‘native ways’ under colonialism, including input from Christian missionaries, and then of the ideology of decolonization seeking to reverse the negative imagery. Keesing refers also to the ‘new political élites of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu … schooled in the rhetoric of African independence  – Nkrumah, Toure, Nyere, Memmi, Fanon, and the rest’. He adds that it is therefore unsurprising that ‘the leaders of the new Melanesia often idealize the precolonial past and seek to fashion a positive sense of identity with rhetoric about The Melanesian Way’.20 Keesing’s co-editor, Robert Tonkinson, notes the different forms that kastom took at local and national levels, suggesting that at the former 16

Nicholas Thomas, In Oceania: Visions, Artifacts, Histories (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), 154. 17 Moore, New Guinea, 4. 18 The issue of gender inequality and violence against women in Papua New Guinea was raised during the course of debates about Narokobi’s Melanesian Way and some of the collected criticisms in the latter section of the book address this. 19 Roger M. Keesing and Robert Tonkinson (eds.), Reinventing Traditional Culture: The Politics of Culture in Island Melanesia, special issue of Mankind, 13 (4), 1982. 20 Roger M. Keesing, ‘Kastom in Melanesia: An Overview’, in Roger M. Keesing and Robert Tonkinson (eds.), Reinventing Traditional Culture: The Politics of Culture in Island Melanesia, special issue of Mankind, 13 (4), 1982, 297.

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level kastom may be used to demarcate competing groups.21 One study in Vanuatu, focusing on how local disputes are resolved through a ‘kastom system’ (which may vary from one location to the next), notes that kastom often translates as simply ‘our way of doing things’ and that this captures the most significant thing about the system.22 Kastom also characterized the participatory, localized consensus-oriented system of conflict resolution as distinct from adversarial (Western) legal systems that entail decisions for someone and therefore also against someone.23 Another observer, recounting fieldwork experiences in the 1970s among non-converts to Christianity in South Pentecost, says that ‘the kastom people of this area were renowned for their strident and concerted resistance to colonial pressures’ and that the ‘other side of this resistance was enormous pride, indeed chauvinism, about their culture, kastom’.24 In addition, commitment to kastom was ‘not naive adherence to tradition [but] self-conscious perpetuation of ancestral ways and resistance to European values and practices’.25 A study of Malaita in Solomon Islands examines how kastom became an ideology of resistance not only to the colonial state but of the postcolonial state as well, and actually has little to do with notions of ‘custom’ as a set of traditional practices.26 The author adds that a weaker aspect of the anthropological kastom literature was that its overarching analyses of ‘kastom in Melanesia’ were often insufficiently attentive to the great diversity in the concept’s meanings across the region.27 While there is much merit in this view, it is also the case that in the early post-colonial period, it was put to use at the broad regional political level, and beyond, ‘in the service of solidarity and unity … of Melanesians sharing a largely homogeneous past that owes nothing to alien cultural forms and now forms the way for a pan-regional “Melanesian Way”, vaguely defined but clearly different from, and in some respects opposed to, modern Western culture’.28 In this sense, however, the discourse actually owes a 21

Robert Tonkinson, ‘Kastom in Melanesia: Introduction’, in Roger M. Keesing and Robert Tonkinson (eds.), Reinventing Traditional Culture: The Politics of Culture in Island Melanesia, special issue of Mankind, 13 (4), 1982, 302. 22 Miranda Forsyth, A Bird that Flies with Two Wings: Kastom and State Justice Systems in Vanuatu (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2009), 95; see also John Patrick Taylor, ‘Two Baskets Worn at Once: Christianity, Sorcery and Sacred Power in Vanuatu’, in Fiona Magowan and Carolyn Schwartz (eds.), Christianity, Conflict and Renewal in Australia and the Pacific (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 139. 23 Hess quoted ibid. 24 Margaret Jolly, Women of the Place: Kastom, Colonialism and Gender in Vanuatu (Abingdon: Routledge, 2002), 6. 25 Ibid. 26 Akin, Colonialism, 344. 27 Ibid. 28 Tonkinson, ‘Kastom’, 302.

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great deal to ‘alien cultural forms’ as these provide the most basic point of departure. Lindstrom later traces the emergence of ‘kastom chatter’ among Melanesians picked up by anthropologists from the 1960s, especially in Vanuatu (then still the New Hebrides) and Solomon Islands. From this period, an expansive kastom discourse spread and intensified.29 Lindstrom also refers to the ambiguous legacy of Christianity. Among the first ‘to bring kastom in from the Christian cold and popularize tradition as a marker of political identity’ in Vanuatu, he says, were members of the New Hebrides Cultural Association founded in 1971, which later morphed into the Vanua’aku Party, becoming the ruling party of Vanuatu in the 1980s. The educated clergy among this group inverted formerly dominant images so that kastom was no longer a legacy from a dark, heathen past but rather a gift from God.30 In this way Christianity, rather than being treated as a negative legacy of colonialism or Western influence more generally, becomes Indigenized and incorporated in kastom. So while there may be a polemical antithesis between ‘Melanesia’ and ‘the West’, there is no such antithesis between kastom and Christianity, ‘which are represented as in fundamental accord’.31 The same can be said of Christianity and the Pacific Way more generally. In Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, however, despite the essential Christian message of equality found in the New Testament, there remain strong associations between divine power and chiefly authority in the reinterpretation of an Indigenized Christianity, tending to support in turn a socially and politically conservative order.32 This is comparable to historic European notions of ‘divine right’. The association of kastom and Christianity in Melanesianist terms, on the other hand, helped to underpin a notion of Melanesian socialism promoted, in particular, by independence leader Walter Lini in Vanuatu. In a major speech delivered in Canberra in 1982, Lini articulated a vision of Melanesian socialism that was posited very clearly in opposition to Western values associated with materialism and ‘the creed of enlightened self-interest’. On Christianity, Lini (himself an Anglican priest) said that it was ‘broadly compatible with the ethic and principles of Melanesian communalism, with its emphasis on mutuality, compassion, and caring 29

Lamont Lindstrom, ‘Melanesian Kastom and Its Transformation’, Anthropological Forum, 18 (2), 2008, 166–7. 30 Ibid. 31 Bronwen Douglas, Weak States and Other Nationalisms: Emerging Melanesian Paradigms? DP 00/3 (Canberra: State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program, Australian National University, 2000), 5. 32 See Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy, 129.

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for one another’, although very few Europeans, he noted, actually practised such values.33 Lini also promoted the idea of a common political framework for Melanesian states within which common policies and a regional strategy may be developed.34 This foreshadowed the emergence of the MSG just a few years later. Lini’s Melanesian socialism has been associated with the rise of more critical and sceptical attitudes among Melanesians towards the conservative Pacific Way discourse from around 1980 and its close association with Polynesian interests.35 But at the same time, Melanesian kastom discourses began to incorporate something that had long been considered typically Polynesian, and that was the idea of ‘chiefs’ rather than simply ‘big men’. Political developments in post-colonial Melanesia have indeed seen efforts to empower ‘traditional chiefs’ in a period in which chiefs came to acquire symbolic importance underscoring the ‘traditional and the indigenous in contrast with the foreign and the modern’.36 Similarly, for Vanuatu, it has been said that the term ‘chief’, and the form of leadership that the term invokes, was introduced during the colonial period and reflected expectations and assumptions by colonial officials and missionaries rather than local understandings.37 One development in Papua New Guinea has seen the title ‘Grand Chief’ introduced as part of the honours system there, and so the late Sir Michael Somare’s full form of address, for example, was the Rt Hon. Grand Chief Sir Michael T. Somare MP GCL GCMG CH CF KStJ – an impressive array of honorifics by any measure, garnered both nationally and by virtue of colonial connections. The ‘Grand Chief’ title, in particular, suggests a certain elitism underpinning some expressions of a Melanesian Way. But it is not the Melanesian Way advocated by Narokobi, who spurned the whole idea of such honours and is said to have declined a knighthood offered in the mid-1990s.38 It has been argued that Melanesian kastom provides a ‘far richer and more ambiguous discourse than alternatives such as the Melanesian Way’.39 However, both Narokobi’s and Tjibaou’s Melanesian Ways and 33

Walter Lini, full text of speech reproduced under heading ‘Lini Pleads for Understanding of the “Melanesian Renaissance”’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 53 (4), April 1982, 25–8. 34 Ibid., 28. 35 Howard, ‘Vanuatu’, 184. 36 Geoffrey M. White, ‘The Discourse of Chiefs: Notes on a Melanesian Society’, in Geoffrey M. White and Lamont Lindstrom (eds.), Chiefs Today: Traditional Political Leadership and the Postcolonial State (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 230–1. 37 Lissant Bolton, ‘Chief Willie Bongmatur Maldo and the Role of Chiefs in Vanuatu’, Journal of Pacific History, 33 (2), 1998, 181. 38 See Bablis, ‘Melanesian Icon’, 1. 39 Lindstrom, ‘Melanesian Kastom’, 165.

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other variants  – including those incorporating a notion of Melanesian socialism – together with Melanesian kastom, may be understood as discourses promoting a positive form of consciousness within both individual Melanesian countries and in the broader subregion. Also, whatever other differences there may be between Anglophone and Francophone political discourses, especially in the context of Vanuatu’s national politics, Melanesian consciousness provides a strong common thread. This has been further strengthened by the celebration of Melanesian identity via the Melanesian Arts Festival, initiated by the MSG in 1995. This event is separate from the Festival of Pacific Arts held every four years since 1972 and which, as we saw earlier, originated as an SPC initiative. Once again, the Melanesian Arts Festival represents the assertion of Melanesian distinctiveness, if not separateness, vis-à-vis other forms of Pacific identity. A study of political undercurrents at the ninth Festival of Pacific indicated that the old colonial categories of Melanesia/Micronesia/ Polynesia were ‘appropriated by the performers as categories of cultural exchange’, although they suggested that these were also mediated within the connected web of relations embodied in the ‘Pacific Way’.40 Another key aspect of Melanesian identity involves the concept of wantok, meaning literally ‘one language’, referring primarily to those from the same language group. ‘Wantokism’ implies giving preference to those from the same language or kin group, in the expectation that this will be reciprocated at some stage.41 It is therefore ostensibly related to a localized group operating at grassroots level. With urbanization, however, it has been used to identify people from the same general area, even if they speak a different first language. Even broader applications have been observed in identifying national entities – for example, all Solomon Islanders  – and at the most extensive level, Melanesians as a whole.42 This has come about partly because most Melanesians, in addition to their first language, also speak Pijin or Pisin or, in Vanuatu, Bislama, and so wantok – itself a Pijin word – can embrace the entire Melanesian world. According to prominent ni-Vanuatu politician Joe Natuman, who has served in various roles including prime minister, Melanesian solidarity and identity is underpinned by the fact that Vanuatu, Solomons and 40

Barbara Glowczewski and Rosita Henry, ‘Dancing with the Flow: Political Undercurrents at the Ninth Festival of Pacific Arts’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 125 (2), 2007, 214. 41 Clive Moore, ‘Pacific View: The Meaning of Politics and Governance in the Pacific Islands’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 62 (3), 2008, 392. 42 Ibid. See also Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, ‘Pacific Islands Stakeholder Participation in Development: Solomon Islands’, Pacific Islands Discussion Paper Series No. 6 (Washington, DC: World Bank, East Asia and Pacific Region, Papua New Guinea and Pacific Islands Country Management Unit, 1998).

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Papua New Guinea all speak a mutually intelligible Pisin which constitutes a wantok. ‘It brings us together.’43 This view is reinforced by another former prime minister from Vanuatu, Barak Sope, who recollects that, when commencing as a student at USP in 1969, he encountered Melanesian students from other countries. They formed a football team, and socialized together, contributing to awareness of a common Melanesian ethnicity. It was helped by the fact that the Solomon Island students also spoke Pijin English, like Bislama, and so formed a wantok. Indigenous Fijian students, however, didn’t speak a Pijin language so did not share that particular bond. There were no Papua New Guinean or New Caledonian students at USP at the time but the idea of a bond with other Melanesians, he says, was planted at USP. Sope also recalls that as early as 1971 he spoke at the University of Papua New Guinea about Melanesian identity and the need for solidarity.44 Wantokism has therefore been conceptualized in terms that allow it to be applied to layered identities from very specific local communities up to national and regional levels. The broader levels have been described as ‘artificial wantoks’, although this does not negate their importance in sustaining a sense of common identity over the subregion.45 Moreover, the very concept of wantok is distinctively Melanesian, indicating at once both the actual diversity of Melanesia as well as a certain conceptual unity in contrast with Polynesia and Micronesia. In combination, both kastom discourses and wantokism, although often anchored in very localized forms of identity, contribute to an ideology of Melanesianism in turn underpinning the assertion of a specific subregional identity. ‘Ideology’ is an especially appropriate term here as it denotes the transcending of a merely descriptive category by promoting a strongly normative set of ideas about Melanesia as well as a world view emanating from it. A 2010 study focusing on attitudes towards national identity among tertiary students in Melanesia and East Timor found a relatively strong sense of pan-Melanesian identification among those from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, ‘with feelings of closeness to Melanesia significantly exceeding feelings of closeness toward “the Pacific” region in general’.46 Another relevant point is that those surveyed, as tertiary 43

Joe Natuman, personal interview, Port Vila, 21 June 2016. 44 Barak Sope, personal interview, Port Vila, 21 June 2016. 45 Gordon Nanau, ‘The Melanesian Group and Fluctuating Regional Cooperation’, paper presented to the International Studies Association Asia-Pacific Conference (St Lucia: University of Queensland), 29–30 September 2011, 4. 46 Michael Leach, James Scambary, Matthew Clarke, Simon Feeny and Heather Wallace, Attitudes to National Identity among Tertiary Students in Melanesia and Timor Leste: A Comparative Analysis, DP 2012/8 (Canberra: State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program, Australian National University, 2010), 7.

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students, comprise something of an elite among their age cohort, and will in time provide the pool of talent from which future national and regional elites will be drawn. But this also raises questions of whether conceptions of ‘Melanesia’ are most likely to be found among those for whom perceptions of the broader region are actually salient as opposed to those at the grassroots level where the question of regional identity is rarely an issue. In summary, the construction of a positive Melanesian identity, as a largely Melanesian enterprise, has emerged over the last five decades or so. It has been mediated by certain anti-colonial dynamics in which the ‘Melanesian self’ is often asserted in opposition to a ‘European other’ as represented by the agents of colonial power. At least this is what most anthropological discussions have focused on. A less commonly acknowledged aspect of the construction of the Melanesian self, however, is the relational dynamic engendered by a ‘Polynesian other’. Assertions of ‘Melanesianess’ or ‘Melanesianism’ may therefore be a response to either or both, depending on the context. The emergence of Melanesian subregionalism in the form of the MSG involves all these other relational dynamics. 7.2

The Melanesian Spearhead Group

Lini’s 1982 speech foreshadowed the formation of a subregional political organization of some kind following the moves to independence of Papua New Guinea (1975), Solomon Islands (1978) and Vanuatu (1980). But Barak Sope recalls that even as early as 1971, with independence for Vanuatu and other Melanesian countries on the agenda and the Forum already established, there was talk of a Melanesian group forming separately from the Forum. Ratu Mara had spoken about the Pacific Way, but Sope says it did not have much appeal for Melanesians: ‘It seemed to be mainly for Polynesians and not so inclusive of Melanesians.’ Mara himself was never interested in joining a Melanesian group. ‘He’d put all his eggs in the Forum basket and was committed there. He was also Polynesian and part of that Polynesian high chiefly system.’47 Mara reportedly turned down an invitation to join the MSG in 1988.48 According to Sope, a Melanesian group met informally in Port Vila in 1983, chaired by Sope himself and with representatives from Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia. Independence was the major issue, mainly for New Caledonia but concerns about both West Papua and East Timor were raised as well.49 Joe Natuman recalls 47

Sope interview. 48 Nanau, ‘Melanesian Spearhead Group’, 8. 49 Sope, interview.

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a meeting in Port Moresby, also around this time when both Michael Somare and Julius Chan (another former prime minister of Papua New Guinea) were keen to push a Melanesian agenda.50 A further meeting in Goroka in the Papua New Guinea highlands took place in 1986 and it was here that the name ‘Melanesian Spearhead Group’ was adopted. Natuman says that the name emerged in the context of discussions about the three countries ‘spearheading’ issues, especially with respect to New Caledonia.51 Sope also says that the ‘spearhead’ was a traditional weapon that fitted with the cultural image of Melanesia and suited the idea of ‘fighting’ for independence and Melanesian rights. In addition, there was a growing public consciousness in this period due largely to the music group the West Papuan ‘Black Brothers’. They had sought asylum in the Netherlands but toured Vanuatu, Solomons and Papua New Guinea around that time (sponsored by Vanuatu). ‘They were very popular, they delivered a strong political message and raised political consciousness among the public at large.’52 At the Goroka meeting, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Somare had proclaimed that ‘our Melanesian spirit, brotherhood and solidarity is united and we ask for the non-interference in our affairs by regional powers as we face the challenges ahead’.53 In 1988, the prime ministers of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands signed a set of Agreed Principles, committing their countries to consultation and cooperation on regional and international issues.54 One commentator suggests that the 1988 agreement may have been motivated by a desire to show Melanesian support for Kanak independence, ‘reflecting the perception that the Pacific Islands Forum’s former colonial powers, Australia and New Zealand, and some Polynesian countries had been failing to take up the issue with sufficient vigour at the Forum’.55 In the meantime, the issue of how independence groups in New Caledonia could be represented was resolved when Lini insisted that they unite in one way or another. Accordingly, the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) was formed as an umbrella organization in 1984, and then admitted as an MSG member. This set the precedent for

50

51 52 53

Natuman, interview. Ibid. Sope, interview. See Pacific Institute of Public Policy, MSG: Trading on Political Capital and Melanesian Solidarity, Briefing Paper no. 2, July 2008, 2. 54 David Hegarty, ‘Papua New Guinea in 1988: Political Crossroads?’, Asian Survey, 29 (1), 1989, 184. 55 Ron May, The Melanesian Spearhead Group: Testing Pacific Island Solidarity (Canberra: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2010), 1–2.

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the formation of a similarly constituted United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) around three decades later.56 Fiji did not join the MSG until 1996, indicating its lesser identification with ‘Melanesianess’ until that time. The current prime minister and former Fiji coup leader (of the 1987 coups), Sitiveni Rabuka, says that the idea of joining came about in 1992 when he became elected prime minister. Ratu Timoci Vesikula, minister for Fijian affairs in his government, had suggested that they approach the MSG about attending as observers. Permission was granted, Fiji attended, and was subsequently invited to join as a full member. The MSG, says Rabuka, is now ‘a very close, neighbourly group’.57 Rabuka also confirms the general picture presented of Ratu Mara by other Melanesian leaders and that Fiji’s joining the MSG would never have happened in Ratu Mara’s time as prime minister. Ratu Mara ‘had an air around himself  – he looked down on Melanesians’ despite his personal friendship with Michael Somare, who became highly respected in the region. Rabuka believes this friendship was at least partly because it enhanced Mara’s own stakes around the region. Rabuka also affirms that Mara’s Polynesian identity set him apart. The majority of Fijians ‘are really more Melanesian than Polynesian  – not like Mara and his family’.58 Natuman has a similar perception of Mara’s identification with Polynesia, adding that ‘Fiji had a different colonial experience and was not as strong on the issue [of decolonization], or on the idea of a Melanesian brotherhood’. As far as Mara’s Pacific Way was concerned, he says, the Melanesian countries didn’t really know what it meant, but it appeared to reflect an agenda of Mara’s in the Forum and in regional politics generally.59 The next major development was a formal agreement signed in March 2007 under which the MSG now operates. The organization is headquartered in Vanuatu with a Secretariat established in 2008, funded by China. The preamble to the 2007 document indicates the membership as inclusive of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the FLNKS of New Caledonia. The preamble proclaims ‘a region of solidarity and cooperation … with the objective of strengthening wider institutions of regional and international cooperation’. It further sets out the determination of MSG members to ‘have a region that is respected for the quality of its governance, the sustainable management of its resources, the respect for and promotion of its Melanesian cultures, traditions and values and 56

Natuman, interview. 57 Sitiveni Rabuka, former coup leader and twice elected prime minister of Fiji, personal interview, Suva, 12 January 2014. 58 Ibid. 59 Natuman, interview.

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for its defence and promotion of independence as the inalienable right of indigenous peoples of Melanesia and the promotion of their human rights’.60 The establishment of the MSG as a regional organization, and not just a loose arrangement as a bloc within the Forum, formalized the Melanesia/Polynesia divide.61 The theme of a Melanesian organization asserting a distinctive identity vis-à-vis not only former colonial powers but other forms of identity in Oceania is highlighted in another analysis. Norman MacQueen notes that while the Forum was recognized as the foremost regional organization, ‘the Melanesians in particular have identified a number of distinct positions and attitudes on regional and international issues which depart from those of their Polynesian neighbours’,62 further suggesting that the Melanesians ‘found themselves increasingly at odds with what they perceived as the diplomatic conservatism of the Polynesian island states on a range of issues from nuclear testing to New Caledonia’.63 MacQueen had earlier identified a recurring suspicion in Papua New Guinea, if not in other parts of Melanesia, ‘that the more conservative Polynesian island states were not sufficiently committed to Pacific-wide regionalism’ and that they seemed rather too willing to shelter under the ‘colonial shadow’ of other institutions. There was also a feeling that the numerically larger Polynesian presence in the Forum ‘was a drag on its potential and that the Melanesians, smaller in numbers but generally better resourced and more populous, had a right to their own voice.64 Other analyses support the view that the MSG was formed with the intention of giving ‘a greater voice to each of the Melanesian states in the South Pacific Forum’,65 while another suggests that although the MSG’s ostensible aim was to strengthen Melanesian relations economically through trade and politically through meetings: ‘Maybe, it was also 60

MSG, Agreement Establishing the Melanesian Spearhead Group, Port Vila, 23 March 2007 (online). 61 Nanau, ‘Melanesian Group’, 8. 62 Norman MacQueen, ‘Island South Pacific in a Changing World’, Pacific Review, 6 (2), 1993, 145. 63 Ibid. MacQueen also notes an early attempt by a Polynesian grouping to set up their own subregional organization, but not followed up due to lack of interest. Perhaps this was because there seemed so little need for one. Circumstances have changed, however, and in November 2011 the Polynesian Leader’s Group was established following a meeting in Samoa and the signing of an MOU by representatives of Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, Niue, American Samoa, French Polynesia and Tokelau. Fiji was not represented but may apply to join. Radio New Zealand, ‘New Polynesian Group Formed in Samoa’, 19 November 2011 (online). 64 Norman MacQueen, ‘New Directions for Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Policy’, Pacific Review, 4 (2), 1991, 169. 65 Yaw Saffu, ‘Papua New Guinea in 1987: Wingti’s Coalition in a Disabled System’, Asian Survey, 28 (2), 1987, 249.

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to band together against the Polynesian domination of regional organizations.’66 There have, however, been some links between the MSG and the pro-independence movement in French Polynesia  – the latter being ideologically attuned to the MSG’s anti-colonial agenda.67 But the pro-French groups in French Polynesia are more strongly aligned with other Polynesian entities, and its best known leader, Gaston Flosse, was strongly supportive of the Polynesian group when it emerged, having earlier declared that: ‘We [Polynesians] are a single identical group.’68 To this day, there continues to be a distinct difference between Polynesian and Melanesian approaches to aspects of regional politics – the former said to be more receptive to external advice and opinions while the Melanesian bloc tends to resent such influence.69 The politics of subregionalism along the Melanesia/Polynesia divide has clearly had an impact over several decades and the discussion thus far illustrates that the Pacific Way cannot be taken for granted as symbolizing an uncontested unity across the island region. But while the ‘Melanesian brotherhood’ has evinced much solidarity over a number of important issues – decolonization in New Caledonia and nuclear issues in particular – it has been sorely tested in recent times over the issue of West Papua. We return to this issue in Chapter 12. 7.3

The Polynesian Response

If the idea of the Melanesian Way and the development of the MSG has been at least partly a response to perceptions of Polynesian dominance, then the more recent formation of the PLG can be considered in terms of similar dynamics operating in the opposite direction.70 A Polynesian grouping had been mooted in the early 1980s by Ratu Mara of Fiji, possibly as a reaction to the formation of the MSG.71 In the mid-1980s, Gaston Flosse had also promoted the idea of a ‘Federation of Polynesian States’, as a response to the Melanesian movement.72 Mara was best placed to initiate a Polynesian grouping, but nothing came of it at the time perhaps due to lack of a sense of purpose for such a grouping. After 66

Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, ‘Cohesion and Disorder in Melanesia: The Bougainville Conflict’, in Peter Lamour (ed.), New Politics in the South Pacific (Suva: Institute of Pacific Studies, 1994), 73. 67 Bessard and Mrgudovic, ‘Regional Horizons’, 10. 68 Quoted in ibid. 69 Nanau, ‘Melanesian Group’, 8. 70 This section is based partly on Stephanie Lawson, ‘Regionalism, Subregionalism and the Politics of Identity in Oceania’, Pacific Review, 29 (3), 2016, 387–409. 71 MacQueen, ‘Island South Pacific’, 145. 72 Bessard and Mrgudovic, ‘Regional Horizons’, 10.

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all, Polynesian leaders had been the dominant group in the early years of the Forum and the Pacific Way largely reflected their rather conservative values and interests. It is perhaps for this reason that the largest and most culturally cohesive of the three subregions took the longest to establish a subregional organization. By the mid-2000s regional dynamics had certainly changed since the early days of the Forum and Mara’s Pacific Way. The MSG had acquired a strong profile in regional politics and the Micronesian organizations (discussed shortly) were becoming well established. It seemed only a matter of time before the third of the major subregions formed an organization. In doing so, both the nineteenth-century Hawai’ianled vision of a pan-Polynesian confederation in the context of imperial geopolitics, as well as Mara’s 1980s proposal, were referenced, with the PLG being seen as ‘simply manifesting that dream, that idea, into a reality our forefathers envisioned long ago’.73 The initiative was taken by Samoan Prime Minister Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, when he hosted a meeting of leaders from seven other countries – French Polynesia, Niue, Tokelau, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and American Samoa – in Apia. Together they agreed a set of principles to ‘develop, promote and protect common interests and objectives of the members’ and provide ‘a systematic approach to cooperation among Polynesian countries’.74 Tuila’epa set out an agenda for the group, although in terms that barely distinguished it from the purposes of the Forum: ‘As small island states, we need to work together in areas that will benefit our people the most. By pooling resources we can do much more than if one state were to struggle all alone to develop in such sectors as fisheries, agriculture, tourism, health and education.’75 But he went on to highlight the issues of climate change and access to global climate change funds as well as the role of the PLG vis-à-vis the established Melanesian and Micronesian groups: With climate change posing a major threat to the survival of many of our island states, this makes it all the more justifiable for Polynesian states to have a united front along with our Melanesian Spearhead and Micronesian brothers. To push 73

Interview by Tupuola Terry Tavita with Tuialepa Sailele Malielegaoi, in ‘Samoa PM Talks about the Polynesian Leaders Group’, Pacific Islands Report, East-West Centre, 12 January 2011 (online). Note, however, that the ‘Polynesia’ of the nineteenth-century movement was taken to include the Micronesian subregion as well. See Tate, ‘Hawaii’s Early Interest in Polynesia’. This more expansive view of Polynesia as encompassing what we now call Micronesia accords with the division of Oceania between just two main racial groups, as noted in Chapter 3. 74 Marieta Heidi Ilalio, ‘Polynesian Leaders Group Formed in Samoa’, Pacific Islands Report, East-West Centre, 21 November 2011 (online). 75 Tuialepa, interview.

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hard for greater and timely access to global climate change funds for our sustainable development programmes. Our islands, of course, remain the most vulnerable to the impending multi-faceted threats of rising sea levels.76

Tuila’epa indicated that membership could be opened up to Polynesian groups in other parts of the broad region, noting that the ‘Polynesian outliers’, that is, small Polynesian island communities incorporated politically into Melanesian or Micronesian countries, could contribute to ‘promoting our extremely lively Polynesian heritage’.77 These ‘outliers’ were in addition to the Polynesian populations of Hawai’i, Rapa Nui and New Zealand that also figured in early discussions. A further declared purpose, stated at the second meeting in Rarotonga in August 2012, was ‘the continued preservation of Polynesian culture, traditions and languages as the common uniting foundation of the PLG’.78 At the same time, a more substantial agenda was set out. In addition to ‘traditional and cultural preservation’ the communiqué noted social development, infrastructure advancement, economic prosperity, environmental sustainability and governance and security as key concerns for the group.79 None of these differ significantly from those of the broader regional associations but it may be assumed that PLG members envisaged enhanced outcomes through a subregional focus. Another outcome was an agreement to explore means of engaging ‘in more meaningful exchange with external partners’, including China, the US and organizations such as the World Bank.80 This suggests that the group was seeking to establish its own set of external relations independently of other Forum members while enhancing what can be achieved bilaterally. On membership, the Rarotonga communiqué had further noted a request from Maori Iwi to join the group and another from Rapa Nui ‘to hear the concerns of the Rapa Nui people, including decolonization’.81 By the time of its third meeting in Auckland in 2013, the list of practical issues on which the group proposed to lobby included increases to the quotas for seasonal workers in Australia and New Zealand, enhanced labour mobility among members of the group, measures to promote tourist mobility through the subregion, the possible establishment of a 76

Ibid. 77 Quoted in Iati Iati, ‘Pacific Regionalism and the Polynesian Leaders Group’, Round Table, 106 (2), 2017, 176. For a discussion of the Polynesian outliers providing linguistic and archaeological data, see Patrick Kirch, ‘The Polynesian Outliers: Continuity, Change, and Replacement’, Journal of Pacific History, 19 (4), 1984, 224–38. 78 Polynesian Leaders’ Group, Communiqué from Second Meeting, Rarotonga, 25 August 2012 (online). 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid., 2. 81 Ibid.

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subregional airline (an interesting item considering previous experience) and cooperation on any measures relating to climate change, including the need for all PLG members to ‘embrace our Polynesian people displaced by climate change’.82 The third meeting also included two Maori delegates (both national politicians) as observers as well as the CEO of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Another matter noted at the third meeting was ‘the resolution adopted by the French Polynesia Assembly reaffirming the democratic choice of its population to remain the strongly autonomous overseas country that it is’.83 Indeed, a notable contrast with the MSG in relation to New Caledonia is the fact that the former French Polynesian president, Gaston Flosse, who was also elected chair of the PLG for 2013–2014, was a strong supporter of the continuing political status of his country as a French overseas territory. His main political rival, Oscar Temaru, was an equally strong campaigner for independence and, during his presidency from 2011 to 2013, succeeded in having French Polynesia relisted by the UN as a non-self-governing territory, having lobbied the NAM for its support, aided by Fiji and other MSG members.84 Flosse, incidentally, had offered to host a permanent Secretariat for the PLG in French Polynesia but he was forced from office after being found guilty of corruption not long after.85 Climate change has been at the forefront of the PLG’s agenda and, at the 2015 meeting in Tahiti, ahead of the COP21 meeting in Paris, a five-page Taputapuatea Declaration on Climate Change was issued, outlining the significant threats faced by their people  – dubbed the ‘People of the Canoe’ – and ‘threatening the foundation of our identity as Polynesian peoples’.86 By 2018, seven years on from its foundation, it was also clear that the group was being taken seriously in wider regional and international circles with the communiqué reporting observers from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP), the South Pacific Tourism Organisation, the Forum Secretariat, USP, the Forum Fisheries Agency, Conservation International and Climate Analytics, along with the 82

Polynesian Leaders’ Group, Communiqué from Third Meeting, Auckland, 30 August 2013 (online). 83 Ibid. 84 See Lorenz Gonschor, ‘French Polynesia’, Contemporary Pacific, 26 (1) 2014, 192–3. See also United Nations, General Assembly, ‘Self-determination of French Polynesia’, A/RES/67/265, 23 August 2012 (online), which also noted the support of the Forum. 85 Radio New Zealand, ‘French Polynesia President Gaston Flosse Loses Power’, 8 September 2014 (online). 86 Polynesian Leaders’ Group, The Polynesian PACT: Polynesia Against Climate Threats, Taputapuatea Declaration on Climate Change, Papeete, 16 July 2015 (online).

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executive secretary of the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change and a representative of the Green Climate Fund.87 In addition to climate change, agenda items showed expansion into a range of areas from health and education to tourism and communications with regional aviation appearing again. There was also a special meeting with CSOs ahead of the main event showing the growing profile of such organizations in wider settings. Membership has also expanded and as of 2023 it included Wallis and Futuna, New Zealand, Hawai’i and Rapa Nui. Notably absent from the group is Fiji, illustrating the shift in Fiji’s orientation since the days when Ratu Mara dominated the regional scene as a Polynesian paramount chief. But the PLG has brought into play some of the most marginal actors in regional politics generally, especially Rapa Nui which previously had no formal connections with any of the regional organizations. The additional inclusions may also bring extra resources (especially from New Zealand and Hawai’i), to establish a proper secretariat – something so far lacking in its own basic infrastructure. 7.4

A Micronesian Way?

The two main Micronesian subregional bodies  – the MPS and the MCES  – have been operating for the best part of two decades. But there were some earlier forms of organization in northern Oceania. An Association of Pacific Island Legislatures (APIL) was established in 1981, an entirely Micronesian enterprise with a founding membership comprising the CNMI, Guam, the four individual states of the FSM, the RMI and Palau. The purpose was to meet ‘on a regular basis to consider matters of mutual interest in areas where regional cooperation, coordination, exchange and assistance would help individual governments achieve their goals through collective action’.88 It was later joined by American Samoa, the state of Hawai’i, Nauru and Kiribati. It aims to coordinate policies in key legislative areas including protection of traditional practices, environmental preservation, health care services, healthy and controlled economic development, emerging economic industries, federal mandates, food security, climate change, waste management, renewable energy, coexistence with the US military and many more policy issues.89 These are the usual standout issues for regional 87

Polynesian Leaders’ Group, 8th Polynesian Group Communique, Funafuti, Tuvalu, 28 June 2018 (online). 88 APIL, Mission Statement, adopted 31 July 1981 (online). 89 Erwin Encinares, ‘APIL Delegates Gather on Saipan for 60th Meeting’, Saipan Tribune, 5 December 2019 (online).

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and subregional organizations, although relations with the US are more complex in northern Oceania given historic links and current Compact arrangements. The extension of APIL’s membership to legislative bodies in southern Oceania had been mooted but not yet acted on.90 The smaller Micronesian summit body, the MPS, grew out of a 2001 meeting in Pohnpei convened on the initiative of FSM President Leo Falcam, bringing together the leaders of the three sovereign countries – the FSM, the RMI and Palau – to deliberate on policy matters of mutual concern. A second meeting in 2002 saw the official establishment of a subregional alliance to pursue joint interests in broader regional and international fora and to coordinate responses to issues arising from their association with the US.91 In formal organizational terms, the MPS presidents and heads of delegations signed an MOU at their 2019 meeting authorizing the drafting of an Intergovernmental Agreement and Rules of Procedure to formalize ‘the status and nature of the MPS as a subregional organization’.92 The MCES arose shortly after the MPS and partly in response to it. In addition to the three presidents, it included leaders of the nonindependent territories of Palau, Guam and CNMI plus the four individual states of the FSM (Pohnpei, Chuuk, Kosrae and Yap). President Thomas (Tommy) Remengesau Jr of Palau is credited with convening the first meeting of the MCES, having invited Governor Felix Perez Camacho of Guam, Governor Fitial of CNMI and Governor Robert Ruecho of Yap as leaders of non-sovereign entities to meet separately on the margins of the third MPS held in Palau, in a spirit of ‘true Micronesian brotherly solidarity’.93 The group was initially formed as the Western Micronesia Chief Executives’ Summit with the ‘Western’ dropped as it came to encompass the RMI. The issues discussed at the MPS and the MCES overlap but, given that one entity comprises sovereign states while the other includes non-sovereign entities, their approaches are necessarily different.94 Interestingly, the two organizations shadow aspects of broader regional organization. Both the MCES and the Pacific Community are much more inclusive in terms of membership of both independent and non-independent entities, whereas the MPS reflects the original idea of the Forum as an organization of independent states. As we have seen, the MSG and PLG also include non-state entities. 90

Robert Q. Tupaz, ‘Guam Hosting Regional Lawmakers for APIL Meeting’, Guam Daily Post, 1 June 2016 (online). 91 Gallen, ‘Micronesian Sub-Regional Diplomacy’, 179. 92 MPS, Communiqué, Koror, Republic of Palau, 20–1 February 2019, 4 (online). 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid.

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According to Judith Won Pat, speaker of the Guam Legislature from 2009 to 2017 and also a former president of APIL, the formation of both the MPS and MCES proceeded from recognition by executive leaders across the Micronesian region that they needed to work together on issues of common interest and concern and that joint representations to the US in particular would be much more effective than individual ones (noting that the US has separate bilateral relations with each of the states or political entities in the region). ‘We really need to stand together to produce a stronger voice. Having said that, Micronesian politicians are careful to avoid giving offence to the US (or anyone else for that matter)’, and ‘this is part of the Micronesian Way.’95 Won Pat’s early experience in APIL suggested that there needed to be much more interaction between the executive and legislative branches of government as well. Over the years, she says, these organizations and meetings have contributed to a developing sense of Micronesian regional (or subregional) identity.96 Micronesian subregionalism, at least until recently, has been a largely pragmatic exercise, as reflected in the agendas of both organizations over the years. These have focused on issues of mutual concern including fisheries, trade and investment, sustainable development, aviation and shipping, a regional coastguard project, educational facilities, energy supply, climate change and cooperation with the wider regional bodies, especially the Pacific Community and the Forum. All of these issues, and more, are clearly seen as matters on which Micronesian solidarity is key.97 To further enhance this, and to expand the reach of the organization, the MPS in 2009 extended an invitation to Nauru and Kiribati to join. This was politely declined at the time, perhaps underscoring the sense of detachment of the more northern Micronesian countries, due both to physical distance as well as their ties with the US, which meant that many agenda items involve their US relationship.98 As mentioned earlier, Nauru and Kiribati were also much more oriented to southern Oceania. Almost a decade later, however, any sense of detachment had evidently evaporated with both Nauru and Kiribati joining the 18th MPS in 2018. This ‘historic development’ was described as completing the ‘voice of Micronesia’.99 Palau President Tommy Remengesau 95

Judith T. Won Pat, personal interview, Hagatna, Guam, 27 May 2016. 96 Ibid. 97 See FSM Information Services, ‘12th Micronesian President’s Summit Unveils in Majuro’, Palikir, 11 July 2009 and FSM Information Services, ‘The Eneko Communiqué Contents from the 9th Micronesian Presidents’, Summit Press Release, Palikir, 21 July 2009 (both online). 98 Gallen, ‘Micronesian Sub-Regional Diplomacy’, 180. 99 Hilary Hosia, ‘Summit Debut for Kiribati, Nauru’, Marshall Islands Journal, 1 March 2018 (online).

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noted that with Kiribati and Nauru as members, the MPS now had the majority of the small island states within the larger Pacific Islands Forum, indicating that the summit had ‘taken on greater importance for our Micronesian people and our Micronesian region’ who together ‘must demand a stronger voice in regional planning and negotiations’.100 So while Micronesian identity based on perceived cultural ties may be relatively weak, and notwithstanding quite different colonial histories, an identity of shared political interests had developed among elites. In the meantime, a 2011 MCES report indicated that it had spawned ‘a robust and active array of committees creating a wide variety of programs and public interest initiatives’.101 At the same time, however, the enormous number of issues on the agenda appeared overwhelming and another report cited the chair, Northern Marianas Governor Eloy Inos, as proposing that the MCES deal with only three major items at a time.102 As we see in Chapter 8, the problem of an overcrowded agenda was also to become a major concern for the Forum. The 2011 MCES further noted a commitment to regional cooperation insofar as this was useful in finding solutions to common problems in terms of environmental and cultural preservation and economic development, as well as in increasing the attractiveness of funding proposals by garnering greater visibility internationally. But they remained sensitive to ‘the unique qualities and differences of each jurisdiction’.103 National integrity, including the value of localized cultural traditions, was not to be subsumed under a catch-all Micronesia identity except to the extent that the ‘Micronesian brand’ enhanced a common program benefitting individual members. Another development was the formation of a Micronesian Traditional Leaders Conference in Palau in 1999 to advocate, represent and support ‘preservation and strengthening of cultures, languages, customs, and [the] role of traditional leaders in the Pacific region’.104 It subsequently changed its name to the Council of Pacific Island Traditional Leaders to potentially include other Island countries in Polynesia and Melanesia, although most of the participants of a summit held in Pohnpei in 2012 were from the Micronesian subregion. It claimed to be a parallel organization with the Forum, APIL and the Pacific Judicial Council (the last 100 FSM Information Services, ‘The 19th Micronesian Presidents’ Summit: Continuing Commitment to Cooperation’, 19 March 2019 (online). 101 Micronesian Chief Executives’ Summit, ‘Review and Plan, 2011 (online). 102 Alexie Villegas Zotomayor, ‘19th Micronesian Executives’ Summit Begins in CNMI’, Pacific Islands Report, East-West Centre, 12 May 2013 (online). 103 Ibid. 104 ‘First Pacific Traditional Leaders’ Summit’, Tia Belau Newspaper, 21 November 2012 (online).

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of these providing a forum for chief justices of the Island Pacific), but concerned mainly with what traditional leaders could do for Indigenous rights and the preservation of environmental and cultural heritage.105 In recent years, however, it appears to have been inactive.106 Where does all this leave the idea of a Micronesian Way? As indicated previously, beyond statements of solidarity over practical issues of mutual concern and an assertion of the ‘Micronesian brand’ by political elites in broader regional and international politics, there had been little to suggest deeper cultural bonds. Certainly, there has been nothing comparable to the concerted efforts by various spokespeople for the ‘Melanesian Way’ or ‘Polynesian culture and tradition’ to promote an identity based on substantive, shared cultural traditions or values as Micronesians. This accords with earlier findings that, despite efforts by some politicians and writers as well as agencies such as the Peace Corps to promote a ‘Micronesian Way’ or a pan-Micronesian identity, it did not take root.107 Localized identities retain much greater salience, even those that are difficult to delineate in the terms of standard studies in ethnicity.108 Having said that, anthropologists do refer freely to ‘the patterns of Micronesian social life’, ‘traditional Micronesian society’ and ‘Micronesian conceptions’ (e.g., of land tenure and labour) that reference practices common across the subregion.109 There is also a long, shared history of occupation or control by a variety of foreign powers, from the Spanish in the seventeenth century to German colonization in the late nineteenth century, passing to Japan after the First World War and then to the US from 1945.110 Certain basic ingredients for the construction of a substantive subregional identity are therefore present, including entities against which a Micronesian self can be readily constructed. Commenting on the possibility of a more consolidated sense of subregional identity, Judith Won Pat says that the Micronesian Way, although not widely used, is nonetheless a recognized term that she believes distinguishes Micronesian political culture at least vis-à-vis the West: ‘There are definitely certain ways in which politics is conducted which contrast with those of the West. It is widely recognized in political/diplomatic circles around the region that our leaders and representatives have 105 106 107 108 109

110

Ibid. There is no record of any meetings or activities since the 2012 summit. Poyer, ‘Ethnicity and Identity’, 213. Ibid. Glenn Petersen, Traditional Micronesian Societies: Adaptation, Integration and Political Organization (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), esp. ch. 5. See David Hanlon, Remaking Micronesia: Discourses of Development in a Pacific Territory, 1944–1982 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998), 2.

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a distinctive way of conducting themselves during debates, discussions and decision-making.’ Micronesian leaders, she says, ‘present as humble, highly respectful of other leaders, and will say nothing that can be seen as offensive, aggressive or assertive. The aim is to avoid confrontation and giving offence.’111 There is also a tendency to be non-committal on issues where there is not clear agreement, and sometimes even when there is. A common practice is to defer discussion on controversial issues for another time, and perhaps let such issues drop quietly. On difficult issues, there is also the strategy of suggesting that the matter be further discussed over a bowl of sakau (kava), a situation in which people are more relaxed and tensions eased. ‘This is definitely “the Micronesian Way”.’ However, there can be frustration with non-decision-making and being overcautious. ‘Action does need to be taken on important issues, and some cannot wait too long.’ Understood in these terms, the Micronesian Way, she says, is therefore similar to the Pacific Way, although the latter term is rarely used in the subregion.112 Won Pat believes that there is increasing acceptance of a Micronesian subregional identity more generally, although local identities remain strong and other differentiations have emerged. In Guam, there has been a resurgence of Indigenous Chamorro identity, in particular, partly in resistance to a ‘Guamanian’ identity that encompasses everyone, including immigrant groups. There are also certain feelings of superiority among Micronesians who moved to the mainland US over those who remain in the islands. But these, she points out, are the same kinds of prejudices that you find among many different communities.113 But while many (perhaps most) Chamorro in Guam (and perhaps some Chamorro in the CNMI as well) refuse to identify with the term in any way, they do use it to identify virtually all Indigenous ‘others’ in their immediate region. Thus the inhabitants of the other island groups – whether from the FSM, the RMI or Palau (as well as Nauru and Kiribati)  – are all ‘Micronesian’, but Chamorro are not. Historian Anne Perez Hattori says that Chamorro resistance to identifying as Micronesian, particularly in Guam, is conditioned by a history which, as set out in Chapter 3, saw Guam come under US control in 1898, splitting it off from the Caroline Islands (present-day FSM and Palau), the Marshall Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands, which came under German and then Japanese control, making them enemy 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid. 113 Ibid. On the issue of Chamorro self-determination in Guam see also Kelly G. Marsh and Tyrone J. Taitano, ‘Guam’, Contemporary Pacific, 24 (1), 2012, 142–50.

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territories in wartime. Political separation also led to a certain cultural– ideological separation with the people of Guam becoming more thoroughly Americanized, giving rise in turn to a sense that they were ‘more advanced than the other islands and that “Micronesian” referred to the rest of the Islanders – everyone but us’.114 Even given these strong currents of local identity, however, the extent to which Island leaders have invested in significant political subregional organizations, and named them ‘Micronesian’, suggests that a broad subregional identity is likely to strengthen further over time. Certainly, that has proved to be the case in the politically charged context engendered by the contest for the coveted role of Forum secretary-general. We consider this in more detail in Chapter 8, but for the present we may note that in 2020, following the defeat of the Micronesian candidate for the post, all Micronesian Forum members announced that they would be withdrawing from the organization. Whatever else may be made of this development it demonstrates solidarity among Micronesian political elites configured around a common political identity as Micronesians visà-vis Polynesians and Melanesians in regional politics. 7.5 Conclusion From at least the beginning of the twenty-first century, there have been distinct trends in subregional organization along the lines originally delineated by European explorers on the basis of nineteenth-century subjectivities and prejudices. Although rejected by many contemporary historians, anthropologists and other intellectuals for their racialist basis and lack of ethnographic integrity, they have now been adopted by Islanders themselves and invested with new meaning. The idea of ‘Melanesia’, once the most derogatory of the categories, has been embraced as an empowering form of identity and as a basis for significant developments in subregional political organization. This is despite the fact that a unified vision of what actually constitutes ‘Melanesian culture’, a key ingredient for identity formation on the basis of a specified ‘culture area’, is almost impossible to pin down. Indeed, if Melanesia has a defining feature, it is its irreducible cultural diversity. The emergence of a Polynesian subregional organization was a political move no doubt inspired mainly by the growing profile of Melanesian subregionalism and, to a lesser extent, Micronesian subregionalism. There is, however, more substance to the idea of a ‘Polynesian culture

114



Anne Perez Hattori, University of Guam, personal communication, 14 January 2021.

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area’ than is the case with Melanesia, and references to a common Polynesian culture and traditions have figured prominently in the PLG’s communiqués. Micronesian identity has been infused with very little substance in terms of cultural content, with Micronesian subregional organizations driven primarily by pragmatic concerns with political solidarity emanating largely from these. Micronesian identity, however, has now been very strongly asserted in Forum politics. Another point to be noted is that none of the subregional organizations include any former colonial powers as members but are rather the preserve of Indigenous Oceanic elites. Thus each grouping is, at least in a formal sense, more independent than either of the two principal regional bodies. Whatever ideological, political or pragmatic concerns have driven subregionalism, the fact that there are now three organizations based on subregional identities has assisted in taking at least some of the wind out of the sails of the older Pacific Way discourse. But even given important subregional interests, there are such serious issues of broad concern around matters such as fisheries and climate change that collective panregional organizations will remain crucial to the interests of all Pacific Island countries. Subregional organizations also have their own divisions to deal with. The most robust of all  – the MSG  – has problems with the situation in West Papua. Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have given strong support to the West Papuan pro-independence movement while Papua New Guinea has interests in closer ties with ASEAN via Indonesia, and Fiji, at least under the government of Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama, prime minister from 2006 to 2022, had also developed closer relations with the latter. The Micronesian organizations encompass entities with distinctive interests vis-à-vis the US and therefore a different orientation than its newest members, Nauru and Kiribati. Then there is the perennial problem of national interests vis-à-vis collective interests in both regional and subregional organizations. These and other issues in Forum politics are the subject of Chapter 8.

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8

The Forum in Regional Politics

From the Forum’s early years of operation, tensions emerged between national interests and the regionalist agenda, between Australia’s and New Zealand’s role vis-à-vis Islands members, and between the more conservative Polynesian leaders and the more newly independent Melanesian members. How each approached their own role in the earlier years of the Forum, and perceptions of relative standing among them, sheds further light on some of the issues discussed in Chapter 7, but with more specific reference to developments in Forum politics. Insights into these issues are provided partly through the interpretive lens of official Australian and New Zealand reports of the period, reports that also illuminate the views of regional leaders on the direction of regional organization more generally, including the possibility of merging the SPC with the Forum in what was to become the SRO debate. Many issues were influenced by France’s role in the region, with decolonization and nuclear testing among the most pressing political concerns. Why France was so resistant to change, and so determined to continue its nuclear-testing program, may be understood partly in terms of its quest for status and prestige in the broader sphere of global politics in the post-war period  – a quest that required nuclear weapons for its fulfilment regardless of the cost to the region’s people. Reflections on French policy at the time also shed light on France’s rather ambivalent position within the Western alliance  – again demonstrating the importance of not treating the major colonial powers in Oceania as an undifferentiated bloc. This applies to the role of the US as well. In addressing the latter, this chapter also examines how the (partial) decolonization of northern Oceania under US control brought another dimension to regional organization. Much of the focus is on the earlier years of the Forum but the discussion of French and US territories in particular is important for understanding certain issues in the longer term. 198

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8.1

The Early Years of the Forum

The 1971 Wellington meeting had represented a turning point in regional politics, establishing the Forum as a venue for summit meetings among independent and self-governing countries. Its formal communiqué celebrated the event as having ‘significantly advanced the spirit of regional cooperation and mutual confidence’.1 But if it was to have any real purpose beyond an annual talking shop, it needed to develop some organizational capacity. Within a few months of the Wellington meeting, a subcommittee on trade was convened, again in Wellington, which recommended the establishment of a small secretariat to ensure that processes of consultation on trade and related matters would be on a continuing basis and useful projects implemented without undue delay. Issues of duplication of the work of other bodies were also discussed, including the possible merging of PIPA’s agenda with the work of the Forum. The New Zealand report on this meeting highlighted certain dynamics among members, observing that the Fiji delegation was the most articulate and best briefed of the Island members, but that they were also ‘clearly aware of the latent envy and perhaps mistrust felt by other Island countries towards Fiji with its greater natural resources, population and comparative economic prosperity’ and so ‘carefully avoided dominating the discussions’. The Australian delegation reportedly avoided playing a leading role in the discussions too, making few interventions but was otherwise ‘most forthcoming in their offers to assist’.2 Another New Zealand report noted that Western Samoa’s Tamasese, described as always modest and polite, suggested that requiring the prime ministers of Tonga and Samoa, who were naturally quiet men, to chair sessions would help involve them in discussions and proceedings, without which ‘he feared the meetings would tend to develop into exchanges between Australians, New Zealanders, Ratu Mara and Albert Henry’.3 The New Zealand report on the second Forum in Canberra in February 1972 also suggested an element of rivalry with Australia: The Australians were going through one of their periodic political crises … [but] the fact that the meeting was held in Australia made a point. It demonstrated concern for and interest in the South Pacific. Physically, too, Australia made an impact. Size, obvious wealth, and the lavish use of VIP aircraft told their 1

South Pacific Forum, Communiqué, Wellington, 5–7 August 1971. 2 New Zealand Delegation Report, ‘South Pacific Forum, Committee on South Pacific Trade’, Wellington, 9–11 November 1971, ArchNZ ref. ICW2266 2, record 337. 3 Australian High Commission, Suva, to Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Pacific Forum – Western Samoan and Tongan Views’, 23 November 1971, NAA, file 277/1/4.

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tale, and from time to time there were hints that some at least of the Island delegates were wondering rather wistfully whether they might not be better off with a richer patron than NZ, if one that was also more ruthless.4

Some observations on Islander delegates were somewhat acerbic: ‘In the communiqué committee … all the running was made by European officials of the Island Governments and by Australian and New Zealand delegates. The real Islanders turned up late, had little if anything to say, or failed to appear at all.’5 On a more practical level, members resolved to establish a trade bureau, thereby taking a major step in developing organizational capacity. Other issues taken up concerned the Law of the Sea, immigration, civil aviation, telecommunications, shipping, ocean resources, education, the establishment of a regional disaster fund and the general importance of regional cooperation in these and other policy areas.6 The New Zealand report noted that no real ‘political’ issues had been raised, and French testing was mentioned ‘only by implication’.7 The 1972 meeting in Suva considered whether other Pacific Island countries approaching self-government, and which had indicated an interest in joining the Forum when they did so, should be invited as observers. This was precipitated partly by a letter from Michael Somare, by then Papua New Guinea’s chief minister, to Ratu Mara ahead of the Suva Forum. Mara’s strong resistance, evident in previous discussions, had dissipated, and members agreed to inviting Papua New Guinea to observe the next meeting in Apia, along with Niue, which was to become self-governing in 1974. It was also agreed that non-Forum members could apply to join the new trade bureau when it was formally established, thus opening up an affiliation opportunity.8 The formal establishment of the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation (SPEC) occurred at the fourth meeting in Apia in 1973. The agreed scale of contributions to SPEC’s budget at this time saw Australia and New Zealand each contributing a third and the five island members the remaining portion between them.9 The basic funding

4

New Zealand Delegation Report, ‘South Pacific Forum’, 23–5 February 1972, ArchNZ ABHS W4627 950, box 4191, part 1. 5 Ibid. 6 South Pacific Forum, Communiqué, Canberra, 23–5 February 1972. 7 New Zealand Delegation Report, ‘South Pacific Forum’, 23–5 February 1972, ArchNZ ABHS W4627 950, box 4191, part 1. 8 South Pacific Forum, Final Press Communiqué, Suva, 12–14 September 1972. 9 South Pacific Forum, ‘Agreement Establishing the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation (With Annex) Between Fiji, Australia, Cook Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Tonga and Western Samoa’, Apia, 17 April 1973 (online).

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8.1  The Early Years of the Forum 201

pattern of the Forum itself is such that, in the contemporary period, Australia provides around 50 per cent of the total budget as well as more than a third of the Pacific Community’s budget with further significant bilateral aid and assistance).10 This has inevitably contributed to perceptions of Australian dominance. By the 5th meeting in Tonga in 1975 it was decided that SPEC would serve as the Forum’s secretariat and executive arm. SPEC also absorbed the functions of PIPA.11 Although the founding members of PIPA had created a unique organization controlled by themselves, it had been able to do very little on limited financial resources.12 At the Apia meeting the New Zealand delegation report had said that PIPA was barely mentioned ‘except by Ratu Mara, who remarked that if it wanted to commit suicide it should be allowed to do so in private’.13 In the event, the establishment of SPEC (which officially became the Forum Secretariat in 1988) saw the demise of PIPA while turning the Forum into more than just an annual summit. It was now on a path to becoming a substantive organization with the capacity to implement programs, to run trade and other offices abroad, and to coordinate the activities of other regional programs and agencies. In the Forum’s early days, Island member states still had very limited resources with which to pursue their own pathways in international relations. The Forum’s first communiqué indicated the extent to which Australia and New Zealand would be asked to follow up matters for action on behalf of the Island states through their own diplomatic resources.14 Such resources, including the cost of maintaining diplomatic offices abroad, took time to establish and were costly to maintain. Until 1975, Fiji was the only country in the Island Pacific to have joined the UN. (Western) Samoa, independent since 1962, did not join until 1976.15 In the present period, twelve fully independent Pacific Island states are now UN members: the FSM, Kiribati, the RMI, Palau, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu and Samoa. This, incidentally, gives the Island Pacific a substantial bloc in the UN General Assembly, forming the Pacific Small Islands Developing States (PSIDS) group. All but Palau and Tuvalu are also members of the Group of 77. 10

See Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, International Relations/ Regional Architecture/Pacific Islands Regional Organisation, n.d., current as of 1 April 2023 (online). 11 Herr, ‘Frontiers’, 44. 12 Kite, Microstates, 24. 13 New Zealand Delegation Report, ‘South Pacific Forum,’ Apia, 17–19 April 1973, ArchNZ, ABHS W4627 950, box 4191, part 1. 14 South Pacific Forum, Communiqué, Wellington, 1971. 15 See Kite, Microstates, 7–9.

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Most Pacific Island countries now belong to other international organizations as well, including the Commonwealth, which has nine Pacific Island members – Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu and Samoa  – a legacy of the ‘British Oceania’ that Australia and New Zealand had worked so assiduously for in earlier years. Indeed, the Forum’s initial membership consisted entirely of Commonwealth countries. A confidential Australian background paper on the origins of the Forum produced in 1973 noted that Australia had earlier favoured a Commonwealth grouping as its basis and at one point thought the new organization could take the form of a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which would have been convenient ‘in minimising embarrassment to France and the United States’.16 The latter, however, were obviously sufficiently thick-skinned when it did come to the establishment of the Forum. The 1973 Apia Forum meeting was the first occasion on which an Australian prime minister led the delegation, indicating the importance that the new Labor government under Gough Whitlam placed on regional developments. As noted earlier, although former Prime Minister McMahon, in his welcoming address at the 1972 Canberra meeting, declared that ‘he whole-heartedly supported the concept of the Forum and had a personal interest in it’,17 he had appeared only for the introductory session. In Apia, Whitlam declared his commitment to the region while adding that Australia ‘in no way wishes to dominate the region’.18 But Whitlam, as proactive in this venue as he was in the domestic arena, proposed a number of initiatives and offers of Australian assistance in export development and labour policy as well as proposing a declaration on French nuclear testing. This was a more substantial move involving a key regional political issue. Whitlam’s report indicated that Australia would be taking the matter up with Britain on behalf of the Forum, since it still had responsibility for a number of Island territories, as well as with the French themselves.19 But Whitlam was not to attend again, and for some time the relatively rare appearance of Australian heads of state at annual Forum summits continued to provoke resentment among Island delegates in particular. 16 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Political and Social Research Section, ‘Notes on the Origin of the South Pacific Forum’, 29 June 1973, NAA, file 277/1/1. 17 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘South Pacific Forum’, Opening Address, Canberra, 23–5 February 1972, NAA, file 277/1/1. 18 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Prime Minister’s Statement to Parliament’, Outward Cablegram (to High Commissions in London, Wellington and Washington), 1 May 1973, NAA, file 277/1/1. 19 Ibid. See also, South Pacific Forum, Communiqué, Apia, 17–18 April 1973.

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Ahead of the next Forum in Rarotonga in 1974, a meeting between Australia and Papua New Guinea officials discussed the possibility of the latter becoming a full member. Papua New Guinea was now selfgoverning and therefore had a similar status to the Cook Islands, although Ratu Mara insisted that Papua New Guinea needed to be delisted by the UN Committee of twenty-four before it could join. The Australian position was that UN recognition of a state of decolonization was not necessary for Forum purposes. The report of the meeting also mentioned that the Papua New Guinea leaders Somare and Albert Maori Kiki were aware of ‘Polynesian fear’ that Papua New Guinea would dominate the Forum once it joined.20 Earlier that year, a New Zealand report had noted that ‘[t]he Forum is … a council of High Chiefs. That is the way the Island leaders prefer it.’21 Whether that reflected a desire to exclude Melanesian participation in the Forum for as long as possible is a moot point. A memo following the 1973 meeting reported on Albert Henry’s views, including a comment on the ‘conservatism’ of the Forum’s island members,22 although this no doubt extended to a wider set of issues as well. Around this time Crown Prince Tupouto’a of Tonga reportedly had reservations about Papua New Guinea’s admission to the Forum as it seemed ‘to have little in common’ with other members and it was perhaps not possible ‘for them [Tongans] to be as intimate with PNG’.23 Requests for observer status were also received from the New Hebrides in the context of its ‘struggle against colonialism’;24 from Chile  – although it was considered to be well outside the ‘island region’25 even if it did possess sovereignty over a Polynesian island (i.e., Rapa Nui); and from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands and Solomon Islands.26 At this

20

Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Notes on Meeting with PNG Officials’, 6 September 1973, NAA, file 277/1/1. 21 New Zealand, Ministry Foreign Affairs, ‘To PM’, 6 March 1973, ArchNZ ABHS W4627 950, box 4191, part 1. 22 Australian High Commission, Wellington, to Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Regionalism in the South Pacific – Cook Islands’, 23 August 1973, NAA, file 277/1/1. 23 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Record of Conversation with HRH Crown Prince Tupouto’a’, 4 April 1974, file 277/1/1. Note that the Congress of Micronesia had resolved in February 1974 to request that two of their members attend the next Forum meeting as observers. See Fifth Congress of Micronesia, Second Regular Session, 1974, resolution 21 February 1974. 24 Telegram addressed to Senator Willesee, Minister for Foreign Affairs, from John Brown, Presbyterian Church of Australia, Canberra, 18 March 1974, NAA, file 277/1/1. 25 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Outward Cablegram to Australian Embassy, Santiago, 26 February 1974, file 277/1/1. 26 Australian High Commission London, to Secretary Foreign Affairs, 29 August 1974, NAA, file 277/1/1.

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time, the Forum’s criteria for membership were only loosely defined and it would take several years before even a broad set of guidelines was formally established, due partly to the fact that the status of the various countries was still in flux. US territories in Micronesia were closer to self-determination than the French territories but still not sufficiently so. At much the same time, there were confidential discussions about the possibility of establishing another consultative forum involving Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. The reasoning was that between ASEAN on the one hand, and the Forum on the other, were issues that were neither wholly Asian nor wholly South Pacific, but which spanned the interests of the four countries. Indonesia had expressed concerns over relations with Papua New Guinea after the latter’s independence as well as Japan’s interest in Papua New Guinea. Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Adam Malik appeared especially ‘hostile’ to Japan. Malik also suggested that Fiji be considered for membership of the group, and that Indonesia could possibly join the Forum itself. For its part, Australia made explicit its wish not to appear ‘paternalistic’ – a fairly persistent theme.27 None of the suggestions eventuated but the discussions provide an insight into broader thinking on regional organization in this time of flux. Important areas in which the Forum took a proactive interest in its early years, and which had been relatively neglected by the SPC, were communications, civil aviation and shipping. During the colonial period, links were largely with the respective metropolitan powers and those between the Island countries were poorly developed. But although the value of regional cooperation in providing services seemed rather obvious, the attempt to institute a regional approach was to encounter problems common to most regionalist projects related to perceived national interest. By the time the Forum was founded, Western Samoa, Tonga, Nauru and Papua New Guinea had either already established, or expressed an interest in establishing, their own national airlines. And although there were other factors behind this development, kudos was certainly one of them, begging comparison with the early post-colonial period in Africa where national pride was expressed in the proliferation of national airlines ‘whose chief function is to serve as emblems of national prestige’ despite their unaffordability.28 In the event, the plan for a regional carrier was to transform Fiji Airways, founded privately in 1951 but acquired by Qantas in 1958. 27 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, various cablegrams on and Record of Conversation with Malik and Alatas on ‘Australia/New Zealand/Indonesia/Papua New Guinea’, 6 November 1973, NAA, file 277/1/1. 28 Roy I. Wolfe, Transportation and Politics (Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand, 1963), 90.

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By the mid-1960s Air New Zealand, the British Overseas Airways Corporation and the governments of Tonga, Nauru, Western Samoa, Kiribati and Solomon Islands had acquired stakes in the airline. It was renamed Air Pacific in 1971 to reflect its status as a regional rather than nationally based carrier.29 The Fiji government, however, acquired a controlling interest in 1974. By this time, the airline was struggling with various issues, including landing rights in New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Tonga and American Samoa. Fiji’s position was that Air Pacific required a monopoly over regional air travel to ensure its viability. But Nauru, Western Samoa and Tonga wished to maintain their national airlines.30 Resentment built up both ways with Fiji accusing its neighbours of undermining regional efforts while the latter saw Fiji as trying to accrue the major benefits of a regional air service to itself, given that the hub would be located in Nadi. At the 1974 Forum meeting, Mara declared that the ‘Forum will stand or fall on civil aviation’.31 Ahead of that meeting, Ratu Mara had reportedly spoken about lack of progress in effective regional cooperation, civil aviation being foremost, due to ‘lack of leadership’. Fiji’s very direct involvement, however, meant that if he adopted a more assertive posture, it would only engender more suspicion among the parties. But Mara thought that since New Zealand stood more on the sidelines, Prime Minister Kirk was well placed to provide a lead and urged him ‘to involve himself more directly in some of the more controversial issues of regional concern’.32 In the end, Air Pacific as a regionalist project failed and it continued to operate simply as a national carrier for Fiji. It has been described as a ‘bitter experience’ that made Forum members wary of other initiatives.33 The airline finally reverted to the name ‘Fiji Airways’ in 2013. Another exercise in regional cooperation involved shipping. This had never been considered by the SPC but had been raised in PIPA in 1971. When SPEC took over from PIPA it was tasked with continuing a feasibility study. In the event, the Pacific Forum Line began operations in 1978 with a model based on each country owning individual ships 29 30 31 32

Company Histories, Air Pacific Ltd (online). Guthrie, ‘Aviation Regionalism’, 298. Quoted in ibid. New Zealand, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 44/2/13, confidential memo to High Commissioners in Apia, Canberra, Port Moresby, Rarotonga, Suva, ‘14th South Pacific Conference Participation’, 16 August 1974, ArchNZ ABHS 6942 W5399, box 26/API 44/2/13 part 5. 33 Shibuya, ‘Problems and Potential’, 107.

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that were then leased back to the company.34 This was seen to avoid some of the perceived inequities that had plagued Air Pacific, but its financial viability was always a problem. In the longer term, although a shipping company still trades under the Pacific Forum Line name, it is now owned jointly by Neptune Pacific Line and the Samoa government, the latter having been the keenest proponent of a regional shipping line from the start.35 Although these ventures cannot be viewed as great successes, and with the Pacific Way as a mode of effective regional cooperation among Island members of the time often taking second place to national interests, other activities and programs in its early years saw the Forum’s profile grow as a proactive regional enterprise. 8.2

The Forum vis-à-vis the South Pacific Commission

The Forum’s expanding capacity soon led to concerns that it would come to replicate much of what the SPC was already doing. For some, it was seen to present a direct challenge to the SPC’s role, especially in fisheries and environmental management – and with good reason. It was in relation to these areas, in particular, that critics saw the SPC as lacking credibility, given the influence of the metropolitan powers that, while purporting to act in the best interests of the Island countries, often simply pursued their own. The Forum’s political role also enabled it to undertake diplomatic campaigns. In addition to environmental matters, which required extensive diplomacy, the Forum Fisheries Agency, set up in 1979, enabled more effective management of commercial fisheries, which are hugely important for the economies of Pacific Island countries.36 The Forum’s efficacy in representing Island interests in such areas was due to a membership consisting of political leaders of independent countries who could operate free of at least some of the constraints imposed by metropolitan countries – the US and France in particular. The US was notoriously self-regarding when it came to the Law of the Sea Convention, especially in refusing to recognize the sovereignty of coastal states over highly migratory species that obviously impinged on the economic development of small Island states.37 34

Neemia, Cooperation and Conflict, 30. 35 ‘Pacific Forum Line, Polynesian Shipping Line Merge’, Pacific Islands Report, East-West Centre, 3 February 2016 (online). 36 Ian Frazer and Jenny Bryant-Tokalau, ‘Introduction: The Uncertain Future of Pacific Regionalism’, in Jenny Bryant-Tokalau and Ian Frazer (eds.), Redefining the Pacific? Regionalism, Past, Present and Future (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 8. 37 Neemia, Cooperation and Conflict, 28.

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8.2  The Forum vis-à-vis the South Pacific Commission 207

Different conditions for fisheries in equatorial as distinct from more southern regions saw the establishment in 1982 of what is now commonly referred to as Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) administered by the Forum Secretariat for nearly three decades before becoming a separate organization. With a membership consisting of the FSM, Kiribati, the RMI, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, it has become a highly effective subregional organization safeguarding valuable marine resources (mainly tuna fisheries) and operating independently of metropolitan powers.38 Returning to broader issues relating to the major organizations, there were also concerns that the SPC was not doing enough in other areas. As early as the first Wellington meeting, Forum members had proposed an analysis of all the organizations serving the region and what they were providing or not providing. A response from the SPC to the Forum’s first communiqué, which had outlined areas to be investigated, expressed concern over possible duplication and overlap, claiming that virtually all topics of interest were represented in their own work program.39 Less than four months later, the SPC’s social commissioner suggested that, in the interests of cost-cutting and avoiding overlap, the Forum could invite the SPC to act as a secretariat rather than set up their own. The Australian response was that if avoiding overlap was the only consideration, then it might be a good idea, but that ‘on this, as on related questions we, and possibly New Zealand too, would primarily be guided by Island wishes’.40 There was a suggestion that the SPC have an observer at the Forum, but the Australian response was that this had not been promoted by any other Forum member and was perhaps premature.41 Another report indicated that Australia, for the time being, saw the roles of each organization as largely complementary, adding that the SPC had an ‘indefinite future as long as France remained in the region’ and that it still ‘represented all the nations and territories’.42 38 See Josie Tamate, ‘Balancing the Scales: The Experience of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Wollongong, 2013. 39 Acting Secretary-General, SPC, reported in Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘South Pacific Forum – Relations with SPC’, 19 October 1971, NAA, file 271/1/4. 40 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Record of Conversation with Dr Frank J. Mahoney (Jnr), Programme Director (Social), South Pacific Commission, 17 February 1972, NAA, file 277/1/4. 41 Australia, Department of External Affairs, Memo to Secretary, Department of External Territories, ‘Relations with South Pacific Forum’, 3 February 1972, NAA, file 277/1/4. 42 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Record of Conversation with Mr Thomas F. Conlan, Counsellor (Political Affairs), United States Embassy, 1 March 1972, NAA, file 277/1/1.

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A confidential Australian background paper on the Forum, circulated ahead of the 1973 Apia meeting, set out Australia’s broad objectives in relation to its role in the Forum. These were: (i) To be regarded as an equal member with legitimate interests there and much to contribute; (ii) To encourage the Islanders to consult and to cooperate; (iii) To maintain the consultative character of the Forum and, without prejudice to the discussion of aid problems … to prevent its developing into a channel for the presentation of demands for aid; (iv) To maintain the character of the South Pacific Conference and the South Pacific Commission as a focal point for multilateral aid and technical assistance, and as the organ in which all the nations and territories of the South Pacific participate; (v) To facilitate the acceptance of an independent Papua New Guinea as a full member should it so wish.43 In the wake of the 1974 Forum, the Australian report recommended moving away from minor technical matters to issues of political interest, but that it was inadvisable for Australia to take an obvious lead. It also made some pertinent observations about politics within the Forum: Ratu Mara and the island leaders look upon the Forum as their own creation. Australia and New Zealand and perhaps Papua New Guinea, are not regarded by them as being in the inner circle, as evidenced by the island meeting on the first night at Rarotonga which decided, without reference to Australia, New Zealand or Papua New Guinea, the time and place of the next Forum. We are resolved to break open this clique, in addition to improving the performance of the meetings, but there is no doubt that we will have more chance of success if the move comes from the islanders themselves. Ratu Mara could be the key to success. A lead by Mr Somare could be misinterpreted by the islanders. Our role should perhaps be to do the prodding and if necessary to [give] Ratu Mara the ideas. Our purpose could well be assisted in the long run by the widening of the membership to include Micronesia.44

Leadership within the Forum was to remain an issue, but the regional agenda now came to focus on how best to manage development in the region on the basis of complementarity rather than wasteful overlap or competition between two major organizations. This prompted serious discussions about a possible merger. 43 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Background Paper, ‘The South Pacific Forum’, 11 April 1973, NAA, BP/24, file 277/1/1. 44 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, South Pacific Section, ‘South Pacific Forum’, 5 April 1974, NAA, file 277/1/1.

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8.3  A Single Regional Organization? 209

8.3

A Single Regional Organization?

From the founding moment of the Forum the potential of the new body to embark on significant projects rather than remain a talking shop was always there, and in ways that would impinge on the SPC’s remit. A 1974 Australian paper envisaged that the SPC would eventually merge with the Forum given that it was anachronistic, ‘tainted by its colonial origins and dominated by metropolitan powers’, with only a relatively small budget for pursuing useful work. Even so, it was thought that it should serve a purpose for at least another five years, possibly ten, especially since it was ‘one of the few means available for influencing France and its territories’.45 But looking to the future, given that ultimately the Forum and the SPC might have the same membership, would there be any real point in maintaining two separate organizations? In the meantime, the 13th South Pacific Conference at Guam in 1973 had unanimously adopted in principle the Australian proposal to merge the Commission and the Conference and set up a Future Status Committee composed of Island members to plan the merger. A meeting of representatives – all metropolitan members plus Fiji, Western Samoa and Nauru – would be held in March 1974.46 At the 14th South Pacific Conference in Rarotonga in 1974, an MOU was signed by all participating governments pending a formal revision of the Canberra Agreement. The Commission and the Conference would in future meet annually in a joint session to be known as the South Pacific Conference.47 But these reforms did not see an end to discussion of an SRO. The New Zealand position around this time was that although the Forum would eventually absorb more of the SPC’s functions and that a merger may make sense at a later stage, the SPC should continue as it was for the time being.48 Australia thought that New Zealand was more inclined to regard the relationship between the SPC and the Forum as problematic, whereas Australia considered that they played distinct but

45

Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, South Pacific Section, to the Acting Secretary from F. B. Cooper, ‘South Pacific Commission and Conference, and the South Pacific Forum’, 10 January 1974, NAA, file 277/1/1. 46 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, South Pacific Section, to the Acting Secretary from F. B. Cooper, ‘South Pacific Commission and Conference, and the South Pacific Forum’, 10 January 1974, NAA, file no. 277/1/1. 47 New Zealand, copy of MOU, in NZArch, ref: ABHS 6942 W5399, box 26/API 44/2/13, Part 5. 48 New Zealand Delegation Report, ‘14th South Pacific Conference, Rarotonga’, 25 September–4 October 1974, NZArch, ref: ABHS 6942 W5399, box 26/API 44/2/13, part 5.

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complementary roles. The SPC was seen now as only a ‘minor technical assistance agency’, but it still included all Island territories.49 Cold War strategic factors also played into support for the SPC as an organization that maintained British interest in the region. China had started to establish a presence and an Australian report said this would ‘attract further Soviet interest, and vice-versa’.50 The same report  – a record of a meeting between Australian secretary Alan Renouf and Dr Maca Salato of Fiji, secretary-general of the SPC at the time – noted that although the Forum was originally established to discuss political issues, very little time was actually devoted to these. There had been some dialogue at the Forum on the implications of Soviet interest in the Pacific. But Australia could not be seen as ‘pushing the Forum or SPC in a particular direction’. Dr Salato was also recorded as saying that ‘one of the problems which confronted Fiji prior to Papua New Guinea independence was that their efforts to make the SPC more effective were interpreted by the smaller Island states and territories as Fijian attempts to dominate the Commission’.51 This illustrates continuing Australian and Fiji awareness that, in different contexts, they could not appear to dominate. There was also the question of whether the region could afford not to have both organizations. It could hardly be expected that the UK, US and France would maintain the same level of contributions to regional projects and other donors might be less willing to channel funds through a political organization with restricted membership.52 By the late 1970s, however, it had become clear that the UK’s withdrawal was only a matter of time. For all the resentment that British colonialism may have provoked, at least in some of the Melanesian countries, Island leaders were evidently reluctant to see the UK actually depart the region and would have preferred British knowledge (and funding) to continue. The idea that an SRO would eventually emerge continued to attract adherents well into the 1980s. Towards the end of the decade, however, it had become more or less accepted that each organization had a distinct role while complementing each other’s strengths and balancing their 49

Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘South Pacific Forum’, 21 March 1975, NAA, file no. 277/1/1. 50 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Record of Conversation with Dr E. Macu Salato, Secretary-General of the South Pacific Commission and Mr Alan Renouf, Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Australian Policy to the Pacific: SPC; Forum/SPEC; French Policy in the Pacific’, 16 August 1976, NAA, file 277/1/1. 51 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, Record of Conversation with Dr E. Macu Salato, Secretary-General of the South Pacific Commission and Mr Alan Renouf, Secretary, Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Australian Policy to the Pacific: SPC; Forum/SPEC; French Policy in the Pacific’, 16 August 1976, NAA, file 277/1/1. 52 Herr, ‘Institutional Sources’, 13–16.

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8.4  Subregional Dynamics 211

weaknesses.53 In 1987 a Forum Committee on Regional Institutional Arrangements proposed that problems of duplication and overlap be managed by a South Pacific Organizations Coordinating Committee. This was established in 1988 and by 1996 it was formally chaired by the Forum. It was later renamed the Council of Regional Organizations in the Pacific (CROP) and now consists of the heads of intergovernmental regional agencies including the Pacific Community, the Forum (as chair), the Forum Fisheries Agency along with the Pacific Aviation Safety Office, the PIDP, the Pacific Power Association, the SPREP, the South Pacific Tourism Organization and USP. There is no longer any serious talk of forming an SRO and both are valued in terms of what they do separately and in cooperation. 8.4

Subregional Dynamics

Another theme that continued to play out was the Melanesia/Polynesia divide. In a report delivered five years into the life of the Forum, Australia’s high commissioner in Suva observed that although it was evolving, it remained ‘essentially a Polynesian style institution’. The report described the antipathy to formal votes on any subject and the desire to reach consensus through informal, discursive discussions. Most of the Island leaders were of chiefly status and the protocols of precedence and rank were always on display. The first of the Melanesian members  – Papua New Guinea’s Michael Somare whose country did not have ‘a comparable Chiefly system’ – therefore possessed ‘a rather vague status in the hierarchy’. Even so, not all Polynesian leaders fitted the archetype. Of the Cook Islands leader Albert Henry – not of chiefly status – it was said that ‘[m]odesty and reticence are not … among [his] more noticeable attributes, and he is not one to defer to those who outrank him in Polynesian society’.54 The report speculated on the changes expected to follow the admission of more new members: ‘With the admixture of the more energetic and more outspoken Melanesians there could at future meetings be less philosophising about intractable problems, less of the “great Polynesian silences” into which members (with the noticeable exception of Sir Albert Henry) now tend to lapse … and there might also be more demands for decisions [leading] to specific developments.’55 Kotabalavu also recalls 53

Stuart Inder, ‘What the Forum Did – and What It Didn’t Do, Pacific Islands Monthly, 52 (10), October 1981, 13. 54 H. W. Bullock, Australian High Commission, Suva, ‘The South Pacific Forum: Its Nature and Significance’, 6 February 1976, NAA, file 277/1/1. 55 Ibid.

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the way in which the early group of Polynesian high chiefs, who were all mostly related by blood as well, conducted themselves: To have others speak for them, was the chiefly way. The ‘others’ who spoke for them in regional meetings consisted of officials. Ratu Mara and Sir Albert Henry were exceptions because of their high level of education. They spoke while Hammer de Roburt, Robert Rex [Nauru], Tamasese and Lealofi [Samoa], Prince Tu’ipelehake [Tonga] and others maintained their dignified silence.56

When Michael Somare attended the Forum, it was reported that he had ‘so far entered into the spirit of the Forum and has been relatively restrained’ while nonetheless projecting ‘a much more dynamic and articulate image than most of the other Island leaders’. On the other hand, the first appearance of Solomons Islands Chief Minister Solomon Mamaloni ruffled chiefly feathers and ‘in a quite abrasive speech … expressed considerable resentment about having been invited only as an observer’ and introducing into the Forum ‘an aggressive note quite out of harmony with the much cherished “Pacific Way” of the Polynesian leaders’. A later New Zealand report also noted Mamaloni’s antipathy to Mara on the one hand, and his fondness for New Zealand, where he had been educated, on the other.57 By the end of its first decade, it seemed that a more assertive Melanesian spirit had indeed emerged at the expense of the traditional Polynesian approach. New Zealand Foreign Minister Graham Fortune had reportedly ‘been concerned for some time at the growing polarisation between Melanesia and Polynesia’ and, while noting that ‘Mara had been on his best behaviour’, everyone was nonetheless ‘thoroughly aware of the strains just beneath the surface and the fact that these generally followed Melanesian/Polynesian lines’.58 A divide between Australia and New Zealand on the one hand, and the Island leaders on the other, was also present but, as remarked earlier, it would be mistaken to assume that it was fixed in nature, or that it always represented dichotomous interests or antagonistic positions. Even so, it inevitably constituted an ongoing dynamic. A 1976 report from the Australian High Commission in Suva gave a sense of some of the issues at play and the personal and political styles of the key players:  56

Kotabalavu, interview. 57 New Zealand, External Intelligence Bureau, Prime Minister’s Department, ‘Country Paper  – Solomon Islands: Biographic Report: Solomon Sunaone Mamaloni, Prime Minister, Solomon Islands’, 28 July 1982, ArchNZ AATJ W4066 6978, box 14. 58 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘South Pacific Forum: The New Zealand Perspective’, Canberra: 20 August 1981, NAA, file 277/1/1/15.

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8.4  Subregional Dynamics 213 It is not easy to describe with any precision where Australia and New Zealand fit into this setting, or what role the Island leaders expect them to play. The Prime Ministers of both countries are treated by their Polynesian counterparts with the respect they feel due to the Heads of Government of wealthy and sophisticated neighbouring countries … clearly they are regarded as being in the group but not of it. While the Island leaders would seldom criticise each other in open meeting they look upon the presence of the Australia and New Zealand Leaders as an opportunity to express their grievances regarding those Australian and New Zealand policies which affect them adversely; perennial issues are immigration and what they regard as interference by Australian and New Zealand Trade Unions in the domestic affairs of the Islands. Ratu Mara is usually the instigator of this; and while his colleagues invariably express any criticism in rather oblique and polite terms he tends to be quite forthright and abrasive…. Any attempt to defend Australia’s actions vigorously or to question the validity of the arguments or facts, in a manner which would be normal at other international meetings, can have quite unhappy consequences. The New Zealanders, with their greater knowledge and experience of the Polynesians, have so far been much more successful than ourselves in deflecting criticism … the late Norman Kirk … showed himself to be particularly adept…. He expressed considerable interest and sympathy with their grievances, and then launched into a rather discursive and somewhat philosophical discussion of the problems involved. He gave nothing away and ended by regretting that there was nothing he could do…. A more brief and more straightforward Australian response, with no less substance, has tended to be interpreted as abruptness and insensitivity.59

Adding to the more favourable perceptions of New Zealand was its representation at prime ministerial level at all Forum meetings in contrast with Australia. While most island leaders were reserved in expressing displeasure, Mara was more forthright about the relative lack of importance Australia seemed to attach to the Forum. At the same time, the 1976 Australian report noted that the Forum was ‘first and foremost an organisation of South Pacific Island countries and it must remain that if it is to continue to be effective’.60 If so, then it may have been as well that Australia kept a lower profile. The New Zealand Report of the 1975 Forum meeting also noted that Mara blamed unions in Australia and New Zealand for higher freight fees in shipping and cited his view that trade unions were ‘inherited from another world in another century’ and did not accord with ‘traditional Pacific modes’.61 A speech by Mara on trade unions in Fiji the following 59

Bullock, ‘South Pacific Forum’. 60 Ibid. 61 New Zealand, Report of the New Zealand Delegation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, South Pacific Forum, Nuku’alofa, 12 September 1975, ArchNZ ABHS W4627 950, box 4207.

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year gave the flavour of an argument that was to become much more prominent in the years to come when coups had replaced democratic elections as a mode of succession of government. The occasion was one on which Mara’s Alliance government had succeeded in subjugating the unions in Fiji under a tripartite agreement.62 Mara’s rhetoric drew an exaggerated contrast between his Pacific Way and his interpretation of the ‘Western Way’: [T]rade unionism was an alien concept in Fiji, implanted, fostered and assisted by the administering power…. But as with so much we have inherited in this way, we have made our own adjustments…. Where we have succeeded it has been in following our Pacific Way – dialogue, tolerance, goodwill and harmony. Where we have failed it has been where we have followed the Western Way of confrontation and intolerance.63

The New Zealand report also noted that Mara ‘treated the meeting to a display of his celebrated ill temper’ (over a disagreement with the Australian delegation), leaving both Australia and New Zealand ‘wondering whether there were times when they were discriminated against’. It also said that if any Island member has a point of disagreement, ‘the Forum traditionally accommodates his position by consensus’. However, ‘it certainly seemed as if the “Pacific Way” was a one-way street [and] there was little inclination to adjust to some of the very valid reservations which Australia voiced (and which New Zealand also held) about a communiqué text which chastises the trade union movement’. Reflecting more generally on Australia and New Zealand’s joint role in the region, the report also observed that although they shared substantial agreement on many issues, they sometimes appeared at odds. ‘The Australians apparently feel at times that New Zealand is trying to upstage them in regional affairs or to get the inside running.’64 It continued: Australia does not have the same sense of being a Pacific country as NZ. Part of the reason for this is that Pacific people are not woven in any significant way into the political or cultural fabric in Australia…. The absence of intellectual or cultural affinity with the Pacific has generated a feeling in at least a section of Australian official thinking that Australia is in a ‘no-win’ situation in the Pacific; they will be accused of throwing their weight

62

Claire Slatter, ‘With or Without Consent: The State and Control of Labour Militancy in Fiji, 1942–1985’, unpublished MA thesis, Australian National University, 1993, 186. 63 Quoted ibid. 64 New Zealand, Report of the New Zealand Delegation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, South Pacific Forum, Nuku’alofa, 12 September 1975, ArchNZ ABHS W4627 950, box 4207.

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8.5  France in Regional Politics 215 around if they try to take positive action … of un-neighbourly neglect if they don’t do enough.65

The Pacific Way also required readjusting as the Forum’s membership grew. By 1981, it had expanded to thirteen, the founding members having been joined by Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands as well as Kiribati, Niue and Tuvalu, with the FSM achieving observer status. This more diverse membership contributed to evolving dynamics while challenging the Forum’s Polynesian-centrism. Concerns at this time included Soviet activity and extra-regional foreign relations more generally. As more Island states became independent, they were obviously free to negotiate their own trade and political relationships. But most remained strongly oriented to the former colonial powers and more broadly to the Western security alliance – an orientation strengthened by both the major regional organizations. This was also evident in the Forum’s ‘internationalization’ strategy that, in 1988, included the introduction of a formal Post-Forum Dialogue. Five countries initially attended: Canada, France, Japan, the UK and the US – all in the Western alliance. An invitation had been extended to China in 1988, although it did not attend until 1990.66 In 1991 the Post-Forum Dialogue was joined by the European Community.67 With the end of the Cold War in 1989, concerns with Soviet influence more or less evaporated. China’s presence in the region had yet to make a significant impact although it was recognized as a rising power. It was the continuation of French nuclear testing and colonialism that were to constitute the most significant political items addressed in the Forum for some time to come. 8.5

France in Regional Politics

Previous discussion of France’s behaviour in the regional politics of postwar Oceania has shown it as ranging from fractious to obstructive, and successive French governments sought to insulate their Pacific territories from the broader regional influences emanating from the Anglophone 65

Ibid. 66 The Post-Forum Dialogue has expanded to eighteen partners altogether. In addition to the original five plus China and the European Economic Community (now EU), it includes: Cuba (2012), India (2003), Indonesia (2001), Italy (2007), Republic of Korea (1995), Malaysia (1997), Philippines (2000), Spain (2014), Thailand (2005) and Turkey (2016). 67 New Zealand, Ministry of External Relations and Trade, The South Pacific Forum: 21 Years of Regional Cooperation, Information Bulletin no. 38, Wellington, December 1991, 4.

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sphere.68 One study of the contrasting approaches of France and the UK suggests that while the latter tended to meet colonial discontent by allowing the participation of subject peoples in their own government, eventually paving the way for independence, the French steadfastly refused to contemplate moves that might give their colonial subjects ideas about autonomy. This approach held more or less constant across the French political spectrum from right to left, supported by a dominant ideology determined to shore up France’s ‘international greatness’ in the post-war period, especially following the humiliation of the German occupation.69 Another commentator writes that Charles de Gaulle, the French president from 1958 to 1969, whose legacy on defence and foreign policy was profound, was determined that France would not be a ‘strategic dependent’ – a term characterizing lesser nations whose position in the world hierarchy of states was circumscribed by the power of other, more dominant states.70 A 1965 US intelligence assessment characterized French foreign policy as de Gaulle’s ‘personal creation’ and noted his relentless pursuit of grandeur for France.71 This required the acquisition of an independent nuclear power capability, hence its determination to continue testing regardless of reputational costs. The same assessment further observed that France’s weapons program had already achieved such momentum that any likely successor would no doubt continue it.72 This supposition was to prove correct. France’s position in the Western alliance was somewhat ambivalent, as reflected in de Gaulle’s notion that ‘France has no friends, no enemies, just interests’.73 Gaullist foreign policy philosophy was, moreover, ‘marked by extreme sensitivity to the possible influence of other Western nations upon lesser nations over which France sought to maintain its control’.74 There had been a glimmer of concessions to self-government for dependent territories in the late 1950s, initially supported by de Gaulle when he came to office in 1958.75 But the tide of events that saw the relocation of nuclear testing from North Africa to French Polynesia 68 See Rudy Bessard and Nathalie Mrgudovic, ‘Regional Horizons and Oceania: Variations in French Overseas Territories’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 140 (January–June), 2015, 13. 69 Smith, ‘Comparative Study’, 73, 80. 70 Phillip Methuen, ‘In Deference to De Gaulle: The French Approach to Security in the South Pacific’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 10 (4), 1989, 388. 71 United States, Central Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Estimate, 22–65, ‘French Foreign Policy’, CIA-RPD10X00001R000100010016-9, 1965, 3. 72 Ibid., 13. 73 Quoted in ibid., 4. 74 Methuen, ‘In Deference’, 389. 75 de Dekker, ‘Decolonisation’, 3.

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in the early 1960s forestalled such moves in any of its Pacific territories, as noted in Chapter 5. A decade of crisis in its Oceanic territories beginning in the 1970s, however, prompted some serious rethinking of the options available.76 As Britain had done earlier, French national interests began to be redefined in response to both the financial cost of maintaining imperial status as well as reputational costs, and there was a gradual shift away from the ‘long-established obsession with “la grandeur Française”’.77 By the early 1980s, however, the French approach to decolonization in Oceania appeared to have changed very little. Frustrated with no evident progress by France, the Forum resolved at its 1981 meeting in Port Vila to send a delegation to Paris to meet President Mitterrand and discuss the evolution of government policies on decolonization in the French Pacific territories.78 Obviously, such a move could never have come from the SPC. A Pacific Islands Monthly report gives the flavour of the French reaction at the time, noting that significant media attention to this issue was guaranteed by French diplomats themselves ‘in a vain effort to make the debate a non-event’. Ahead of the meeting, the French ambassador to Fiji had also ‘unwisely suggested to Ratu Mara that France would regard Fiji’s support for any Forum interference in New Caledonia as an “unfriendly act”’, warning that Fiji’s sugar exports to the European Economic Community ‘was vulnerable to political pressure’.79 Mara was furious, venting his anger publicly at the Vila meeting: ‘That France was prepared to beard such a notably independent leader as Ratu Mara in such terms is eloquent commentary on the high state of anxiety France is in over the defence of its indefensible Pacific policies.’80 The Forum was to remain critical of French colonialism generally, and nuclear testing in particular, although there was a difference between attitudes expressed by Polynesian and Melanesian members, as noted previously. Papua New Guinea had been highly critical of French involvement in the attempted sabotage of Vanuatu’s independence and had provided a military contingent to help quell an insurrection on the island of Efate. This move also solidified links between Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.81 Papua New Guinea troops had Australian logistic support, 76

77 78 79 80 81

Robert Aldrich, France and the South Pacific since 1945 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993), xi. Taylor, International Relations, 52. South Pacific Forum, Twelfth South Pacific Forum, Port Vila, 10–11 August 1981. Inder, ‘What the Forum Did’, 13. Ibid. Stephen Henningham, ‘France in the South Pacific in the 1980s: An Australian Perspective’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 92–3, 1991, 28.

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albeit with some hesitance because of Australia’s unwillingness to attract charges of neocolonialism as well as putting its fragile relationship with France at risk.82 But former Prime Minister Barak Sope says that the strong support of both Australia and New Zealand for Vanuatu’s independence over this period is still remembered with appreciation.83 The legacies of French colonialism and the decolonization process in Vanuatu had other consequences. Provoked by French behaviour, especially its attempt to sabotage independence in 1980, Vanuatu made subsequent foreign policy choices in courting the USSR and Libya. This had serious implications for regional security and for Western interests in particular, given Cold War dynamics at the time. The Vanuatu experience also hardened French attitudes to demands for independence in New Caledonia and French Polynesia while firming up anti-Anglo-Saxon prejudices, reinforcing resistance to regional criticism and strengthening the resolve to continue nuclear testing.84 Papua New Guinea also took a strong line on New Caledonia, consistently supporting its reinscription by the UN and playing a key role in the formation of the MSG, which maintained a highly critical approach to French behaviour. Papua New Guinea was a strong supporter of the SRO idea at the time, largely because of French influence in the SPC. Similar criticism, although a little less strident, came from Solomon Islands. Again, the stance taken by Melanesian countries reflected ‘the more open, volatile, and less conservative character of Melanesian societies’.85 The most infamous exemplar of French behaviour, carried out during François Mitterand’s presidency, was the sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in July 1985 by French intelligence operatives and in which a Greenpeace photographer died. The ship had been preparing to sail to Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia to protest nuclear testing. The ineptness of the plot meant that French culpability was soon discovered, although it was some years before it became known that Mitterand had personally authorized the mission. Not surprisingly, this episode was a public relations disaster for France, and for its relations in Oceania in particular, which reached an all-time low.86

82

Matthew Gubb, Vanuatu’s 1980 Santo Rebellion: International Responses to a Microstate Security Crisis (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1994), 29, 33. 83 Sope, interview. 84 Fisher, France in the South Pacific, 55. A brief commentary by Walter Lini on French behaviour in the lead-up to independence is available at Radio New Zealand, transcript of interview with Father Walter Lini, recorded 1994 (online). 85 Henningham, ‘France in the South Pacific’, 28. 86 Ibid., 21.

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Not unexpectedly, the 1985 Forum communiqué focused largely on French issues, including decolonization in New Caledonia and French Polynesia as well as nuclear testing and radioactive waste. And it was at this meeting, in Rarotonga, that the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (SPNFZ) – also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga – was opened for signature.87 Although a significant achievement, it made concessions to US strategic concerns in a period of tense US–USSR relations – concessions supported by Australia in particular. Most of Micronesia north of the equator was excluded from the zone with the exception of the territorial waters of Kiribati and Nauru. Even so, the US feared the treaty would advantage an ‘aggressor power’ as well as encourage the establishment of such zones elsewhere.88 The treaty followed a decade of activism by the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific group, which had grown out of a Nuclear Free Pacific Conference held in Fiji in 1975, followed in turn by conferences in Ponape in the Caroline Islands in 1978, Hawai’i in 1980 and Vanuatu in 1983. A moratorium on testing in French Polynesia was instituted under Mitterand’s administration for three years from 1993 but commenced again in 1996 under the presidency of Jacques Chirac, a Gaullist intent on completing the testing program. It was clear that Chirac would ensure this occurred before the UN’s Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) opened for signature. International opinion was strong in condemnation, although other nuclear powers including the US and the UK were largely silent. France was to sign the CTBT the day after it opened for signature in September 1996, becoming the first official nuclear power, along with the UK, to do so. France subsequently became a major contributor to the CTBT’s operation, permanently dismantling all testing facilities and setting up seventeen monitoring facilities designed to detect tests, perhaps with an eye to rehabilitating its poor image. But the legacy of French testing remains with dangerous residues in French Polynesia. The same applies to earlier US testing in the Marshalls and British testing in Kiribati. In all cases, the nuclear legacy is at the same time a direct legacy of colonialism in the region.89 It remains a key concern for the Forum with seven points of its 2019 annual communiqué addressing contamination issues, mainly in Micronesia.90

87

Sixteenth South Pacific Forum, Communiqué, Rarotonga, 5–6 August 1985. 88 Stewart Firth, ‘The Nuclear Issue in the Pacific Islands’, Journal of Pacific History, 21 (4), 1986, 205. 89 Firth, ‘Nuclear Issue’, 215. 90 Pacific Islands Forum, Communiqué, Funafuti, 2019.

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The 1985 Forum meeting is also credited with playing a crucial role in the UN’s 1986 reinscription of New Caledonia as a non-self-governing territory within the meaning of the UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.91 However, not all Forum Island members were unified in their approach. French diplomacy targeted the relatively conservative Polynesian states, resulting in much milder criticism from the Cook Islands and Tonga in particular. But France had little success among the Melanesian states despite some financial assistance to Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.92 These developments followed a period of intense frustration on the part of pro-independence activists in New Caledonia. Armed conflict erupted in 1984 and it was not until 1988 that relative peace was restored with the Matignon Accord negotiated with the relatively moderate French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, who spoke of decolonisation, albeit ‘within the framework of French institutions’.93 The agreement set up a ten-year schedule for development including concessions to Indigenous Kanaks in return for an agreement not to pursue independence activism during that period. This, unfortunately, led to the assassination of moderate FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou and his deputy, Yeiwéné Yeiwéné, by a radical Kanak independence supporter the following year. Subsequent developments saw a further accord in 1998 devolving more power to the local government pending a future referendum on independence. An initial referendum in November 2018 saw just over 56 per cent of long-term residents favouring the status quo, although a majority of Kanaks favoured independence. A further referendum in 2020 saw a decline in support for the status quo to just over 53 per cent. A third referendum conducted in December 2021 was boycotted by pro-independence groups on the grounds that the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for Kanak people to participate. They had requested deferment of the referendum until such times as safe participation could be organized. In the event, turnout was fewer than 44 per cent of the electorate with the tally of votes favouring the status quo at almost 97 per cent.94 Although this referendum was meant to finally determine New Caledonia’s status it is highly unlikely that matters will rest there. 91

Nic Maclellan, ‘Pacific Diplomacy and Decolonisation in the 21st Century’, in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds.), The New Pacific Diplomacy (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 266. 92 Aldrich, France and the South Pacific, 37–8. 93 Stephen Henningham, ‘Keeping the Tricolor Flying: The French Pacific into the 1990s’, Contemporary Pacific, 1 (1/2), 1989, 105. 94 Al Jazeera, ‘New Caledonia Pro-independence Parties Reject Referendum Result’, 13 December 2021 (online).

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In the meantime, and despite a similar devolution of power to French Polynesia, continued activism saw the reinscription in May 2013 of French Polynesia on the UN’s list of non-self-governing territories following a resolution, sponsored by Solomon Islands, Nauru and Tuvalu with support from Vanuatu, Samoa and Timor-Leste. But as one long-time observer reported, even though the UN resolution was largely symbolic (since it would have no practical effect), it nonetheless ‘sparked fireworks and fury in Paris’.95 After an unsuccessful bid to delay or scuttle the resolution, France’s UN ambassador had boycotted the General Assembly session and, when the resolution was carried, the French Foreign Affairs Ministry described it as ‘flagrant interference’ lacking any respect ‘for the democratic choice of French Polynesians and a hijacking of the decolonisation principles established by the United Nations’.96 That France had itself consistently ignored UN decolonization principles was not acknowledged. In the event, it was further observed that ‘the fierce reaction to the UN resolution suggests that Paris is not planning to relinquish its role as a colonial power in the region any time soon’ and, further, ‘the fact that the UN resolution was sponsored by French Polynesia’s island neighbours shows that the debate about colonialism in the region isn’t going to go away’.97 But while French Polynesia’s reinscription at this time suggested a surge in anti-colonial sentiment among Island states, at least as far as French colonialism was concerned, other developments appear to cast the issue in a different light. As mentioned previously, further changes in both New Caledonia and French Polynesia have seen much more power devolved to the point where both are now virtually self-governing. France retains very few powers, although those that it does retain  – defence, security and the administration of justice – are clearly important. Given that the final competencies in these respects are not held by the governments of New Caledonia and French Polynesia, they clearly fall short of independence.98 Even so, France, along with leaders within the French territories New Caledonia and French Polynesia, campaigned to gain admission to the Forum. In contrast with past practices, then, French political attitudes now strongly favour greater regional integration, even as it continues to resist full decolonization.99 95

Nic Maclellan, ‘“Highjacking Decolonization”: French Polynesia at the United Nations’, Inside Story, 31 May 2013 (online). 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid. 98 Meg Taylor, Secretary-General, Pacific Islands Forum, personal interview, Suva, 23 August 2016. 99 Rudy Bessard and Nathalie Mrgudovic, ‘Regional Horizons and Oceania Variations in French Overseas Territories’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 140 (January–June), 2015, 13.

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In 2006, New Caledonia and French Polynesia were admitted to the Forum as associate members. The task then was to persuade Forum member states that their degree of autonomy was sufficient for them to be considered for full membership. Ironically, the territories could only join the Forum with the permission of France since it still controls foreign affairs. The pro-France president of the New Caledonian government from 2015 to 2019, Philippe Germain, however, argued that the country had not only gained complete autonomy in economic, financial, environmental and cultural issues, but also conducts its own regional and international relations and can sign treaties (albeit within limits). ‘This is what made it possible for the Island members of the Forum to see that we were autonomous enough to become a full member on an equal basis.’100 Another New Caledonian government official suggested that while it is true that New Caledonia had not yet made an act of self-determination according to UN criteria, it was nonetheless on an irreversible trajectory to do so, persuading Melanesian countries to support admission of the French territories.101 In fact, only one group within the FLNKS opposed it, while the FLNKS as a whole took no official position. In French Polynesia, the Assembly voted in favour of the proposal to seek membership of the Forum with forty-seven in favour and ten abstentions – the latter representing a pro-independence group in the Assembly.102 At the 2016 Forum meeting all MSG member countries (with the exception of Fiji, which was absent), were persuaded that the case for New Caledonian and French Polynesian membership was sufficiently strong, and joined with all other members in supporting the admission of the two French territories to full membership.103 French Polynesia’s reinscription by the UN as a non-self-governing territory a few years earlier appeared to have no tangible effect on the decision. There were also geostrategic reasons for bringing the two French territories into the Forum fold. The move creates a stronger link between a major world power and helps to balance other external forces operating in 100



101



102 103

Philippe Germain, President, Government of New Caledonia, personal interview, Noumea, 18 October 2016. François Bockel, Head of Regional Cooperation and External Affairs, Government of New Caledonia, Noumea, personal interview, 19 October 2016. Radio New Zealand, ‘French Polynesia Votes to Become Full Member of Forum’, 19 August 2017 (online). Noting that ‘consensus’ can often mask dissenting minority positions. Several confidential sources have mentioned to the author that Nauru did not favour admission of the French territories and that Tonga and Tuvalu also had reservations, but would not actually vote against admission given the level of support among other Forum members.

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the region, especially China, something that Australia and New Zealand, in particular, have been concerned with. Another factor is French and EU financial support for the French territories as well as for the broader region. For the Forum itself, the admission of the two French territories to full membership enhances its breadth as a regional organization and helps to integrate the Francophone Pacific with its Anglophone neighbours. The admission of the French territories has also set a precedent for other non-independent territories to be admitted. American Samoa has indicated strong interest and, as of 2023, was seeking at least associate membership. Guam, too, has expressed a strong interest in membership. The US has full power over their external relations but given heightened tensions with China, there is now more incentive for the US to support the membership of both territories in an organization long associated with the Western alliance. These factors highlight the extent to which the Forum’s founding principles and much of its original raison d’être have given way to a pragmatic approach to regional politics mediated by a range of more recent considerations. Even so, the Forum’s embrace of the two major French territories cannot be seen as the demise of colonialism as a regional political concern. This concern now extends to the Indonesia/West Papua issue as well as the degree to which neocolonialism plays into current geopolitical dynamics. 8.6

Decolonization and Regionalization in Micronesia

The decolonization of Micronesian countries under US control has not been a major concern for the Forum compared with French decolonization, but it is nonetheless an important part of the regional story. Nauru and Kiribati, conventionally understood as belonging to the Micronesian ‘culture area’ but possessing quite different colonial histories, had been independent for some time. Nauru was a founding member of the Forum and Kiribati joined following independence in 1979. As with the Polynesian members, Nauru and Kiribati tended to take a fairly conservative stance on regional issues, although in 1985 Kiribati entered into a fishing agreement with the Soviet Union, asserting its sovereign rights as well as attempting to advance its self-reliance.104 Meanwhile, progress in the quest for self-determination in the US’s TTPI had been slow, notwithstanding UN pressure to move forward with 104



Stephen Henningham, The Pacific Island States: Security and Sovereignty in the Post-Cold War World (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995), 47.

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reforms. During the Cold War, the US was in no hurry to decolonize a key strategic area, despite its self-image as a champion of democracy and self-determination.105 A measure of territory-wide representation was introduced in 1965 with the establishment of the Congress of Micronesia to consider, among other things, the options for future political status. Given the enormity of the area covered – from Palau in the west, to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands and to the Marshall Islands further east – along with the diversity of people occupying hundreds of different islands over millions of square kilometres of ocean, it is not surprising that internal divisions arose. Six years after the Congress was founded, one commentator opined that ‘the same people who not too long ago had united behind their Congress with a common purpose and a common destiny are now having great difficulties in moving toward national unity and a common political future’.106 But it is difficult to imagine how a ‘national’ consciousness encompassing all entities in such a vast area could ever have been consolidated. Apart from cleavages along ethnic, religious and linguistic lines, there were differences as to future political status with some, such as those in the Marianas, favouring closer, permanent links with the US while others favoured complete independence or something in between. Public debates therefore continued ‘to range over the relative merits of the status quo, commonwealth, free association, and independence’.107 In the event, what was previously a single US trust territory was transformed into a number of separate political entities with varying statuses  – the RMI, Palau, the FSM and the CNMI. The first three have full formal sovereignty but opted for a Compact of Free Association with the US that came into effect in 1986 for the RMI and the FSM while for Palau it was delayed until 1994 largely because of US resistance to Palauan proposals for a nuclear-free clause in its constitution. Each individual Compact arrangement, which provides for a US military presence in return for certain benefits, is subject to periodic renewal. These arrangements are said to provide ‘a constrained, almost neocolonial future through terms and conditions that compromise autonomy and national integrity in favour of continued financial assistance’, ensuring that Compact countries remain firmly oriented to the US. In addition, the US stands accused of ‘buying out of direct 105



106 107

Gary Smith, Micronesia: Decolonisation and US Military Interests in the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (Canberra: Peace Research Centre, Australian National University, 1991), 3. Carl Heine, ‘A Challenge to Micronesia’s Future’, Micronesian Reporter, 19 (4), 1971, 18. John C. Dorrance, ‘Micronesia’s Future Status: The Hana Talks, Background and Retrospect’, Micronesian Reporter, 19 (4), 1971, 12.

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responsibility for its legacy of colonialism, including the consequences of nuclear testing in the Marshalls’.108 Even so, for some, such as the FSM’s first president, Tosiwo Nakayama, the entry into a Compact of Free Association was the act of a sovereign nation. When considering the dangers of continuing to associate with the US, Nakayama observed that: ‘There were many sharks in the ocean; it was to the FSM’s ultimate advantage to be allied with the biggest, ugliest, and meanest of them all.’109 There have been moves in the FSM to terminate their Compact but the adverse consequences of losing free access to the US for FSM citizens for the remittance economy are significant. One commentator suggests that FSM leaders may leverage their Compact stance to get a better deal from the US, or perhaps from China.110 The CNMI became a self-governing, unincorporated territory of the US in 1986. Guam was to remain a non-self-governing territory and continues to host US military bases. But there is now a strong independence movement that is resisted equally strongly by the US. Guam’s future political status therefore remains unresolved,111 but then so too do those with Compact arrangements that may or may not be renewed, or renewed with changed conditions. American Samoa, incidentally, is also an unincorporated territory, although people born there are not automatically US citizens as they are in Guam and the CNMI. This is at least partly because of concerns among American Samoans that this would impact adversely on local identity and land tenure practices, although the latter have already been compromised after more than a century under US administration.112 In terms of wider regional affairs, the US-controlled Micronesian territories in northern Oceania had remained relatively isolated from their southern neighbours, despite common membership of the SPC. The perspective of the US defence planners and diplomats responsible for the future of Micronesia was also restricted. For them, the ‘Pacific Islands’ consisted largely of ‘those that stretched west from Hawai’i to the Philippines’ with little attention to the south.113 Micronesian leaders themselves ‘also operated in an American universe – looking east to

108 Hanlon, ‘Sea of Little Lands’, 101. 109 Quoted in Hanlon, Making Micronesia, 10. 110 Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno, ‘FSM Citizens to Lose Immigration Status if Compact Ends’, Pacific Daily News, 4 December 2015 (online). 111 See United Nations, GA/COL/3339, 27 June 2019. 112 See, generally, Line-Noue Memea Kruse, The Pacific Insular Case of American Sāmoa: Land Rights and Law in Unincorporated US Territories (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). 113 Fisher and Firth, Decolonising American Micronesia, 2.

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Washington, where the money came from, and west to other parts of the American Pacific such as Guam’.114 The FSM and the RMI became full members of the Forum in 1987 on the basis that they were fully self-governing internally and could therefore implement Forum decisions. Their participation in the Forum in the early years was described as ‘cautious and conservative’,115 due no doubt to their relative isolation from wider regional affairs until that time. Palau joined in 1995. The CNMI and Guam, along with American Samoa, were granted observer status in 2011. In the meantime, regional nomenclature had also changed to be more inclusive of northern Oceania, with the ‘South’ Pacific being dropped by the two major regional institutions. In 1997, the SPC became officially styled as the Pacific Community with the ‘Secretariat of the Pacific Community’ devised to retain the longstanding SPC acronym. In 2016, however, Director-General Colin Tukuitonga announced that the organization would henceforth be referred to by its official name: the Pacific Community. The South Pacific Forum changed its name to the Pacific Islands Forum in 2000 (and is often referred to by the acronym PIF).116 However, while accession to Forum membership of the northern Micronesian states may have strengthened links with Nauru and Kiribati, there were no signs, at least by the mid-1990s, of moves among the Micronesian states to forge a distinctive Micronesian identity within the Forum.117 This contrasted with the relative strength of Melanesian and Polynesian identities. Common interests and ties among Micronesian states, however, began developing at a political level. Common interests include their status as SIS, and the fact that they form the majority within this group which consists of the FSM, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau and the Marshall Islands along with Niue, the Cook Islands and Tuvalu. Recognition of SIS as a distinct group within the Forum in 1991 was based on their special development needs. An inaugural summit of SIS leaders was held in 1992. A SIS Program Unit was eventually established in 2006 at the Forum Secretariat although it took another ten years before a formal strategy for the group was adopted. This strategy is meant to ensure that the particular interests of the SIS group, especially with respect to the priority areas of climate change, health, marine resources and transport, maintain a high profile in regional planning and policy implementation. 114 Ibid. 115 Henningham, Pacific Island States, 48. 116 Pacific Islands Forum, Communiqué, Tarawa, Republic of Kiribati, 27–30 October 2000. 117 Ibid., 49.

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Following the decision by Nauru and Kiribati to join the MPS, Palau President Remengesau noted that the MPS now comprised the majority within the SIS group, indicating that the MPS summit had therefore ‘taken on greater importance for our Micronesian people and our Micronesian region’ who together ‘must demand a stronger voice in regional planning and negotiations’.118 This reinforces the point that while Micronesian identity based on perceived cultural ties may be relatively weak, an identity of shared political interests at the subregional level was certainly developing. The point was amply illustrated by the reaction of the Forum’s Micronesian members when their candidate for the role of Forum secretary-general was defeated. Early in the appointment process, five Micronesian Forum members had met in Palau, issuing the Mekreos Communiqué which affirmed their intention to nominate Ambassador Gerald Zackios of the RMI for the post, and insisted that the Forum respect a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ that a Micronesian succeed Dame Meg Taylor. FSM President David W. Panuelo was reported as stating that Micronesia’s position was not negotiable on the issue, and that the ‘devastating consequence would be the break-up of the regional political body’. He continued: The Micronesian subregion is as much a part of the Pacific as Polynesia or Melanesia, and if they are unable to adhere to the Pacific Way of respect for others, including respect for our Gentlemen’s Agreement, then the consequence is that we simply don’t engage with them or allow ourselves to be pushed around by people with ulterior motives in the [Forum] Secretariat.

His understanding was that the position would be determined on a rotational basis, noting that the previous five secretary-generals had come from Papua New Guinea, Australia, Samoa, Tuvalu (in an acting capacity) and then Papua New Guinea again, with a Micronesian only once before taking the role: ‘it is now the turn of Micronesia’.119 The view from Micronesia, however, was clearly not shared by other Forum members as illustrated by the fact that there were also nominees for the position from Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands and the Cook Islands, leading to much commentary around the region on the nature of the selection process and the efficacy of the Pacific Way. One issue complicating the matter was that the deputy secretary-general at this time was also from Micronesia, and there was clearly resistance (from nonMicronesia leaders) to both leading positions being held by appointees 118 FSM Information Services, ‘The 19th Micronesian Presidents’ Summit: Continuing Commitment to Cooperation’, 19 March 2019 (online). 119 Island Times Staff, ‘Micronesian Countries Challenge PIF to Appoint Their Joint Candidate or Face Mass Withdrawal’, Island Times, 6 October 2020 (online).

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from the same subregion. One observer noted that although there had been a trend, or at least an attempt, among international organizations to merit-based selection, ‘the fact is, political bodies will make political decisions’.120 The competitive and relatively public lobbying by Forum countries nominating candidates was unprecedented. But the fact that the COVID-19 crisis precluded face-to-face discussion may well have contributed to the clear lack of consensus about a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’. After a marathon online meeting in February 2021, a vote of nine to eight favoured former Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna. This triggered a furious response from the Micronesian group, with the FSM president reiterating the threat to withdraw from the Forum, declaring that the result was a ‘failure of the Pacific Way’.121 A virtual meeting of the Micronesian presidents then ‘agreed that all five nations will initiate the formal process of withdrawing from the Pacific Islands Forum’, adding that they would now ‘look forward to strengthening the work of subregional organizations including the Micronesian Presidents’ Summit’.122 Among the responses to these developments was an observation by a former delegate of Guam to the US House of Representatives that the situation would have been avoided had Guam, the CNMI and American Samoa all been Forum members, citing the precedent of the French territories joining despite their non-independent status.123 Whether American Samoa would have lined up with the Micronesian states and territories rather than supporting the Polynesian nominee is another question, especially given its membership of the PLG. More generally, if membership had been extended in this way, the Forum would now have a substantial Micronesian/US-oriented bloc  – something that may well develop in the future. Micronesia had previously been at the margins of broader regional politics in Oceania with geographic distance, historical and political dissimilarities arising from the different colonial experience, and continuing US ties contributing to a certain detachment.124 A Micronesian appointee as Forum secretary-general was likely to have drawn them closer but

120



121 122 123 124



Sadhana San, ‘The Pacific Islands Forum Leadership: Who and For What?’, DevPolicyBlog, 12 November 2020 (online). Mala Darmadi, ‘Micronesian President Flags Quitting Pacific Island Forum over SG Election’, ABC News, Pacific Beat, 4 February, 2021 (online). Nauru, Government Information Office, ‘Micronesia Unified in Forum Withdrawal’, 9 February 1991 (online). Quoted in Anne Wen, ‘Micronesian Countries Pulling Out of Pacific Islands Forum Disrupts Region’, Pacific Islands News, 14 March 2021 (online). Gallen, ‘Micronesian Sub-Regional Diplomacy’, 178–9.

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the contest for this position was clearly a disaster for Forum solidarity at a time when the Island countries in particular were facing an uncertain future in the face of the challenges presented by COVID-19, climate change and resource security as well as an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment. In the event, the split within the Forum was averted. An agreement to appoint a Micronesian nominee at the end of Henry Puna’s term, and a further agreement to rotate the secretary-general’s position among members of the three subregions, will ensure that such a rift is unlikely to occur again. 8.7 Conclusion In the Forum’s early years, the space it provided for political discussion among the newly independent states of the region proved a valuable outlet for the frustrations experienced in the SPC, especially over French colonialism and nuclear testing. Although there were differences among Forum members in terms of how strongly these issues were broached, with some maintaining a more conservative line, there was nonetheless consistency in the Forum’s approach overall. On a range of these and other issues, Australian and New Zealand reports of the period provide evidence that they were ready to leave much of the running to Island leaders, sensitive to the fact that the latter needed to ‘own’ the Forum if it was to be effective, as well as to charges of neocolonialism if they took an obvious lead. Even so, as major partners in the regional enterprise who supplied the resources essential to its very existence, and with legitimate interests of their own in regional politics, it was difficult to keep a low profile. As the ambitions for the Forum to play a more significant role in the provision of regional services grew, questions would inevitably arise about the value of maintaining two major organizations in a region where resources were always stretched. In the end, arrangements to avoid duplication and overlap were put in place, although the extent to which these succeed in their purpose remains an issue. But more importantly, the fact that the SPC encompassed all territories regardless of political status, and ensured that the French (and the US) remained engaged on a regional basis rather than becoming isolated, was a sufficient condition for the SPC’s survival. In the contemporary period, the apolitical status of the Pacific Community has meant that its programs can continue more or less regardless of political developments and so may be an advantage rather than a liability. As for politics within the Forum, it is clear that subregional politics have had, and will continue to have, an impact. This is in addition to

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the perennial problem of tensions between perceived national interests and the benefits that broader regional projects might bring. This was well illustrated at an early stage by the failure of the regional airline project. In this instance, as in other areas in the Forum’s earlier years, the figure of Ratu Mara loomed large. Mara was also conspicuous as a critic of Australia and New Zealand on certain matters  – trade union activity being just one example. Although a minor concern in the larger scheme of things, it provided an early platform for the Pacific Way to be promoted as an ideal mode of conducting political affairs in contrast with a ‘Western way’. More generally, the notion that consensus politics and decision-making should prevail over competitive approaches had been maintained, at least on the surface, for much of the Forum’s life, although it collapsed in spectacular fashion over the secretary-general’s appointment in 2020–2021. But as we see in Chapter 9, it had already come under strain as events unfolded following the first of Fiji’s coups in 1987.

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Democracy and Culture in Regional Politics

The Forum had provided a means for raising political concerns, and its early years saw engagement with a number of these, but it is often seen as having a fairly limited impact on the broad regional scene in its first three decades. Writing in 2004, one commentator noted that, since its inception, the Forum had been ‘an observer rather than a leader or shaper of regional developments’.1 Nearly a decade on, a report commissioned by the Forum itself noted that the organization suffered from lack of ownership by its member states. Interestingly, the report – a highly critical one – was largely ignored within the Forum and not released for public scrutiny.2 The apparent lack of focus by Forum members is possibly due to the demands of domestic politics, which are, after all, the primary concern of national political leaders anywhere, although these often spill over into regional politics. But when a serious political crisis emerged in Fiji in 1987 in the shape of a military coup (the first of several), it was quietly brushed aside as an issue for the Forum, at least by Island leaders. As with other regions where independence was still relatively recent, the almost sacred rights of sovereignty tended to forestall interference in the internal affairs of a state, even if amounting to nothing more than mild criticism. And although Ratu Mara had no problem in criticizing the metropolitan powers, it was a very different matter when it came to criticism of Fiji’s coups. It is in this context that the approach of Australia and New Zealand has stood in contrast to that of Island leaders. The problems illuminated by Fiji’s coup-prone politics, along with crises in Solomon Islands and other problems of maintaining political 1 Sinclair Dinnen, Lending a Fist? Australia’s New Interventionism in the Southwest Pacific, DP2004/5 (Canberra: State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program, Australian National University, 2004), 2. 2 Matthew Dornan, ‘Swept Under the Pandanus Mat: The Review of the Pacific Islands Forum Needs to Be Taken Seriously’, DevPolicyBlog (Canberra: Development Policy Centre, Australian National University, 20 September 2012) (online). A full copy of draft review dated May 2012 was made available at the Masalai Blog at masalai​ .wordpress.com/2012/08/25/draft-report-review-of-the-pacific-islands-forum-secretariat/.

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order, were to eventually compel Forum members to confront issues of domestic governance. A major focus here is on Fiji while the story of Solomon Islands and its implications for regional politics is addressed in Chapter 10. But both cases raise broader issues of the legacies of colonial rule, including the problems confronting the theory and practice of modern democratic politics in newly independent countries. Implicit in so many discussions of these issues has been an almost unavoidable dichotomy between ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’ which is incorporated in the broader West/non-West dichotomy. A more detailed account of the crises, and an in-depth analysis of post-colonial struggles in instituting effective democratic governance, is beyond the scope of this study, but some attention to these concerns is important for understanding aspects of identity politics in regional affairs. Sections 9.1 and 9.2 examine issues concerning democracy, culture and the nature of constitutional development at the time of independence, looking especially at assumptions about the tensions between modern representative democracy and traditional socio-political practices. There follows in Section 9.4 an account of the Fiji coups between 1987 and 2006 – events that have presented considerable challenges for the Forum at the interface between regional security and domestic crises as set out in Section 9.4. Section 9.5 addresses issues raised by the intersection of principles of democratic equality and the continuing impact of conservative cultural traditions on women’s participation in politics – a topic that is also much debated at the regional level. 9.1

Democracy, Governance and the Politics of Culture

Decolonization in the Pacific Islands, as elsewhere, had given rise to considerable optimism about the future.3 In much of the former colonial world, however, it was not long before the euphoria accompanying independence, and confidence in the institutions designed to provide a democratic political future and widespread social and economic benefits, began to evaporate. This raises, among other things, questions of institutional design and the extent to which local context was taken into account in each case. In considering these, the issue of culture looms large. ‘Culture’ itself is a concept for which numerous definitions have been advanced. It has been viewed through the lens of virtually all the human and social sciences, from literary studies and business studies to geography, history, politics, sociology and, especially, anthropology. A foray into the complexities of the concept is beyond the scope of the 3

This section is based partly on Lawson, ‘The Pacific Islands Since Independence’.

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present study,4 but two points are worth noting. First, the difficulties raised by the culture concept become evident when ‘culture shifts from something to be described, interpreted and perhaps explained, and is treated instead as a source of explanation in itself’.5 Culture, however, is not self-explanatory, and this leads to the second point: that any given cultural formation is open to competing interpretations, whether by external observers or among its own ‘members’, and that different interpretations may be tailored to suit different political agendas. Almost any set of national democratic institutions adopted by former colonial states at independence in Oceania, as elsewhere, is often simply labelled a ‘Westminster system’, or ‘Washington model’ or simply ‘Western parliamentary system’, and is just as often assumed to be alien to non-Western societies on the basis that they have different ‘political cultures’. If the features of such systems are analysed at all, it is usually in terms of the apparent embodiment of competitive, adversarial processes that are contrasted, not unexpectedly, with modes of consensus politics and decision-making said to reflect traditional practices. The competitive aspects of politics, leadership and status rivalry, let alone political violence in ‘traditional’ settings, is not often mentioned in this context. And rarely is there any mention of the fact that Western societies and those of the Island Pacific (and most others for that matter) share something else in common: strongly entrenched gendered social and political roles privileging male power. This is not to say that incongruities and contradictions do not exist between a ‘Westminster model’ (however defined) and local traditions. Even so, the new parliamentary systems adopted at independence have, in most cases, been retained despite these. Some, such as in Solomon Islands, have been largely preserved by local politicians, perhaps ‘because they have given such men a degree of personal power in the disposal of resources’.6 Fiji’s original constitution, on the other hand, is long gone and the country now has its fourth iteration. No single cause can account for the problems besetting democratic governance in former colonies but, apropos of the above, the assumption that cultural factors are at the root of the problems has been a persistent theme. More specifically, it is often asserted that democracy can only arise organically following a long period of social change conducive to 4

The culture concept is examined in detail in Lawson, Culture and Context. 5 Adam Kuper, Culture: The Anthropologist’s Account (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), xi. 6 Judith Bennett, Roots of Conflict in Solomon Islands, Though Much Is Taken Much Abides: Legacies of Tradition and Colonialism (Canberra: Australian National University, State, Society and Governance in Melanesia, Discussion Paper 2002/5, 2002), 1.

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its flourishing, not through being imposed abruptly from outside with little or no regard for pre-existing political traditions.7 A closely related strand of this argument holds that democracy, along with conceptions of universal human rights, has a specificity rooted historically in Western liberal values and is simply unsuited to other cultural contexts with their very different histories and traditions. A third strand suggests that nonWestern societies have their own versions of democracy that are more legitimate than externally imposed models.8 These claims are not entirely without substance, but critics can also point out that democracy has taken root in diverse locations around the world, cultural and historical differences notwithstanding. And few would dispute that other cultural products, such as major world religions, have been transplanted very successfully.9 On a related theme, the principle of self-determination, which provided the essential moral underpinning for the entire decolonization movement along with the doctrine of state sovereignty through which it is realized, are both European in origin. A notion of self-determination also lies at the very heart of democratic theory and practice and the doctrine of state sovereignty is, in principle, the embodiment of popular sovereignty. As one commentator notes, international law is very much concerned with the protection of sovereignty, ‘but the object of protection is not the power base of the tyrant … but the continuing capacity of a population freely to express and effect choices about the identities and policies of its governors’.10 Culturalist claims to local authenticity have often justified authoritarian rule  – not to mention coups against elected governments. A wellknown variant of the argument that non-Western societies have their own, more legitimate versions of democracy has been associated with a model of democracy said to be based on ‘Asian values’ and that was heavily promoted by incumbent elites during the 1980s and 1990s. Those values, however, have been derived largely from authoritarian principles of hierarchy and order. This ‘Asian’ model also promoted a notion of consensus politics and decision-making as a central element in contrast with the competitive, adversarial mode of politics said to be typical of Western democracy and, as noted earlier, this has informed the ASEAN Way as well. Consensus in this context, however, usually means 7 See Marc F. Plattner, ‘Introduction’, in Zoltan Barany and Robert G. Moser (eds.), Is Democracy Exportable? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 2. Note that the author is reporting this argument, not endorsing it. 8 Discussed extensively in Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy. 9 Ibid., 2–3. 10 Dan Sarooshi, International Organizations and Their Exercise of Sovereign Powers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 10.

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obedience to the dictates of established political authority and repudiation of criticism or dissent as a legitimate form of political expression in ‘Asian political culture’.11 Similar modes of argument, invoking an almost identical set of ‘African values’, have been produced to defend authoritarian one-party states in Africa. As noted in Chapter 6, Ratu Mara considered the African one-party model as perhaps more suited to the Island Pacific than ‘Western’ multi-party democracy. It is a model, however, that has given rise to precisely the kinds of tyrants that have invoked the doctrine of sovereignty to protect their own power base, although the Pacific Islands have, for the most part, been spared such leaders. Even so, ‘culture’ has been used to delegitimate political claims based on democratic principles.12 Looking more closely at ‘the West’, it takes only a modicum of insight to grasp that it is best understood as a convenient shorthand expression for what is, after all, a highly diverse entity. Its constituent states possess markedly different histories and cultural traditions and, even within each of these, variations are numerous. And while some of the arguments noted earlier assume that democracy is long established in, and deeply resonant with, Western values, this ignores the fact that in much of Europe (the heartland of the West), democracy has only very recently become established – in fact for many countries only since the Second World War and, for eastern Europe, only since 1989. For much of the twentieth century many European countries were ruled by either fascist or communist regimes – both also products of the modern West. Moreover, some European countries have experienced an upsurge in support for right-wing authoritarianism in recent years suggesting that democracy has rather shallow roots there. The events of 2020–2021 in the US following Trump’s defeat at the polls also demonstrated strong anti-democratic elements. On the other side of the West/non-West divide is an even more diverse set of entities. In Oceania, we have seen that the Island countries have quite different colonial histories and that these, combined with factors such as geography and ethnic identity, have produced different political orientations. These have also been shaped by the nature of the political institutions adopted at independence. The latter certainly raise legitimate questions concerning the tensions between modern representative democracy and pre-existing political and social practices. But this slips once again into a bifurcation along the lines of the modern versus the traditional and the West/non-West divide, tending to channel analysis 11 See Lawson, Culture and Context, 147–64. Ibid.

12

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along a narrowly deterministic pathway. It assumes a cultural logic that fits all too easily into ‘sense-making devices that ascribe meanings to people, places and events’ while offering ‘a type of intellectual shorthand that allows us to quickly convey taken-for-granted assumptions’.13 In addition, many practices described as ‘traditional’ are better understood as ‘neotraditional’ in that they incorporate elements of pre-existing practices in a novel way in the context of external influences. This includes the chiefly systems implicated in contemporary politics. Throughout the Island Pacific, however, chiefs and chiefly systems have tended to symbolize authentic Indigenous practices in contrast with the foreign and the modern.14 A critique of ‘culturalist’ models of democracy, which highlights a politics of culture, should not be taken to suggest that there is a universal, one-size-fits-all model of democracy. Democracy can and does take a significant variety of forms which may legitimately reflect the basic normative principles of popular sovereignty  – principles that hold that political power is vested ultimately in ordinary people. Historically, these principles have been embodied in both direct and indirect (representative) forms, in republics and in constitutional monarchies, in parliamentary and presidential systems, in unicameral or bicameral legislatures, in unitary states and federal states, and in many other variations on the democratic theme, including a plethora of different electoral systems, rules for citizenship, legal systems, and so on. And if this variety is evident in the countries of Europe and the West more generally, it is even more so in the hugely diverse sovereign entities that emerged from the former colonial world. 9.2

Decolonization and Constitution-Making

In decolonizing processes, most states adopted constitutions reflecting basic principles of representative democracy  – principles that had strengthened in western Europe after the dreadful experiences of 1939– 1945. As for the former colonial world, liberation could scarcely be justified if it was not applied to the people at large and not just national elites. At the same time, constitutional development generally took place with the participation of departing colonial powers and, inevitably, their 13

See Jack Corbett, ‘Between Crisis and Persistence: Interpreting Democracy Narratives in the Pacific Islands’, Political Science, 65 (2), 2013, 199. 14 White, ‘Discourse of Chiefs’, 231. For an early analysis of the ‘tradition/modernity’ theme in governance arrangements for Pacific Island countries see Norman Mellor, ‘Traditional Leaders and Modern Pacific Island Governance’, Asian Survey, 24 (7), 1984, 759–72.

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own institutions left a distinctive imprint. For the Island Pacific, it is often assumed that constitutions around the region largely reflect colonial structures and values and that these are essentially responsible for later crises and challenges, including ‘coups, clashes between human rights and custom, weak political accountability and political instability’.15 The link between cause and effect, however, is rather more complicated. It is also a mistake to suggest that something like a ‘Westminster model’ was simply imposed on an unwilling populace by a departing colonial authority. Indeed, the idea that the transition to independence consisted in the colonial imposition of a pure Westminster model (whatever that might be) displacing more culturally authentic modes of governance steeped in the values of consensus politics and decision-making as per the Pacific Way is not only much mistaken but also puts a rather romantic gloss on traditional ways.16 Similarly, statements such as the ‘ultimate intention of state-building is the creation of viable Indigenous structures of governance, not simply the imposition of Western models’17 posits a dichotomy between ‘the Indigenous’ and ‘the Western’ and further suggests that all would be well if only state structures were designed to reflect Indigenous values. The latter, however, are scarcely uncontested by Indigenous participants themselves. Local Indigenous elites were not passive victims of reckless colonial impositions designed to destroy traditional ways, denying agency to Indigenous actors in the process. In most places, local figures (albeit almost always male) were fully engaged in constitutional processes, and were prepared to set aside many aspects of local tradition in the setting up of new, national institutions, with the result usually reflecting a broad consensus among participants. Indeed, it is this cooperative process that was at the heart of Mara’s 1970 Pacific Way speech when he drew an explicit contrast with the peaceful transitions to independence in the Island Pacific and other parts of the former colonial world. Of course, none of this guaranteed that the new institutions of national governance 15

See, generally, Pacific Constitutions Research Network (online); also Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka, ‘Westminster Meets Solomons in the Honiara Riots’, in Sinclair Dinnen and Stewart Firth (eds.), Politics and State Building in Solomon Islands (Canberra: Australian National University E Press/Asia Pacific Press, 2008), 96–117, which provides a critique of the Westminster system in the context of the breakdown of national governance in Solomon Islands around the period 1998–2006. 16 Jon Fraenkel, ‘Postcolonial Political Systems in the South Pacific Islands: A Survey’, in Stewart Firth and Vijay Naidu (eds.), Understanding Oceania (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 134. 17 Michael G. Morgan and Abby McLeod, ‘Have We Failed Our Neighbour?’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 60 (3), 2006, 414.

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did not suffer flaws in institutional design and that all would be smooth sailing into the future. The new arrangements also reflected the specific circumstances of each colony and some did incorporate traditional/neotraditional institutions. In Fiji, for example, the reservation of communal seats and special provisions for chiefly representation reflected both local ethnic demographic factors as well as the status of traditional leaders. The communal arrangements were certainly far removed from a standard Westminster model, although the provision for traditional chiefs was not. After all, the original Westminster model enshrined significant privileges for the UK’s own hereditary chiefly caste through the House of Lords and it is only recently that democratic reforms have seen most of these eliminated. Changes to Fiji’s constitution since the 2006 coup also saw the removal of special provisions for chiefs at the national level. Indeed, the new narrative promoted by the Bainimarama regime was that chiefs do not belong in the political arena, which, because it is partisan and contentious, may undermine the mana or gravitas of traditional leaders.18 In Samoa, restrictions on both eligibility for office and voting rights worked to entrench matai authority, another arrangement far removed from a standard Westminster model. Universal suffrage was eventually introduced in (Western) Samoa in 1990  – a reform intended, ironically, to preserve the matai system rather than undermine it. Serious problems had arisen because of the proliferation of claimants to matai status in order to gain voting rights, the only remedy being the extension of the franchise to all adult citizens. But it remains the case that only matai can stand for office.19 In the Cook Islands, self-governing institutions include the chiefly House of Ariki, modelled partly on the House of Lords, although it has no legislative authority and only advises the elected parliament on issues referred by parliament. Elected politicians there have ensured that their own agendas are prioritized. Nauru, Kiribati and Niue have no constitutional provisions incorporating traditional practices although informal political practices often do reflect these. This is actually consistent with Westminster traditions in which unwritten conventions (i.e., customs) often prevail. Tuvalu initially adopted a basic parliamentary system but concerns about the perceived need for a reaffirmation of Tuvaluan values saw a revised constitution promulgated in 1986 which provided for increased recognition of Tuvaluan customs and traditions. These, 18

Joni Madraiwiwi, ‘Chiefs in Politics: Paradigm and Paradox’, Islands Business, October 2016, 32; see also Stephanie Lawson and Elizabeth Hagan Lawson, Chiefly Leadership in Fiji: Past, Present and Future, Discussion Paper 2015/5 (Canberra: State, Society and Governance in Melanesia, 2015). 19 See Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy.

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however, lack definition and the increased emphasis on the principles they are meant to affirm has not solved any practical issues or prevented periodic political crises.20 Tonga adopted a constitution as far back as 1875 prompted, among other things, by an urgent need to gain recognition by the major powers of the period, which in turn required recognition of the legitimacy of the government and hence a formal constitution.21 It was influenced heavily by models derived from Hawai’i and the UK and, despite some democratic appearances, was designed largely to protect ‘a hierarchical society with deeply entrenched obligation systems’.22 In its original formulation, it established the monarch and a small group of ‘nobles’ in total control of government, although it also established some rights for Tongan ‘commoners’. Before this, the 1862 Emancipation Edict had delivered the latter from a status akin to serfdom, although the new order established in 1875 still looked very like a pre-modern English feudal system.23 The relative stability of Tongan politics over the ensuing century or so was attributed to a ‘unique amalgam of Tongan chiefly authority and British forms of government and law’.24 From the early 1990s, however, a prodemocracy movement demanded more effective participation for commoners and to hold political leaders to account for increasingly corrupt practices. Reforms in 2010 finally gave popularly elected representatives a majority in the legislature over the nobles’ representatives. Even so, the monarch maintains certain executive powers and in 2017 exercised these unilaterally by dismissing parliament and calling for fresh elections. Critical perspectives on traditional Tongan values view the concepts of faka’apa’apa and talangofua, discussed in Chapter 6, as contributing to a form of social control that has long underscored dominance and manipulation by the traditional ruling class, noting that pule – the power and authority of higher-status persons – and ilifia (fear) of that authority, are additional motives for faka’apa’apa and talangofua.25

20

See United Nations Development Program, Tuvalu Constitutional Review Project Report, January–July 2018 (online). 21 See, generally, Sione Latukefu, Church and State in Tonga: The Wesleyan Methodist Missionaries and Political Development 1822–1875 (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2014). 22 Rodney C. Hills, Tonga’s Constitution and the Changing State, DP 4 (Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, 1991), 7. 23 Guy Powles cited in Lawson, Tradition Versus Democracy, 92. 24 Guy Powles quoted in Mele Tupou, ‘Constitutional Development in Tonga: Tonga’s Idea of Responsible Executive’, presented at Law and Culture Conference, Port Vila, 9 September 2013. 25 Helen Morton, Becoming Tongan: An Ethnography of Childhood (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1996), 89.

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Traditional leadership has always been more difficult to define in the Melanesian subregion. From the early period of European contact it was of particular concern to explorers, labour recruiters, missionaries and colonizing agents to discover who the local leaders were and the nature of the powers they possessed.26 It was once thought that Melanesian societies had no ‘real chiefs’, or at least nothing like the hereditary chiefs who sat atop relatively rigid Polynesian hierarchies and that colonial authorities found much more comprehensible. As we have seen, Melanesian societies appeared to have ‘big men’ whose status was achieved rather than ascribed, with political influence and status attained through ‘public oratory, informal persuasion and the skillful conduct of both private and public wealth exchanges’.27 Of course, the distinction between achieved and ascribed status is more complex and, like the Melanesia/ Micronesia/Polynesia divide itself, definitions can be rather crude.28 Even within Polynesian societies, which may appear more straightforward, an abstract model of ascribed status does not always fit historical realities.29 While the diversity of the region makes generalization difficult, some fairly consistent features of Melanesian socio-political organization have nonetheless been identified, egalitarianism and consensus politics decision-making among them: With a few notable exceptions, Melanesian societies do not exhibit marked forms of hierarchy in ranking, inherited titles, chiefly etiquette, and so forth…. [A]n important feature of most indigenous communities is adherence to egalitarian values that see power dependent on networks of exchange and personal reputation built up over time. This aspect of social organization is associated with consensus-style decision making rather than reliance on positions or authority or elite status.30

Similarly, another commentator says that the influence of Melanesian big men is largely ‘personal and ephemeral relative to that in societies with inherited rank or with formal councils’ and that ‘the absence of structurally reproduced power has given Melanesian communities a reputation for egalitarianism (among men, if not between women and men)’.31 26

Chowning, ‘Leadership in Melanesia’, 66. 27 Rena Lederman, ‘Big Man, Anthropology Of’, in James D. Wright (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 567. 28 Lamont Lindstrom and Geoffrey M. White, ‘Introduction: Chiefs Today’, in Geoffrey M. White and Lamont Lindstrom (eds.), Chiefs Today: Traditional Pacific Leadership and the Postcolonial State (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 9. 29 Goldman quoted in Douglas, ‘Rank, Power, Authority’, 4. 30 White, Indigenous Governance, 2. 31 Lederman, ‘Big Man’, 568.

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Even where no clearly established traditional authorities lent themselves to incorporation in the new institutions at independence, inventiveness sometimes filled the gap. A neotraditional body in Vanuatu, for example, was established in the form of a Malvatumauri (National Council of Chiefs) in the lead-up to independence in a country where ‘chiefship’ was a fairly novel institution.32 The Malvatumauri can ‘discuss all matters relating to custom and tradition’ and may also ‘make recommendations for the preservation and promotion of ni-Vanuatu culture and languages’. Despite some attempts to give it more authority and provide resources for its work, the Malvatumauri has remained largely marginal in national politics. A 2006 National Council of Chiefs Act was passed in 2006 following lengthy discussions and reports, although it did little more than formalize its organizational role with respect to subsidiary chiefly councils. Yet it was expected that kastom jifs (customary chiefs) would continue playing a key role in maintaining order especially in rural areas where the formal reach of the state remains minimal. The Malvatumauri’s secretary said when the Act finally passed, it ‘was like a dog that had had all its teeth removed and yet … was still expected to hunt pigs’.33 This outcome reinforces the point that although chiefs and national political elites may share certain interests in maintaining chiefly political power, those who have gained positions through non-traditional methods may be wary of just how much power is given to chiefs.34 Solomon Islands made no national provisions for traditional leaders, although it did establish the District Houses of Chiefs. Solomon Islands’ first prime minister, Sir Peter Kenilorea, said that while traditional leadership belonged to chiefs and older people  – and he himself was relatively young at the time  – the new national context was ‘beyond the bounds of traditional leadership’, which ‘must give way to people with some education who can think widely’.35 After independence, a number of sometimes conflicting statutes covering provincial government were enacted, but these did not address the involvement of non-elected chiefs and elders and so aspirations to involve local leaders in government were 32

See Bolton, ‘Chief Willie’, 179–95. Bolton (179) writes that missionaries and officials of the Anglo-French condominium government introduced the concept of ‘chief’ which became a title used to designate men who represented their communities in the nontraditional contexts of church and state. 33 Forsyth, Bird That Flies, 164. 34 Lamont Lindstrom, ‘Chiefs in Vanuatu Today’, in Geoffrey M. White and Lamont Lindstrom (eds.), Chiefs Today: Traditional Pacific Leadership and the Postcolonial State (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 227–8. 35 Radio New Zealand, transcript of interview with Sir Peter Kenilorea, recorded 1995 (online).

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never accommodated.36 It has also been argued that introduced practices have been deeply and irreversibly absorbed, becoming ‘as much a part of perceived custom as that which has some formal continuity with age-old culture’.37 This includes the Westminster system, which is said to operate as an arena for ‘big men’ to assemble systems of patronage encompassing virtually all aspects of the national political system including the civil service.38 In New Caledonia, increased recognition of Kanak identity has seen the transformation of the New Caledonian Customary Council into a Customary Senate with certain administrative, consultative, propositional and legislative functions in matters concerning Kanak identity, although it remains subordinate to the New Caledonian government.39 In Papua New Guinea no special provisions were made for traditional rulers at the national level. The only mention Sir Michael Somare made of following a traditional practice was the decision to have only one house of parliament, which followed the practice of each village having only one chief. Somare also mentioned his experience of travelling to several African countries and to Sri Lanka to examine constitutional provisions there, but added that Papua New Guinean leaders of the time developed their own parliamentary system, albeit a variation of the Westminster model, and that Australian officials never imposed their own agenda.40 Indeed, the constitution of Papua New Guinea was very much a home-grown affair with significant input from public consultations all around the country and with ideas of Narokobi’s Melanesian Way at the forefront of considerations.41 Moves to independence in Melanesia more generally saw efforts to consult widely and engage the local publics at large, although the complexities of constitution-making made it difficult for people with only a basic education and little experience of political participation to contribute effectively.42 Even so, both colonizers and colonized – or at least 36

Jaap Timmer, ‘Kastom and Theocracy: A Reflection on Governance from the Uttermost Part of the World’, in Sinclair Dinnen and Stewart Firth (eds.), Politics and State Building in Solomon Islands (Canberra: Australian National University E-Press/Asia Pacific Press, 2008), 195. 37 Jon Fraenkel, The Manipulation of Custom: From Uprising to Intervention in the Solomon Islands (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2004), 12. 38 Ibid., 43. 39 Rowena Dickins Morrison, ‘The Institutionalisation of “Kanak Identity” in the New Caledonian Customary Senate and Kanak Customary Law’ (online). 40 Radio New Zealand, transcript of interview with Sir Michael Somare, recorded 1995 (online). 41 See Jonathan Ritchie, ‘From the Grassroots: Bernard Narokobi and the Making of Papua New Guinea’s Constitution’, Journal of Pacific History, 55 (2), 2020, 235–54. 42 See Helen Gardner and Christopher Waters, ‘Decolonisation in Melanesia’, Journal of Pacific History, 48 (2), 2013, 113–21. See also Yash Ghai, ‘Constitutional Reviews in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands’, Contemporary Pacific, 2 (2), 1990, 313–33.

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the elites among the latter – were concerned to press ahead. And press ahead they did, not forgetting that the UN Decolonization Committee was also forcing the process. But many colonies were ill-prepared to manage the arrival of sovereign statehood, which was ‘almost as abrupt and unilateral as the original acts of colonial annexation a century before’.43 Subsequent reflections on general preparedness for independence by early leaders themselves suggests that more time would have been beneficial.44 As noted earlier, independence for the Micronesian subregion under US control came later. But when plans for independence did move forwards, there was no lack of agency on the part of local figures.45 During the course of long–drawn out constitutional deliberations and negotiations there was considerable debate about the status of chiefs. In the FSM, the incorporation of traditional leaders in the new national system was seen as endangering their vital role. One argument was that ‘the institution of chieftainship itself would be threatened if chiefly roles were made subject to western legal precepts’, while another held that the ‘codification of chieftainship would be likely to freeze the relative rankings of titles, lineages, and clans in place and thus destroy the fluidity that characterizes the entire system’.46 It proved a highly contentious and divisive issue in the process of drafting the constitution.47 In both the RMI and Palau provision was made for chiefly councils although with advisory functions only. In the RMI, the reason for limiting the role of hereditary iroji (chiefs) was that their presence in the nitijela (parliament) would not allow ordinary members freely to discuss issues concerning relations with the iroji. Also, to ‘ask an Iroij to stand for election to qualify for a seat in the nitijela can be most embarrassing if he loses an election … not only is the Iroij’s prestige at stake if he loses … but his traditional role as a spokesman of his people can be seriously questioned’.48 Even so, the country’s first president – and some

43

Sinclair Dinnen, ‘Dilemmas of Intervention and the Building of State and Nation’, in Sinclair Dinnen and Stewart Firth (eds.), Politics and State Building in Solomon Islands (Canberra: ANU-E Press, 2008), 6. 44 See, for example, Radio New Zealand, transcript of interview with the Hon. Bikenibeu Paeniu, former Prime Minister of Tuvalu, recorded 2011 (online). 45 For a study of processes involving considerable local agency in FSM in particular, see Hanlon, Making Micronesia. 46 Glenn Petersen, ‘At the Intersection of Chieftainship and Constitutional Government: Some Comparisons from Micronesia’, Le Journal de la Société des Océanistes 141 (July– December), 2015, 264. 47 Hanlon, Making Micronesia, 7. 48 C. J. Lynch, Traditional Leadership in the Constitution of the Marshall Islands, Working Paper Series (Honolulu: Pacific Islands Studies Centre, University of Hawai’i, 1984), 3.

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that have followed – have been irojilaplap (paramount chiefs).49 In Palau, traditional leaders are insulated from open electoral processes. The constitution provides for a Council of Chiefs in which each of Palau’s sixteen states is represented by the highest-ranking chiefs meeting monthly in closed session. But its powers at a national level are advisory only and restricted to matters concerning custom and tradition.50 In practice, there has often been an uneasy relationship between traditional authorities and more recently introduced systems, with tensions between them undermining effective governance across a range of issues.51 Kiribati, being a former British colony, moved to independence much sooner than the US-controlled territories. And although British influences played some part in its new constitutional set-up as a parliamentary democracy, albeit with a directly elected president, Kiribati’s first president said that it was very much a local production. It also involved extensive consultation with the people of Kiribati, including traditional local leaders, and has delivered a largely stable political system over four decades.52 The overall picture shows that on entering the independence era, many Pacific Island countries did so with systems of government that fused certain features of local forms with aspects of Western parliamentary democracy. While this might seem to have provided a fortuitous blend of modern state forms with Indigenous structures, few have proved unproblematic. And although some may lament the marginalization of traditional practices, other local elites have welcomed the opportunities presented by new pathways to political power and status. Observers point to the Melanesian subregion as having experienced particular difficulties. As noted earlier, the most prominent cases are the Fiji coups starting in 1987, the Bougainville crisis from 1988 to 1998, and the breakdown of government in Solomon Islands from around 2000 that ended only with major external intervention. Whether these have resulted directly or indirectly from inappropriate institutional design is a moot point. Perhaps the problem lies in the construction of the territorial state itself insofar as the new states bound together highly disparate groups of people who do not necessarily regard the particular state in 49

The interplay between local Marshallese power structures and US influences has produced a highly complex set of dynamics. See, generally, Julianne M. Walsh, ‘Imagining the Marshalls: Chiefs, Tradition and the State on the Fringes of US Empire’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Hawai’i, 2003. 50 Wouter Veenendaal, Politics and Democracy in Microstates (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 179–80. 51 See Erica Rosenberg, ‘The Politics of Progress in Palau’ Cultural Survival, September 1996 (online). 52 Radio New Zealand, transcript of interview with former president Sir Ieremia Tabai, recorded 2011 (online).

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which they find themselves as legitimate.53 In the context of crises in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, it has been observed that the modern state itself had very shallow foundations in the local environments in which they were established and that they were limited in capabilities as well as in their legitimacy as far as many of the new ‘citizens’ they now encompassed were concerned. Moreover, the new states of the Pacific, as elsewhere, were linked into a global economy that presented huge challenges and for which no traditional mode of politics or economics could be readily adapted.54 These factors reflect the lack of ‘state-building’ as well as ‘nationbuilding’ that preceded independence in some cases, which was subsequently reflected in crises around the region. If there was any sense of a shared national political community, it was confined largely to a small urban elite.55 In Fiji, a fairly robust state had been established over the best part of a century of British colonial rule and there was a competent, well-educated civil service. But its political institutions also had entrenched politicized ethnic divisions that were all too easily exploited in electoral processes. This had serious implications for regional politics and the extent to which principles of democratic governance, sovereignty and non-intervention were to become major issues. 9.3

The Fiji Coups

Of all the events shaping discourses about democracy in the Island Pacific since independence, Fiji’s coups are the most significant. These have seen Australia and New Zealand adopting a critical stance vis-à-vis coup leaders while the reactions of most Pacific Island countries, at least until the 2006 coup, were muted to say the least. When the first coup occurred in 1987, the figure of Ratu Mara still loomed large on both the domestic and regional political scenes, his stature enhanced by his high chiefly status in the Polynesian style. Mara could not be seen as directly involved in the coup – and strongly denied any involvement. The fact that the coup was a direct consequence of his defeat at the polls, however, could scarcely be denied. Coup leader Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, the third-ranking officer of the Royal Fiji Military Forces, also initially denied Mara’s involvement but later conceded his complicity, 53

For a discussion of decolonization which identifies territorial aspects of state legitimacy in the Pacific Islands as problematic, see Stewart Firth, ‘Decolonization’, in Robert Borofsky (ed.), Remembrance of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000), 314–32. 54 Ibid. 55 Dinnen, ‘Dilemmas of Intervention’, 6–7.

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stating that Mara had said that the ‘only way to change the situation is to throw the constitution out of the window’. Mara further assured Rabuka that as far as regional and international relations were concerned, especially with Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK, they could safely be left in his (Mara’s) hands. Rabuka also noted that ‘the Forum very quickly accepted the status of things at that time’.56 The 1970 constitution that needed discarding had been adopted by consensus among the delegates to the constitutional conferences, and Mara as chief minister had been the leading Fijian figure in the deliberations. Mara was the chief advocate of a system that assumed that Fiji’s ethnically mixed population would require continuing fixed communal representation. The population then, as now, consisted mainly of Indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians, the latter mostly descendants of indentured labourers brought to Fiji for cheap plantation labour. There are also small groups of Europeans, part-Europeans, Chinese and other Pacific Islanders. In electoral terms, these groups were rather conservative and their generous allocation of seats under the communal system tended to benefit Mara’s Alliance Party. Indo-Fijians had argued for a more open system while Mara and other Indigenous leaders were determined to maintain a system that gave them the edge in competitive national elections. When asked some twenty-five years later whether it was the Westminster system of government and opposition that had fractured the country along ethnic lines, Mara replied that it was already fractured.57 Arguably, the communal system, which scarcely reflected Westminster principles, ensured that it would remain so. Another important element in the constitutional mix were provisions for traditional chiefly elites via the Bose Levu Vakaturaga (Great Council of Chiefs or GCC). It had not existed prior to colonization but had been instituted by Governor Gordon and subsequently incorporated into the colonial administration  – thus exemplifying the nature of a neotraditional institution. At independence in 1970 the GCC was retained in the constitutional structure and empowered to nominate the single largest bloc in the Senate while also having a veto over legislation affecting Indigenous Fijian rights and interests.58 At this time, Ratu Mara was the dominant figure in Fiji’s national politics. He was both a paramount chief in the traditional system (and his wife was an even higher chief) and prime minister in the parliamentary system. He had been chief minister 56

Sitiveni Rabuka, interview, ‘Commonwealth Histories’, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 22 July 2015 (online). 57 Radio New Zealand, transcript of interview with Ratu Sir Kamisese, recorded 1995 (online). 58 Fiji, Independence Order and Constitution of Fiji, 1970 (online).

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in the colonial government, transitioning to the prime ministership at independence in 1970 with the agreement of Indo-Fijian opposition figures, and did not face an election until 1972. Electoral politics for Indigenous Fijians was a relatively new phenomenon, having been introduced only in the lead-up to independence. And for paramount chiefs such as Ratu Mara, having to engage in campaigning as well as potentially losing an election risked humiliation. The introduction of democratic competition, which included public criticism and challenges to established authority, was certainly at odds with both Indigenous and colonial systems. A report on Ratu Mara in the early 1980s observed that he ‘shows difficulty in combining his chiefly position with leadership of a parliamentary democracy. He takes offence at questioning in Parliament, even though the Indian opposition, cautious not to cause racial strife in which Indians would be sure losers, is generally guarded in criticizing him.’59 Electoral politics in Fiji from 1972 onwards has often been depicted as consisting primarily in a contest between Indigenous Fijians and IndoFijians whose interests were assumed to be largely antagonistic. But there was – and remains – much more to Fiji politics than this rather simplistic explanation allows. Even so, those pushing an Indigenous nationalist line, which has tended to gloss over intra-Indigenous conflict, had the loudest voices and never hesitated to instil fears about loss of Indigenous land, culture and identity if an ‘Indian’ government was ever elected. This approach was taken by a new Fijian Nationalist Party in the 1977 elections that succeeded in winning 25 per cent of the Indigenous Fijian vote. But it had also been strongly critical of the chiefly establishment. Mara subsequently adopted a stronger nationalist line himself, urging Indigenous Fijians to unite behind their traditional leadership as the only guarantor of their rights and interests. The fact that Indigenous Fijian rights were triply entrenched in the constitution was never mentioned and certainly not widely understood.60 Although most Indigenous Fijians continued to support Mara’s Alliance Party, they by no means constituted an indivisible political bloc and, by 1987, there was more support for a different approach. A newly formed Fiji Labour Party, in coalition with a longstanding party with roots in the Indo-Fijian community, toppled the Alliance through elections under a constitution that many had thought would guarantee the 59 United States, Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Intelligence, ‘Fiji’s Ratu Mara: Profile of a Regional Statesman’, sanitized copy approved for release 2011/01/31, CIA-RDP85T000300040003-7, November 1984, 5. 60 See, generally, Lawson, Failure of Democratic Politics.

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Alliance an almost indefinite stay in power. The new prime minister, Labour’s Dr Timoci Bavadra, was an Indigenous Fijian commoner from the western region of Fiji – very different from Mara. Cabinet posts in the new government were divided evenly between Indigenous Fijians and Indo-Fijians.61 Even the leader of the Fijian Nationalist Party (who sometimes showed himself as more anti-Mara than anti-Indo-Fijian) had urged acceptance of the new government as ‘the choice of the people’.62 The period immediately after the installation of the new government, however, was marked by intermittent demonstrations of Indigenous nationalist dissent, some orchestrated by defeated Alliance politicians. Threats of violence led to some law and order concerns but by the end of the first month Indigenous nationalist activity was waning. Notwithstanding the poor behaviour of defeated politicians and chauvinistic displays of Indigenous nationalism, the events of 14 May 1987, when Rabuka took the government hostage at gunpoint on the floor of the parliament, came as a surprise to many observers.63 For whatever troubles the country had experienced in domestic politics over the years, the resolution of political differences had never before been carried out at gunpoint. Previous experience, however, had not included the transfer of power from the ruling party to an opposition – the ultimate test of democratic constitutional processes.64 Rabuka’s justification was framed explicitly in terms of a claim that the new government would compromise Indigenous Fijian rights. There was no evidence to support this claim and it was scarcely in the interests of the Bavadra government to do so even if they could. A former military officer describes the events of May 1987 as ‘a supremacist coup against a phantom internal security threat’, turning Fiji into a coup-prone state in the process.65 In the immediate wake of the coup, Fiji’s economy suffered a significant drop in tourist revenue (by then its second biggest foreign currency earner after sugar exports), as well as the suspension of some aid programs, prompting moves to establish a civilian government. By 61

Ibid. 62 Suva Correspondent, ‘Trying Time for New Government, Pacific Islands Monthly, 58 (6), June 1987, 20. 63 For an insightful summary of how the coup was executed see Robbie Robertson, The General’s Goose: Fiji’s Tale of Contemporary Misadventure (Canberra: ANU Press, 2017), 61–5. 64 Key argument of Lawson, Failure of Democratic Politics, echoed subsequently by former Fiji Constitutional Review Commissioner and academic, Brij V. Lal, A Time to Change: The Fiji General Elections of 1999, DP 23 (Canberra: Department of Political and Social Change, Australian National University, 1999). 65 Jone Baledrokadroka, ‘The Military in Post-Colonial Fiji’, in David Hegarty and Darrell Tryon (eds.), Politics, Development and Security in Oceania (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2013), 53.

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September, the governor-general announced a proposal for an interim government made up of parliamentarians from both the Alliance and the deposed government. But, just as the final agreement was reached, Rabuka intervened again on the grounds that it compromised his coup’s ‘objectives’, namely, the entrenchment of Indigenous political supremacy. It seems that Rabuka, having tasted power, had developed an appetite for more. He then abrogated the 1970 constitution and declared Fiji a republic, leading to a fresh round of international protests, renewed threats to aid and trade, and suspension from the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, Mara was installed as interim prime minister and the former governor-general, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, as president while a new constitution was drawn up – one designed to guarantee permanent Indigenous Fijian rule while thoroughly marginalizing Indo-Fijians. It was promulgated in 1990. Rabuka, heading a new Indigenous party, won elections as prime minister in 1992. It had taken five years for Fiji to return to an elected civilian government, albeit one based on a system akin to political apartheid. Mara succeeded Ganilau as president in 1994, a position he retained until the next coup in 2000. The 1990 constitution may have guaranteed Indigenous political power but it failed to deliver on either stability or prosperity. The emigration of professional and skilled Indo-Fijians left the country short of key human resources with Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand the major beneficiaries. Intra-Fijian political dissent flourished and Rabuka’s government lost a motion of no confidence. Although Rabuka succeeded in retaining power in fresh elections in 1994, politics under his leadership remained extremely fractious while the denial of a meaningful share of political power for Indo-Fijians was a major blight on Fiji’s reputation internationally. Rabuka subsequently reinvented himself as a democrat and multiculturalist and oversaw another constitutional review. In 1997 a new constitution for the ‘Republic of the Fiji Islands’ was promulgated, providing Indo-Fijians with a much more equitable role in politics although retaining provisions for communal voting, protection of Indigenous rights and the continuing entrenchment of traditionalist institutions. In the process, Rabuka found new allies in the main Indo-Fijian party and, as Labour had done in 1987, formed a coalition with the expectation of attracting support across the ethnic spectrum. But the electorate returned instead a Labour-led government in a coalition that included minor Indigenous parties. Labour leader Mahendra Chaudhry duly became Fiji’s first (and so far only) Indo-Fijian prime minister, forming a government with an Indigenous Fijian coalition party leader as deputy prime minister and with eleven other Indigenous Fijians holding cabinet positions, including Ratu Mara’s daughter, elected in her father’s old seat.

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The new government lasted a year before another coup, led by failed business entrepreneur George Speight and a handful of disloyal soldiers from the military’s Counter-Revolutionary Warfare unit, saw government members held hostage for fifty-six days. The justification was, once again, the threat posed to Indigenous Fijians by an ‘Indian government’.66 This was not a military coup and was not backed by the then military commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama. In December 2000, however, Bainimarama declared martial law in the absence of effective government. He also sidelined the GCC, which was split between pro- and anti-coup supporters. The resolution of the hostage crisis saw Mara’s forced resignation as president and the appointment of a caretaker government led by Laisenia Qarase, a former GCC appointee to the Senate (although not himself a chief). Speight had agreed to these arrangements, relinquished his own claims to office and finally freed the hostages after working out an amnesty agreement. But he was soon to break the terms of the amnesty, was arrested by the military, tried for treason and as of 2023 is still serving a life sentence, although this may be reviewed given the change of government. A personal tipping point for Bainimarama was an attempted mutiny in November 2000 by CounterRevolutionary Warfare soldiers supportive of Speight and his agenda. It involved a plan to assassinate Bainimarama, and very nearly succeeded, but was thwarted by soldiers loyal to Bainimarama.67 Qarase rode a high tide of Indigenous nationalism to win elections in 2001 after civil order was restored. He also sought to ingratiate himself with the GCC by suggesting that power be shared between parliament and the GCC.68 As for the GCC’s role more generally, one particularly scathing commentary suggests that it emerged ‘as little better than a disputatious, vacillating, readily manipulated gerontocracy’ and that its tactics throughout the coup crisis ‘displayed fecklessness, egregious public posturing, and the personal venality of individuals claiming to “represent the Fijian people”’.69 Qarase may have ingratiated himself with arch-nationalist chiefs and their supporters, but he provoked Bainimarama’s implacable hostility by looking to secure the early release of the coup perpetrators and 66 Stephanie Lawson, ‘Nationalism Versus Constitutionalism in Fiji’, Nations and Nationalism, 10 (4) 2004, 519–38. Note that Speight himself was part-European but identified politically with his Indigenous Fijian heritage. 67 Ibid. 68 Robert Norton, ‘The Changing Role of the Great Council of Chiefs’, in Jon Fraenkel, Stewart Firth and Brij V. Lal (eds.), The 2006 Military Takeover in Fiji: A Coup to End all Coups? (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2009), 106. 69 Roderic Alley, ‘Fiji’s Coups of 1987 and 2000: A Comparison’, Revue Juridique Polynesienne, Special Issue 217 (224), 2001, 226.

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mutineers; in short, to free his would-be assassins. Bainimarama’s relationship with Qarase reached the point of no return. For his part, Qarase made several unsuccessful attempts to remove Bainimarama as military commander. There is not the space here to recount the twists and turns of the Fiji military’s historic development and involvement in politics – an institution whose personnel is, incidentally, almost 100 per cent Indigenous Fijian. It must suffice to say that while it once stood as a bulwark of Fiji’s neotraditional order, under Bainimarama it was to become its nemesis.70 Qarase was returned to power in the May 2006 elections, but Bainimarama refused to accept his government’s legitimacy, charging it with corruption, incompetence and racism.71 These were to be the principal themes in justifying the December 2006 coup. In the final days beforehand, Qarase attempted to use the GCC to help resolve the confrontation with Bainimarama, but the latter refused to have the chiefs involved. When the coup finally occurred, it was initially proclaimed as a brief ‘clean-up’ coup to deal with corruption, but it was soon transformed into a ‘temporary authoritarian interlude … to facilitate electoral reform and to avoid the communal tensions generated by electoral politics’.72 Bainimarama promised to bring about not just a change of regime but a revolution in political thinking that moved well away from traditionalism, chiefly privilege and the racialist underpinnings of Indigenous Fijian nationalism. 9.4

Regional Responses to Coup Crises

Military coups and illicit seizures of power had occurred in other parts of the post-colonial world but it was a novel phenomenon in the Island Pacific. Following Fiji’s May 1987 coup, the Pacific Islands Monthly declared that governments ‘installed at gunpoint have no part in the affairs of this region’, adding that Rabuka and his supporters had ‘no appreciation of the fundamental values of the community of nations in the South Pacific’ and that it was ‘necessary that the leaders of those nations make this clear through the South Pacific Forum’.73 If this was a serious expectation they were to be deeply disappointed. The Forum 70

See Jone Baledrokadroka, ‘The Super Confederacy: The Military in Fiji’s Politics’, Round Table, 104 (2), 2015, 127. On the neotraditional order and its fate under Bainimarama see Lawson and Hagan Lawson, Chiefly Leadership. 71 Norton, ‘Changing Role’, 107. 72 Jon Fraenkel, ‘The Origins of Military Autonomy in Fiji: A Tale of Three Coups’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 67 (3), 2013, 328. 73 ‘Assault on Democracy’, Pacific Islands Monthly, 58 (6), June 1987, 5.

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met just two weeks later and, according to New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, Island leaders stood firmly in support of the line that ‘in no circumstances will anything be discussed, no matter how important, which involves the internal affairs of a member’, adding that they almost ‘pretended [the coup] hadn’t happened’.74 Another commentator noted an ‘almost intuitive recoil by most [Island] governments in the region from anything that could be construed as unwarranted interference in Fiji’s internal affairs’.75 There was also at least tacit support for the idea that Indigenous Fijians were entitled to safeguard their rights and interests through institutions that ensured their political predominance.76 This, however, assumes that these were actually under threat from the Bavadra government, which they were not. The fact that it was Mara’s election defeat that had precipitated the coup almost certainly influenced regional responses. Mara had sometimes provoked resentment among other Island leaders, but his stature in both national and regional affairs had been second to none. His reputation for arrogance, anger and petulance, however, was also well established and he had lost the election with very poor grace. His attitude to democracy had been ambivalent at best. Given that Tonga and Western Samoa had political systems that severely restricted non-chiefly participation in politics, it is hardly surprising that the leaders of these countries, in particular, would hold similar attitudes. But the principle of non-interference also accorded with the strong anti-colonialism of the Melanesian states while Micronesian leaders were never likely to adopt a stance different from the other subregions. Fiji was not represented at the 1987 Forum summit but lobbying behind the scenes ensured that the coup was not on the formal agenda. In the end, the Forum officially expressed its ‘deep concern and anguish’ over the situation in Fiji and offered to send a mission led by the Australian prime minister, but only if invited by Fiji’s governor-general.77 The offer was not taken up. At no time did the Forum mention support for democratic processes. Indeed, the only time the Forum mentioned anything of the kind in its early years was when it had adopted a resolution supporting ‘the authority of the elected government’ of Walter Lini during Vanuatu’s secessionist crisis at independence.78 74

Cited in Shibuya, ‘Problems and Potential’, 109. 75 Roderic Alley, ‘The 1987 Military Coups in Fiji: The Regional Implications ‘, Contemporary Pacific, 2 (1), 1990, 39. 76 Ibid., 56. 77 South Pacific Forum, Communiqué, Apia, 29–30 May 1987. 78 Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (n.d., circa 2010), The Impact of Democratic Values on Pacific Islands Forum Outcomes (online), emphasis added.

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Independently of the Forum, Australia and New Zealand were openly critical of the coup. Nonetheless, both were cautious in their approach. Some within the Australian opposition ranks had advocated military intervention but the Hawke Labor government ruled it out categorically. Foreign Minister Bill Hayden also said that ‘[t]here is an unstated assumption in … one of the rump factions of the coalition that Australia is able to order around the affairs of countries in this region; that we can pick up the small island states by the scruff of the neck … give them a good shake and point them in the right direction … [this approach] will be counterproductive’.79 Ultimately, the Hawke government’s response was a condemnation of the coup and a call for the return of parliamentary democracy along with the suspension of some aid programs and defence cooperation.80 New Zealand’s response was much the same with prime minister David Lange targeting Mara for special criticism, maintaining that he could well have defused the situation earlier but had chosen to support the coup perpetrators. He was almost certainly right in this respect. But Lange later adopted a more conciliatory tone, praising Mara for what seemed like efforts to adopt a moderate approach to resolving Fiji’s crisis.81 Both the Australian and New Zealand governments appeared to pin their hopes on Governor-General Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau to act as impartial arbiter as his role demanded. In the final analysis, however, the principal chiefly figures in Fiji politics tacitly supported the coup and, indeed, benefitted from it, emerging in the wake of the September coup in leading positions. Any expectation that loyalty to the Crown would mean something was dashed when the declaration of a republic followed the second coup. Ratu Mara went on to become interim prime minister and, later, president of the republic. He attended the 1988 Forum, ensuring that any issue concerning Fiji politics was definitely off the agenda. Given that almost nothing could be done, Fiji’s regional relations were effectively normalized simply through the passage of time and lack of any viable alternative. Fiji’s 1987 coups also provided an opportunity for France to gain more influence. Although ‘regretting’ the events of 1987, France was generous in its aid to the post-coup regime, enabling Fiji to gain more leverage with Australia and New Zealand while France benefitted from Fiji’s influence in moderating the report on New Caledonia to the UN 79 Bill Hayden quoted in Andrew Kelly, ‘Restoring Democracy: Australian Responses to Military Coups in Fiji’, Journal of International Studies, 11, 2015, 4. 80 Ibid. 81 Alley, ‘1987 Military Coups’, 40–1.

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Committee on Decolonization in 1988. Shortly after French aid deals with Fiji were announced, Australia changed its policy from recognizing governments to recognizing states (a policy already adopted by France, the US and the UK).82 This enabled Australia to resume regular diplomatic relations, which were essential in light of Fiji’s tendency to look beyond traditional development partners. A ‘look North’ policy saw Fiji’s relations with China, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, among others, strengthened.83 In 1975, Fiji had been the first Pacific Island country to recognize China – albeit following the lead of the US, Australian and New Zealand – and after the 1987 coups China invited Fiji’s foreign affairs minister to Beijing. Indeed, China has been willing to do business with any regime that comes to power regardless of the circumstances.84 This policy has served China well in the Island Pacific and elsewhere. Between the coups of 1987 and the end of the century, however, other influences had gained strength in the post–Cold War world in an atmosphere of widespread support for democracy and human rights. The Commonwealth’s Harare Declaration of 1991 strengthened previous declarations restating members’ commitment to ‘the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth’ and, especially, ‘democracy, democratic processes and institutions which reflect national circumstances, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, just and honest government’ along with ‘fundamental human rights, including equal rights and opportunities for all citizens regardless of race, colour, creed or political belief’.85 Given that most Forum members were Commonwealth countries, the Harare Declaration must have had some impact.86 The references to racism are especially noteworthy. Although historically most issues concerning racism have been associated with Western imperialism and white prejudice, the phenomenon is more widespread  – Japanese and Indonesian attitudes to Micronesians and Melanesians respectively being a case in point. Many may be especially reluctant to associate calls based, at least ostensibly, on notions of Indigenous rights with racism, 82

Henningham, ‘France and the South Pacific’, 36. 83 Sandra Tarte, ‘Fiji’s “Look North” Strategy and the Role of China’, in Terence WesleySmith, Terrence and Edgar A. Porter (eds.), China in Oceania: Reshaping the Pacific? (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 119. 84 Jian Yang, The Pacific Islands in China’s Grand Strategy: Small States, Big Games (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 76. 85 See, respectively, Commonwealth, ‘Lusaka Declaration’ and ‘Harare Declaration’ (both online). 86 At least one commentator has linked the Harare Declaration with a shift in the attitudes of Pacific Island leaders – see Alley, ‘Fiji’s Coups’, 229.

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but Indigenous nationalism in Fiji has long had such elements.87 It is precisely these elements that Bainimarama used as a major justification for seizing power. We take up the story of his 2006 coup and the implications for regional relations in Chapter 10. 9.5

Democracy, Culture and Gender

Debates about culture, tradition, democracy and the Pacific Way also direct attention to the participation of women in politics and gender issues more generally. Looking at recent figures, gendered power imbalances in representative institutions clearly run deep in most parts of the world, including much of the West. As of February 2023, the top four countries with the best statistics for representation by women in loweror single-chamber legislatures were, in order, Rwanda, Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico with the United Arab Emirates and New Zealand tied in 5th place. New Zealand therefore has the best female representation of women in Oceania as a whole, well ahead of Australia in 33rd place internationally. The US was at 71st with just over 28 per cent of congressional seats held by women.88 Many countries that lie well ahead of the US are authoritarian or semi-authoritarian, so there appears to be no necessary correlation between democratic rule and at least formal political gender equality. The Island Pacific has an especially poor record. After the 2014 elections, Fiji had improved to stand at 107th, but after 2022 had slumped to 161st. Samoa was then the best at 153rd followed by Nauru at 163rd, Solomon Islands at 167th, Tonga and the FSM at joint 169th, Kiribati at 171st, Palau and Tuvalu at joint 172nd (with Kuwait and Lebanon) and the RMI at 176th. Leading the race to the bottom are Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu, both in the bottom ten.89 Samoa elected a female prime minister in 2021, but that remains an anomaly in an otherwise deeply patriarchal country. On a comparative basis, then, and leaving Australia and New Zealand aside, the Island Pacific exhibits the greatest degree of gender inequality in political representation in the world.90

87

For detailed analysis see Stephanie Lawson, ‘Indigenous Nationalism, “Ethnic Democracy” and the Prospects for a Liberal Constitutional Order in Fiji’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 18 (3), 2012, 293–315. But this is not to say that it did not go both ways, with Indo-Fijians at times displaying equally prejudiced attitudes. 88 Inter-Parliamentary Union, Global Data on National Parliaments, March 2023 (online). 89 Ibid. 90 For a comprehensive account of the issue see Kerryn Baker, Pacific Women in Politics: Gender Quota Campaigns in the Pacific Islands (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2019).

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Interestingly, the very first country in the world to award women constitutional voting rights was Pitcairn in 1838, although that particular polity was, and remains, unique in almost every respect.91 What accounts for the abysmal record of gender (in)equality in Pacific Island countries in the absence of legal impediments to political equality? The most obvious answer seems to lie in ‘culture’ or ‘tradition’ as it plays out over the range of dynamics in social, economic and political life that characterize patriarchal power structures. But this raises further questions about how such hierarchies work. There is a vast range of feminist literature that addresses exactly such questions but that obviously cannot be examined in detail here. However, the notion of the ‘naturalization’ of power, as developed in critical political theory, holds a key to understanding how even those at the bottom of a hierarchy may come to accept their own powerlessness as somehow natural, inevitable and even right. Norms and expectations around patriarchal power therefore become internalized by both males and females.92 This may at least partly explain why women themselves do not appear to vote in large numbers for women as political representatives, or why they do not necessarily support policies promoting greater equality. Some examples from Samoa and Tonga illustrate the role played by local traditions in actively disempowering women. We have seen that in Samoa, eligibility to stand for elected office is restricted to matai. The fact that only around 10 per cent of matai are women and that some villages ban women outright from holding matai titles therefore constitutes a major structural problem. Special measures implemented in 2013, however, have guaranteed a minimum of five seats for women in a fiftyseat parliament, although not without strong resistance from among the most conservative Samoans. Various arguments against the special measures were that they would discriminate against men, that women holding reserved seats would face ridicule and that the election of women to parliament ‘contradicted women’s traditional role in Samoan culture to fa’amaepaepa (sit aside); to be the peace-keeper and peace-maker (pae ma le auli); and not be fa’aeleelea (tainted) with political discussions’.93 91

International Business Publications, Pitcairn Islands Business Law Handbook: Strategic Information and Basic Laws (Washington, DC: International Business Publications, 2013). 92 See Stephanie Lawson, Global Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 82. Note that the construction of hegemony by elites through the naturalization of power, identified in contemporary critical theory, operates across gender and race as well as class. 93 UN Women/UNDP, Temporary Special Measures to Increase Women’s Political Participation in the Pacific, n.d., circa 2016 (online).

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In Tonga, all nobles are by definition male, once again restricting opportunities for women’s participation, although they have very occasionally been elected to parliament as People’s Representatives.94 One prominent Tongan noble claimed that special measures would be ‘humiliating’ for women.95 In most of Melanesia, where hierarchies are more fluid, the barriers are still formidable. Traditional leaders in Melanesia are overwhelmingly male, even where matrilineal practices prevail. Tradition in this context can become ‘a rigid ideology’ deployed against women interested in taking on a more active political role.96 Papua New Guinea has the largest parliament of all island countries, with 111 seats, but not a single woman member following the 2017 elections. Some nonindependent countries, however, have done rather well.97 Following the 2018 elections in Guam, for example, women held the governorship, the speaker’s position and a majority in the legislature (incidentally, making it the first US state or territory to have a female majority). New Caledonia and French Polynesia have the best record of all since French parity laws have mandated special measures requiring that political party lists have 50 per cent female candidates.98 In the absence of such requirements, however, it is likely that the figures would be comparable to those of the independent countries, especially given reported attitudes to the capacity of women to participate in public political life. In New Caledonia, it was argued that Kanak women, in particular, were not ‘ready’ to enter parliament. ‘There was this idea that women in politics would just be like having a vase in your house – it would look very nice, but would not serve a very useful purpose.’99 Imagine if male Kanaks were told they were not ‘ready’ (i.e., not sufficiently mature) to assume the responsibilities of political office and that only people of European descent were. Racism and sexism are indeed two sides of the same coin. A few analyses suggest that at least some pre-colonial traditions in various parts of the Island Pacific accorded women higher status, but that 94

See Helen Lee, ‘CEDAW Smokescreen: Gender Politics in Contemporary Tonga’, Contemporary Pacific, 29 (1), 2017, 66–90. 95 Lord Fakafanua, comments at ‘Festival of Democracy’ conference, Atenisi Institute, Nuku’alofa, June 2014, attended by author. 96 White, Indigenous Governance, 12. 97 These do not appear in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s table cited earlier, which contains only independent countries. 98 This has not applied in Wallis and Futuna to date since there are no political parties. 99 UN Women/UNDP, Temporary Special Measures to Increase Women’s Political Participation in the Pacific: Case Studies of Implementation in the Region (Suva: UNDP, n.d., circa 2016), 16.

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both Christianity and colonial practices undermined these. In Vanuatu, for example, the Presbyterian church and the colonial regime are said to have both worked to actually create the institution of chiefs that exists today and ensured that it was an all-male affair.100 These ‘chiefs’ are separate from the elected parliament but arguably set the tone for what passes as ‘kastom’ as a pathway to power. Contemporary discourses on the subject have tended to reflect two divergent views: ‘on the one hand, a view of custom as male-determined and as wielded by men in positions of authority to keep women in subordination; on the other hand, a view of custom as authoritative and of women’s rights advocates as alienated from their own societies and corrupted by Western thinking and values’.101 Another consequence of political and social inequality at both formal and informal levels are high levels of violence against women.102 Various reports highlight a complex web of social, political, economic and legal factors, of which the UN’s report on the landmark world conference on women in 1995 stands as an authoritative summary: Violence against women throughout their life cycle is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between women and men. It is perpetuated by traditional and customary practices that accord women lower status in the family, workplace, community and society, and it is exacerbated by social pressures.103

Given the correlation between low levels of gender equality and domestic violence against women, it should come as no surprise that women across the Island Pacific are subject to relatively high rates of such violence. Once again, the ideology of tradition can and has been used to justify acts of violence, reinforced by scriptural interpretations emphasizing the duty of obedience that women owe to men.104 National and regional leaders in Oceania have therefore found it necessary to declare formally that ‘culture, religion and tradition can never be an “excuse for abuse”’.105 100



101 102 103 104

105

Claire Slatter, ‘Gender and Custom in the South Pacific’, Yearbook of New Zealand Jurisprudence, 2010–2011 (online). Ibid. See Nicole George, ‘“Men Have No Idea What We Go Through”: Ending Violence against Women in the Pacific Islands’, DevPolicy Blog (Canberra: Development Policy Centre, Australian National University, 21 July 2017) (online). United Nations, Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, September 1995 (online). See Richard A. Davis, ‘Domestic Violence in Oceania: The Sin of Disobedience and the Violence of Obedience’, in Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan and Katie B. Edwards (eds.), Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Pacific Islands Forum, Communiqué, Koror, 29–31 July 2014.

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9.6 Conclusion This chapter focused initially on certain expectations concerning the prospects for the newly independent states in Oceania, some of the difficulties encountered in the post-colonial period and the implications for regional politics. General explanations for the poor performance of many former colonies, especially in maintaining stable, democratic governance arrangements, often reference unsuitable governance models foisted on the newly independent states by hastily departing colonial powers. A key assumption here is that these reflected the values and practices of liberal democracy – a product of the modern West alien to the societies of the non-West – and that they were simply imposed without due regard for local cultural contexts. Similar arguments about ‘Western values’ running contrary to local norms about gender are common as well. Such assumptions tend to gloss over the extent to which independence leaders played an active role in devising their own new constitutional arrangements, including whether or not provision would be made for traditional (or neotraditional) institutions and practices. Under Mara’s leadership in Fiji, extensive provisions were made for the preservation of Indigenous practices as well as Indigenous rights and interests in the 1970 constitution. But Mara was quick to abandon the constitution when it failed to deliver him perpetual power. Bainimarama, a commoner who achieved his status through the military, was to abolish all the institutions supporting traditional privileges at the national level, doing so without a shred of encouragement from any Western sources. The democratic arrangements incorporated in most constitutions also provided new pathways to power  – pathways now open to nontraditional elites who welcomed the opportunities presented. Women have so far been unable to make the same headway as non-traditional male leaders and are very far from achieving parity in political representation, as in many other spheres. But whatever the pathways to power, post-independence leaders have generally wielded it in a novel national political setting: a modern sovereign state. Arguably, it is the latter, as much as the form of rule (democracy or otherwise), that has been difficult to manage. This problem is implicated in the Solomon Islands crisis, which we consider in Chapter 10. The main point here is that the role played by culture or tradition is complex, and the lessons from Fiji, in particular, warn against its simplistic deployment as a catch-all explanation for the problems of democracy in post-colonial settings. Whatever factors have fed into the domestic political difficulties of the new states of Oceania, some of the crises generated by them have

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reverberated throughout the region and beyond. This was certainly the case with the succession of coups in Fiji that have shaped discourses about political stability, democratic governance and, above all, appropriate regional responses to crises in domestic contexts. But if there was a discernible trend in support of democratic governance in both regional and wider global settings during this period, the growing influence of other players coming into the region, with no interest in supporting democratic governance, is also to be reckoned with – an issue that is taken up in due course.

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10

The Spectre of Regional Intervention

The succession of coups in Fiji has loomed large in discussions of political crises in Oceania, but there have been other significant upheavals in domestic settings with implications for broader regional concerns and the possibility of intervention. Some have attracted a great deal of attention from the Forum and others almost none, at least as far as the formal agenda has been concerned. One major crisis that scarcely caused a ripple within the Forum was the civil war on Bougainville, which erupted in 1988 and went on for the best part of a decade, resulting in around 15,000 casualties  – most as a result of preventable disease and illness through lack of access to medical assistance.1 Although the Bougainville crisis failed to prompt a Forum response, Australia and New Zealand eventually acted in support of peace processes independently of the main regional organization with Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu providing military logistical assistance at various stages. East Timor’s move to independence from Indonesia in 1999 also saw Australia lead a major UN-authorized humanitarian intervention. This was not within the purview of the Forum, but it was a significant move for Australia in its broader regional sphere, testing its ability to respond to a regional incident like no other in its history to date by leading a twentytwo-country mission into a complex, highly charged situation.2 The broader context included Australia’s delicate relationship with Indonesia and the reversal of a policy that had put ‘Jakarta first’ since 1975 when Indonesia had taken over the former Portuguese colony by force. In the meantime, social and political discontent in Solomon Islands was leading to escalating law and order problems with a putsch against the government in 2000 and, eventually, the almost complete breakdown of the

1

Australia, Parliament, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Bougainville: The Peace Process and Beyond (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 1999), 13. 2 John Blaxland, ‘Seventeen Years On, East Timor Remains a Success’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 September 2016 (online).

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state. This was to instigate the most significant regional intervention to date, led by Australia along with New Zealand’s support and the participation of a number of Pacific Island countries. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the sense of a region in crisis also prompted talk of the ‘Africanization’ of the Pacific with the possibility of state failure creating an ‘arc of insecurity’ stemming from a malaise in several domestic political settings, mainly across Melanesia but with trouble spots in Polynesia as well – all providing opportunities for transnational criminal and terrorist networks to gain a foothold in the region. At least this is how it appeared in some commentaries from Australia. From where New Zealand sits in the regional security scenario, these discourses perhaps seemed rather alarmist, while for most of the Island states security concerns tended to focus on more immediate non-traditional threats, including environmental hazards such as adverse climate events impacting infrastructure, productivity and food and water security.3 Even so, the situations in Bougainville and Solomon Islands, in particular, were a matter of life and death for many local people, as it was in East Timor, and would only be resolved with external assistance. 10.1

Bougainville and East Timor

The Bougainville troubles appeared mainly as a secessionist conflict between Bougainvilleans and the national government of Papua New Guinea and its security forces. But, as with Fiji, there were other important elements. Longstanding rivalries and other localized tensions were elements in the mix and saw some groups within Bougainville fighting (and killing) each other as well. However, the violent behaviour of Papua New Guinea’s security forces in the early stages – perhaps little better than that of Indonesian forces in West Papua  – had the effect of ‘supercharging’ a particularistic Bougainvillean identity and separatist sentiments.4 It was a nasty, prolonged and deadly conflict, yet the Forum’s annual communiqués over much of the period are remarkable for their almost complete silence on the issue. It was, after all, an ‘internal affair’. 3 John Henderson, ‘Oceania and the New Security Agenda’, in Derek McDougall and Peter Shearman (eds.), Australian Security After 9/11: Old and New Agendas (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 173. See also Anna Powles, ‘Finding Common Ground: New Zealand and Regional Security Cooperation in the Pacific’, in Rouben Azizian and Carleton Cramer (eds.), Regionalism, Security and Cooperation in Oceania (Honolulu: Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2015), 79–95. 4 Peter Jennings and Karl Claxton, A Stitch in Time: Preserving Peace on Bougainville (Canberra: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, November 2013), 3.

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Outside the Forum’s processes, however, there had been cooperative efforts organized mainly by Australia and New Zealand with the assistance of security forces from some Pacific Island countries. A peace process was attempted in 1994 with Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu providing broader multilateral elements, although it was not successful at the time. A subsequent attempt in 1997–1998 saw New Zealand take a lead. The result was a lasting truce subsequently monitored by a New Zealand–led team and including personnel from Australia, Fiji and Vanuatu.5 This apparently antagonized some on the Australian side who saw Papua New Guinea as ‘their territory’ but, unlike Australia, New Zealand was ‘not viewed by the inhabitants of Bougainville as having a vested interest’.6 Interestingly, the New Zealand organizers adopted what were said to be Melanesian cultural norms in that negotiation processes were not tied to a specific agenda or timetable but rather unfolded in a relatively informal fashion until the parties reached common ground.7 The Forum’s role was negligible, the first mention of the crisis coming only in September 1997 when the peace process had produced a tangible result. The Forum simply noted ‘the progress made in restoring peace to Bougainville’ and expressed its ‘readiness to assist Papua New Guinea wherever possible in its efforts to bring about a lasting and durable peace to Bougainville Province’.8 Australia and New Zealand were subsequently involved in the international peacekeeping operation in East Timor where violence had erupted in the wake of the August 1999 independence referendum. Indonesia had taken over the former Portuguese colony by force, commencing in 1975 and consolidating control by 1978, in clear violation of international law and the rights of the East Timorese to self-determination. Indonesia’s claims over East Timor, unlike West Papua, were never recognized by the UN although it did receive formal recognition from Australia in 1979 and de facto recognition by around thirty other countries, including its fellow ASEAN members. Indonesia was hit hard by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, leading to the demise of Suharto’s authoritarian regime and the succession of President Habibie who instituted democratic reforms. Habibie’s government was also obliged to become a supplicant to the International Monetary Fund and thus to expose his administration to international pressures on a number of fronts, including those 5

Ibid. 6 Bruce R. Vaughan, The United States and New Zealand: Perspectives on a Pacific Partnership (Wellington: Fulbright New Zealand, 2012), 8. 7 Stewart Firth, ‘A Reflection on South Pacific Regional Security: Mid 2000–Mid 2001’, Journal of Pacific History, 36 (3), 2001, 279. 8 South Pacific Forum, Communique, Rarotonga, 17–19 September 1997.

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concerning Indonesia’s treatment of East Timorese illustrated by the deaths of around 100,000  – many as victims of mass atrocities perpetrated by Indonesian security forces. Maintaining control of East Timor was also an expensive business and this, in addition to other pressures, saw Habibie agree, albeit reluctantly, to a referendum. The subsequent UN peacekeeping operation, triggered by the murderous behaviour of pro-Indonesian militia in East Timor following the 1999 referendum (encouraged and assisted by the Indonesian military), saw the first humanitarian intervention in the region. Although Australian-led, and with New Zealand providing its largest deployment of personnel overseas since the Korean War, the operation also saw Southeast Asian forces participate, including those of Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia. After the initial peacekeeping operation, a UN transitional authority saw further multinational cooperation including personnel from China, Bangladesh and Nepal.9 All this appeared to represent an anomaly. After all, Indonesia had consistently rejected international norms and opinion, aided and abetted ‘by the determination of regional and other states to ignore what was by all accounts a human-rights disaster’.10 This is also consistent with the record in West Papua. Australia’s intervention was authorized by an initially reluctant conservative government under John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer who, in an interesting turn of events, found themselves overturning a long-held belief that Australia’s core security interests favoured a ‘special relationship’ with Indonesia.11 This had prevented Australia from pressing Indonesia on security issues during the conduct of the referendum in the first place. Indonesia’s failure to provide adequate security allowed pro-Indonesian militia to take vicious revenge on the majority population that had voted for independence. When it came to confronting the unfolding humanitarian crisis, Downer insisted that the following conditions be met: first, that there was a UN Security Council mandate; second, that formal Indonesian consent be obtained; third, that the mission be short term, aimed at restoring security prior to the establishment of a UN force; and fourth, that the force have a strong regional component.12 Fulfilling these conditions was essential to the 9 United Nations, Department of Public Information, ‘East Timor-UNTAET’, May 2002 (online). 10 James Cotton, ‘Against the Grain: The East Timor Intervention’, Survival, 43 (1), 2001, 132. 11 Nicholas J. Wheeler and Tim Dunne, ‘East Timor and the New Humanitarian Interventionism’, International Affairs, 77 (4), 2001, 826. 12 Ibid., 807.

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legitimacy of the intervention, putting it on a firm legal footing and limiting the reputational costs that Australia may otherwise have incurred. Similar conditions were to apply to subsequent interventions in the Island Pacific. 10.2

The Arc of Instability, Africanization and Failed States

The events surrounding the East Timorese intervention were bound to have reverberations around the Island Pacific. Together with the general weakening of Southeast Asia following the financial crisis, the experience of East Timor added to a sense of increasing insecurity in and around the wider region, prompting the invocation of an ‘arc of instability’ extending from the Indonesian archipelago down through the Melanesian countries to Fiji.13 The immediate neighbourhood was seen to be at risk of unstable, weak or failing states opening the door to unwelcome, even hostile powers, and allowing them to gain a foothold in Australia’s prime strategic region. After the events of 9/11 in 2001, the prospect of international terrorist networks spreading their tentacles in the region, along with enhanced opportunities for international criminal networks, further fuelled security concerns. It has been suggested that the arc of instability metaphor was a major influence on political and policy discourses about the region at this time, providing the Australian government with just the right narrative through which perceived state weakness in the region could be securitized, thereby justifying ‘Australia’s new interventionism’ in Melanesia.14 Despite these pressures, however, further Australian intervention after East Timor was not a given. Another claim  – referencing crises in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea as well as more minor but nonetheless troublesome events in Vanuatu and (Western) Samoa (the latter involving the murder of a Samoan cabinet minister), along with substandard economic performance – held that the Island Pacific was undergoing a progressive ‘Africanization’. Australian academic Ben Reilly highlighted specific features including deteriorating civil–military relations along with a mixture of ethnic identity issues, control of natural resources, weak governance and use of state power to accumulate personal wealth. These factors were said to indicate a weakening of the legitimacy of democratic institutions, with implications for both the well-being of 13 See Paul Dibb, David D. Hale and Peter Prince, ‘Asia’s Insecurity’, Survival, 41 (3), 1999, 18. 14 Joanne Wallis, ‘The South Pacific: “Arc of Instability” or “Arc of Opportunity”?’, Global Change, Peace and Security, 27 (1), 2015, 42.

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Pacific Island societies and the role of Australia and New Zealand in regional security.15 The Africanization thesis met with a number of criticisms, including an accusation that it resonated with long-held racist stereotypes about ‘tribal worlds’ being ‘unconstrained, animalistic and restless’ and did a serious disservice to both African and Melanesian societies, certainly ignoring their positive achievements under difficult conditions.16 Further, ahistorical analyses blaming serious problems in Africa and the Pacific ‘on essentialist images of primordial ethnic tensions or traditional customs, without taking into account the structural changes caused by colonialism and its aftermath, sound suspiciously self-serving and raise questions about deeper outsider agendas’. The Africanization thesis was seen as ‘ultimately an orientalist discourse, whose negative, timeless imaging of “others” is still being used to justify metropolitan hegemony’.17 The same author nonetheless acknowledged undeniable problems of corruption and poor governance along with the fact of the ‘the tragic disorder in the Solomon Islands … where a powerless, bankrupt government asked for outside intervention’.18 Another critique taking issue with images of ‘Afro-catastrophism’ pointed out that most independent Pacific Island countries had in fact been models of constitutional stability. As of 2002, Samoa had ‘sustained continued democratic rule for 42 years, the Cook Islands for 39 years, Niue for 36 years, Nauru for 36 years, Tuvalu for 26 years, Kiribati for 25 years, the Marshall Islands and the FSM for 18 years, Palau for 11 years, Vanuatu for 24 years and Papua New Guinea for 29 years’.19 And although now identified as trouble spots, Fiji had seventeen years of constitutional rule until the 1987 coup, while Solomon Islands had twenty-two years of unbroken democratic government until June 2000. In addition, most Pacific countries could boast ‘a relatively free press (with the exception of Fiji under the Bainimarama regime), more or less independent judiciaries and, despite some glaring irregularities, few examples of overtly rigged elections’. Elections had generally occurred at constitutionally specified intervals, and there had been frequent regime transitions.20 This also highlights the relative success of 15

Ben Reilly, ‘The Africanisation of the Pacific’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 54 (3), 2000, 261–8. 16 David Chappell, ‘“Africanization” in the Pacific: Blaming Others for Disorder in the Periphery’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 47 (2), 2005, 287. 17 Ibid., 290. 18 Ibid., 287, 296. 19 Jon Fraenkel, ‘The Coming Anarchy in Oceania? A Critique of the “Africanisation” of the South Pacific Thesis’, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 42 (1), 2004, 16. 20 Ibid.

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the political institutions adopted at independence rather than failure due to poor ‘cultural fit’, as discussed previously. The ‘Africanization’ thesis also echoed aspects of the ‘failed state’ discourse that had emerged in the early 1990s when the problems of many states around the world, struggling with issues of civil strife, political instability and economic distress, appeared to escalate with the end of the Cold War when the aid and support that went along with affiliation with one or other of the opposing blocs declined. Proponents of the ‘failed state’ discourse traced the problems to the proliferation of new states in the post-war period when the ideology of decolonization overrode any concerns about their long-term viability. ‘The idea, then, that states could fail – that they could be simply unable to function as independent entities – was anathema to the raison d’être of decolonization and offensive to the notion of self-determination.’21 Despite many critiques of the failed state concept, it at least drew attention to the importance of state capacity in the provision of vital services – infrastructure, health, education, political participation, security  – that had come under threat through the imposition of neoliberal agendas that, in the development sphere, had produced structural policies aimed at stimulating private sector activity that in turn required diminishing public sector activity. Not surprisingly, state capacity in service provision – which the private sector was never going to deliver – suffered significantly. The result was even lower standards of living for people in already poor countries. These issues are discussed in Chapter 11 in the context of political economy. Here it may be noted that state capacity has other aspects that many of those proposing remedies for weak or failing states supported. These include a coercive internal security capacity that, although important in maintaining regular law and order, are obviously available for despotic, even murderous state actions.22 Although problems in the Island Pacific have never remotely approached those experienced in some African and Asian countries (e.g., Somalia and Sudan, Cambodia and Myanmar) the militaries in both Fiji and Papua New Guinea have indeed been used in oppressive internal security enforcement, as is the case with Indonesian behaviour in West Papua. Adverse events and challenges from the 1990s onwards clearly began to loom larger in Oceania with the Forum assuming a more 21 Gerald B. Helman and Steven R. Ratner, ‘Saving Failed States’, Foreign Policy, 89 (1992–1993), 3. 22 Charles T. Call, ‘The Fallacy of the “Failed State”’, Third World Quarterly, 29 (8), 2008, 1491–507.

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prominent role in addressing regional security and stability, even if these involved problems within the domestic political sphere. And in this development, at least some Island leaders were willing to adopt a more proactive stance rather than leave the running to Australia and New Zealand. 10.3

The Aitutaki and Biketawa Declarations

In 1997, the Forum issued the Aitutaki Declaration on Regional Security Cooperation focusing mainly on environmental threats, natural disasters and transnational crime. There were some vague references to economic and social policies as well as an expression of ‘concern about the vulnerability of member countries to external threats to their sovereignty’. While the Aitutaki Declaration did not state specific support for democratic processes, issues of good governance along with sustainable development and international cooperation were mentioned as being ‘among the most effective ways of overcoming … vulnerability, building mutual confidence and strengthening the overall security of states in the region’.23 The Aitutaki Declaration followed a 1992 Honiara Declaration on Law Enforcement Cooperation that focused largely on transnational crime but had never been acted on. There was also a Forum Vision Statement in 1995 that committed members to ‘openness, accountability and other principles of good government’.24 The Aitutaki Declaration evidently reflected ‘shifting realities on the ground, anxiety about unpredictable political conflict and the need for collective responses with an emphasis on preventive measures’, although it fell short of endorsing intervention.25 Further serious challenges to regional stability stemming from domestic political problems were soon to prompt a different approach. The year 2000 saw both the Speightled coup in Fiji as well as a serious breakdown of order in Solomon Islands when the government was forced from office. This was followed three years later by a prolonged intervention in the Solomons, discussed shortly. In the meantime, the Forum’s attention became more sharply focused on internal political and security issues, resulting in the Biketawa Declaration in October 2000. This was preceded by an August 2000 Forum Foreign Ministers’ meeting convened specifically to discuss the Forum’s role in regional security following the two most recent crises. 23

Pacific Islands Forum, ‘Aitutaki Declaration on Regional Security Cooperation’, 1997 (online). 24 See South Pacific Forum, Communiqué, Madang, 13–15 September 1995, Annex 2. 25 Steven Ratuva, Contested Terrain: Reconceptualising Security in the Pacific (Canberra: ANU Press, 2019), 79.

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With respect to Fiji, ‘[m]inisters condemned the use of force to overthrow a constitutionally elected government and welcomed the arrest and other actions taken against those directly involved in the taking of hostages and other unlawful acts’.26 This coup, unlike that of 1987, had very specific anti-Mara elements that may have been a factor in the more robust response by Forum foreign ministers. Australia’s response to the crises appears to have been to work with Pacific Island countries to craft a general regional commitment to democracy and good governance of which the Biketawa Declaration was a result,27 although another study credits this exclusively to New Zealand.28 Other analyses focus on the role that both Australia and New Zealand may have played in pushing for a strong statement and for developing guidelines to assist with domestic security.29 But these downplay the role of Island leaders in opening up the possibility of Forum action. Another source says that Samoa’s prime minister, Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, was the driving force behind it, hosting a meeting in Apia where the basic principles of the Biketawa Declaration were worked out. ‘Tuila’epa had pushed for the meeting, but all the leaders were behind the move to establish the principles subsequently enshrined in Biketawa…. They were supported, but not pushed by, Downer [the Australian foreign minister] and Goff [the New Zealand foreign minister].’30 Tuila’epa also reflected on past attitudes: [T]he studied procrastination of the Forum in not having in place an effective response mechanism is rooted in our long-held belief that we were blessed with a truly tranquil region … such was the depth of our complacency that the earlier coups in Fiji were somehow viewed as having a special and palatable Pacific flavour and were therefore considered merely aberrations to the otherwise peaceful and serene nature of our traditional societies.31

Tuila’epa saw a need for Island leaders to engage in more robust regional diplomacy on critical issues in domestic affairs rather than sit back and hope that internal problems would simply resolve themselves 26

South Pacific Forum, Press Statement. Forum Foreign Affairs Ministers Meeting’, Apia, Samoa, 11 August 2000 (online). 27 Stewart Firth, ‘Australia’s Policy Towards Coup-Prone and Military Regimes in the Asia-Pacific: Thailand, Fiji and Burma’, Australia Journal of International Affairs, 67 (3), 2013, 362. 28 Nicola Baker, ‘New Zealand and Australia in Pacific Regionalism’, in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds.), The New Pacific Diplomacy (Canberra: ANU Press, 2016), 143. 29 Shibuya, ‘Problems and Potential’, 112. 30 Interview, former senior Samoan diplomat, Apia, 2016. 31 Quoted in Firth, ‘Reflection’, 278.

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over time. He was later to take a strong public stance against the Bainimarama-led coup of 2006. The Biketawa Declaration, although acknowledging ‘the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of another member state’, nonetheless committed members to: • upholding good governance including transparency, accountability, participation and consultation; • upholding individual liberty under the law and equal rights for all citizens regardless of gender, race, colour, creed or political belief and the individual’s inalienable right to participate in free and democratic political processes; • upholding democratic processes and institutions that reflect national and local circumstances, including the peaceful transfer of power, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary; • recognizing the importance of respecting and protecting Indigenous rights and cultural values, traditions and customs; • recognizing the vulnerability of member countries to threats to their security, broadly defined, and the importance of cooperation among members in dealing with such threats when they arise; and • recognizing the importance of averting the causes of conflict and of reducing, containing and resolving all conflicts by peaceful means including by customary practices. It went on to acknowledge the need in time of crisis, or in response to members’ request for assistance, for concrete action to be taken and that the Forum needed to constructively address difficult and sensitive issues including underlying causes of tensions and conflict. To achieve these ends, the secretary-general was directed, after consultation with the Forum chair, to urgently initiate the following process in the event of a crisis: • Assess the situation, make a judgement as to the significance of the developments and consult the Forum Chair and such other Forum Leaders as may be feasible to secure approval to initiate further action. • Consult the national authorities concerned regarding assistance available from the Forum, and advise and consult with the Forum Foreign Ministers based on these consultations. • Undertake one or a combination of the following actions to assist in the resolution of the crisis: a statement representing the view of members on the situation; creation of a Ministerial Action Group; a factfinding or similar mission; convening of an eminent persons group; third party mediation; support for appropriate institutions or mechanisms that would assist a resolution; and the convening of a special

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high-level meeting of the Forum Regional Security Committee or an ad hoc meeting of Forum Ministers. • If a crisis persists, convene a special meeting of Forum leaders to consider other options including, if necessary, targeted measures.32 This was a significant departure from thirty years of silence on the internal security problems of independent Pacific Island countries. The prospect of actually confronting a member state with some sort of action in the event of a crisis, however, did prompt at least one Island leader to express misgivings. Palau’s president, Kuniwo Nakamura, suggested that offence caused by interference in the domestic affairs of a member state might well see their departure from the Forum.33 The Forum’s response to developments in Fiji after 2006 saw that possibility emerge, as discussed later. Further Forum declarations on issues of regional security were to follow. The 9/11 attacks in the US and the Bali bombings of 2002 added to anxieties about insecurity and state failure – the latter seen as providing possible havens for further terrorist activities. In addition to the more obvious threats to human life and destruction of physical infrastructure, terrorism requires financing, usually through money laundering and illicit trade in weapons and drugs, all of which tend to flourish in jurisdictions with weak governance. Indeed, offshore banking in Nauru, the Cook Islands, the RMI and Niue had been linked to money laundering. But it was the Bali bombing, in particular, that evidently prompted a profound change in regional security thinking, especially in Australia.34 Bali was also close enough to all Oceanic countries to at least ring alarm bells. After all, the prime targets had been Western (mainly Australian) tourists, on which Pacific Island economies had become increasingly dependent. The Forum’s 2002 Nasonini Declaration on Regional Security noted the ‘recent heightened threat to global and regional security’ posed by international terrorism and transnational crime in particular and committed members to acting on the earlier Honiara Declaration to strengthen national responses.35 Biketawa was further strengthened by the Auckland Declaration of 2004. This was preceded by a major review of the Forum, initiated at the 2003 meeting chaired by New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke, and 32

Excerpted from Pacific Islands Forum, ‘Biketawa Declaration’, 28 October 2000 (online). 33 Cited in Firth, ‘Reflection’, 279. 34 John Henderson, ‘Security in Oceania in the Post-911 and -Bali Era’, in Ralph Pettman (ed.), New Zealand in a Globalising World (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2005), 73. 35 Pacific Islands Forum, ‘Nasonini Declaration on Regional Security’, Suva, 15–17 August 2002.

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to be conducted by an Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG). In setting this up, the importance of inputs from CROP, CSOs and other stakeholders was also emphasized,36 thereby recognizing the role that non-state actors were now playing in regional affairs. The EPG, chaired by Sir Julius Chan of Papua New Guinea and consisting mainly of Island representatives, duly provided a substantial report recommending a Pacific Plan to enhance regional cooperation in key issue areas.37 Under the ‘Pacific Way’ rubric, it emphasized continuing support for the region’s cultural traditions and values while also supporting democracy, human rights and good governance: We treasure the diversity of the Pacific and seek a future in which its cultures and traditions are valued, honoured and developed. We seek a Pacific region that is respected for the quality of its governance, the sustainable management of its resources, the full observance of democratic values, and its defence and promotion of human rights.38

In April 2004, a special leaders’ retreat was held to consider the EPG’s report. It produced the Auckland Declaration with a vision statement virtually identical to that of the EPG report quoted earlier. One commentator says that its explicit support for democratic values, and the defence of human rights, was commendable, given that the Forum had ‘avoided these issues for much of its history’.39 The report’s major feature, however, was a blueprint for a Pacific Plan with major implications for issues in political economy – discussed in Chapter 11. In the meantime, serious trouble was brewing in Solomon Islands. 10.4

Intervention in Solomon Islands

By far the most significant intervention in Oceania to date began in 2003 with Operation Helpem Fren, followed by what turned out to be the long-term Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) as a response to the almost complete collapse of law and order. Tensions had been rising between settlers from the island of Malaita and those from Guadalcanal where the capital, Honiara, is situated. The June 2000 putsch in which Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa’alu was held hostage by a group known as the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF), along 36

Pacific Islands Forum, Communiqué, Thirty-Fourth Pacific Islands Forum, Auckland, 14–16 August 2003, 10. 37 Pacific Islands Forum, Eminent Persons’ Group Review of the Pacific Islands Forum, April 2004 (online). 38 Ibid., 13–14. 39 Dave Peebles, Pacific Regional Order (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2005), 5.

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with some members of the regular Solomon Islands Police Force, had forced Ulufa’alu’s resignation along with his government. Although this was portrayed in media reports as a ‘copycat coup’40 – that is, as an act inspired directly by the 2000 Fiji coup that had occurred just weeks earlier – this downplayed the fact that the tensions had been building for some years in and around the capital. Another image of the troubles in Solomon Islands, as in Fiji, lay in their depiction as ‘ethnic’ – a simplistic label used to account for the basic aggravation between opposing groups. Having said that, there is no doubt that differing identities became strongly politicized by local leaders and reinforced by the formation of rival militia groups based in the opposing communities: the MEF and the Isatabu Freedom Movement.41 The key issues were land and control of resources, aggravated by the government’s inability to mediate competing claims and deal effectively with grievances held by both Malaitans and Guadalcanal people, as well as by people from other groups. By the early 2000s, Solomon Islands was experiencing a breakdown of basic normative understandings and social bonds that had come under pressure from a complex structure of grievances, readily exploitable by politically ambitious men. From around 1998 political violence had been on the rise and it became possible for both politicians and militants to effectively loot the state.42 Various contributory factors include the exploitation of high-value tropical hardwood forests, with one researcher commenting on the terrible legacy of corruption that came to permeate every level of society. Solomon Islanders had ‘gone berserk over ­logging … fuelled largely by the lavish way in which Asian logging companies bribe, cajole and unduly influence Solomon Islanders’.43 A former MEF ­combatant believes conflict ‘was caused by human jealousy and envy of other people’s success, jealousy of those who have the ability to succeed by those who sit back and watch the grass grow … Greed in the leadership was also a factor’.44 40 See, for example, ‘The Gathering Storm in the South Pacific’, The Economist, 8 June 2000 (online). 41 Catherine Jun, ‘Unrest in the Solomons’, Cultural Survival, March 2000 (online). 42 John Braithwaite, Sinclair Dinnen, Matthew Allen, Valerie Braithwaite and Hilary Charlesworth, Pillars and Shadows: Statebuilding as Peacebuilding in Solomon Islands (Canberra: ANU E Press, 2010), 3–5. See also Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka, ‘Political Reviews – Solomon Islands’, Contemporary Pacific, 16 (2), 2004, 393–401. 43 Transform Aqarou, ‘Crisis in Solomon Islands: Foraging for New Directions’, in Sinclair Dinnen and Stewart Firth (eds.), Politics and State Building in Solomon Islands (Canberra: ANU Press/Asia Pacific Press, 2008), 247. 44 Quoted in Catherine Wilson, ‘Solomon Islands: Big Hopes for a New Constitution’, The Interpreter, 31 January 2017 (online).

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These problems were said to be compounded by changes in the global economy, aid dependency (including an overdose of ‘political correctness’ on the part of donors loath to keep a tight rein), population pressures, land disputes, perceived disparities between provinces and the capital, and the sheer ineptness of elected politicians vis-à-vis the demands placed on them and rising expectations on the part of the populace, not to mention the collapse of virtually all standards of political morality, all of which rendered ‘democracy’ almost meaningless.45 Another commentator, while acknowledging a range of local factors, pins much of the blame on an imposed Westminster system and its competitive, adversarial character in contrast with traditional modes of consensus politics and decision-making.46 This was echoed in other commentaries: ‘it is not the Solomon Islanders but the Westminster political system, inherited at the time of independence, which has produced a “failed state”’.47 This suggests that all may have been well under a different, home-grown system. But what that may have looked like in practice, and what results it may have produced, is anyone’s guess. One critique of the manipulation of customary practices in contemporary Solomons politics, in which the parliamentary system had in any case been thoroughly Indigenized, says that a ‘return to kastom’ was unlikely to deliver the desired results.48 By 1999, the deteriorating situation had already attracted international conflict resolution efforts. On the request of Prime Minister Ulufa’alu, the Commonwealth appointed a peace envoy – of all people Fiji’s 1987 coup leader Rabuka. His efforts met with some limited success in the form of a June 1999 Honiara Peace Accord that was subsequently backed up with just twenty security personnel from Vanuatu and Fiji.49 But the accord soon fell apart. In May 2000, Ulufa’alu, faced with a further deterioration of law and order, made a formal request for Australian security assistance. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer declined, insisting that law and order was a Solomon Islands responsibility and that Australia was ‘not prepared to take an overbearing interventionist approach’.50 It is said that Ulufa’alu made repeated requests for assistance from both Australia and New Zealand  – the 45 46 47 48 49 50

See, generally, Bennett, Roots of Conflict. Kabutaulaka, ‘Westminster Meets Solomons’. Henderson, ‘Security in Oceania’, 75. Fraenkel, Manipulation of Custom, 184. Honiara Peace Accord, 28 June 1999 (see www.peaceagreements.org). Quoted in Mark Otter, ‘Submission to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee on Australia’s Relations with Papua New Guinea and Other Pacific Island Countries’, no. 48 (online).

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first time a Pacific Island neighbour had asked for such assistance and been refused.51 The next month Ulufa’alu was forced from office and replaced as prime minister by rival Manasseh Sogavare. The latter again requested the Australian government for a police contingent to help combat crime ahead of elections in 2001. The same answer and same reasons were given.52 Australia and New Zealand did, however, provide venues for negotiations, with a ceasefire agreement signed in August 2000 aboard an Australian navy ship, although the agreement collapsed almost immediately.53 Assistance was also given to financing the 2001 elections. Soon after, with the troubles continuing, Australia and New Zealand again facilitated negotiations in Townsville, resulting in a more substantial peace agreement in October 2000. There was some follow-up by Australia and New Zealand in the form of peacekeepers as observers of a disarmament process but not as enforcers. Both Australia and New Zealand continued maintaining that ‘it was up to Solomon Islanders to organize their own people, not outsiders’.54 In the event, disorder and criminality continued in and around Honiara, North Malaita and the Weather Coast on Guadalcanal, exacerbated by the fact that the government was practically bankrupt, the economy was moribund and service delivery almost non-existent. Militants continued to demand placation by squeezing whatever money they could from a besieged government that had lost the capacity to govern and could not even control its security forces, which were also deeply implicated in the corruption and violence. Much of the extortion of government funds masqueraded as kastom. Compensation for wrongdoing and injustice was indeed a traditional practice, at least among some Solomon Island communities, but it now operated in the service of militia leaders and politicians rather than genuine victims.55 Given these developments, it is hardly surprising that notions of Solomon Islands as a prospective failed state became prominent in local, regional and international discourses. Also unsurprising were objections to the nomenclature as insulting or inaccurate  – usually indicated by placing the offending phrase in scare quotes to indicate doubt over its applicability and/or cast suspicion on the motives of those invoking it. There was also a concern that using the language of state 51 Henderson, ‘Security in Oceania’, 73. Ibid. 53 Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka, ‘Australian Foreign Policy and the RAMSI Intervention in Solomon Islands’, Contemporary Pacific, 17 (2), 2005, 286. 54 Bennet, Roots of Conflict, 11. 55 Fraenkel, Manipulation of Custom, 11. 52

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failure could justify unwarranted foreign intervention. Whatever the finer points of these debates, it could scarcely be said that the Solomon Islands state from 2000 to 2003 was a ‘roaring success’.56 In January 2003, Australian Foreign Minister Downer reaffirmed a strong case for non-intervention. It is worth reporting at length to give the full flavour of his thinking at the time: I can honestly say that the situation in Solomon Islands is one of the most troublesome issues we face in our immediate region. It is of great concern to the Australian Government. I have been [in Honiara] five times in the past three years  – to talk to government and community leaders, to encourage them to take resolute action to address the state of the country, and to examine how Australia might possibly do more to assist. I have increased our aid to Solomon Islands in response to needs in the country. What can we do? What should we do? Do we have a ‘regional obligation’? If so, does it go beyond disaster relief, humanitarian aid and support for governance, to extend as far as direct intervention? And should Australians be flying in to run Solomon Islands? … The answer is not clear-cut once one undertakes a sober examination of our national interests and our capacity to afford a more intrusive approach. Australia is not about to recolonise the South Pacific, nor should it. These are independent sovereign countries, with their own constitutions, legal systems and seats in the UN. Sending in Australian troops to occupy Solomon Islands would be folly in the extreme. It would be widely resented in the Pacific region. It would be very difficult to justify to Australian taxpayers. And for how many years would such an occupation have to continue? And what would be the exit strategy? The real show-stopper, however, is that it would not work – no matter how it was dressed up, whether as an Australian or a Commonwealth or a Pacific Islands Forum initiative. The fundamental problem is that foreigners do not have answers for the deep-seated problems afflicting Solomon Islands. Ultimately the answers have to come from within. Solomon Islanders are conscious of what needs to be done. I know this because I have asked them. We have given them our advice, but we cannot fix it for them. At best our intervention would only delay the inevitable, which is that Solomon Islanders themselves have to come to grips with the challenges they face. We can help and we are doing so, with some positive results. We directed international efforts to end the violent ethnic conflict, resulting in the Townsville Peace Agreement and deployment of the Australian-led International Peace Monitoring Team. Our aid has almost trebled in the past four years, to $36 million….

56

Jon Fraenkel, ‘Political Instability “Failed States” and Regional Intervention in the Pacific’, in Jenny Bryant-Tokelau and Ian Frazer (eds.), Redefining the Pacific? Regionalism, Past, Present and Future (Aldershot: Ashgate 2006), 127.

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10.4  Intervention in Solomon Islands 277 At the same time we work to build the capacity of Solomon Islanders to help themselves – support for the police, government administration, health services and community peace and reconciliation activities…. We are doing as much as we reasonably can, recognizing that there are limits to what outsiders can do.57

The tone of Downer’s comments appears defensive, probably responding to perceptions that his government could and should be doing more. But they were completely in accord with anti-interventionism. In the event, it seems that the consequences of a failing state in the region, however defined, soon prompted a more proactive response. An Australian Strategic Policy Institute report, widely believed to be the basis on which Australia finally abandoned strict non-interventionism, described Solomon Islands as a failing state open to exploitation by transnational criminal networks and even terrorists, declaring that: ‘A failing state on our doorstep engages Australia’s interests at many levels, from shortterm economic, consular and humanitarian concerns to our most enduring strategic imperatives.’58 The report stated that efforts to assist to date had clearly been insufficient. Nor was there any realistic prospect of the Solomon Islands government pulling itself ‘out of a fatal dive towards state failure’. But it also said the shift in policy purpose and direction entailed in doing more would take Australia ‘across a major threshold’, challenging ‘the foundations of our policy in the Southwest Pacific, which involves providing countries with aid, but expecting them to solve their own problems’. Further, any approach must avoid ‘the perils of neocolonialism’. Australia had ‘worked hard to avoid becoming too closely involved in their internal affairs’, and ‘bent over backwards to avoid being seen as infringing upon their sovereignty’.59 Included in the report were short statements by Fr Sir John Ini Lapli (governor-general of Solomon Islands from 1999 to 2004) and Sir Peter Kenilorea, both calling for intervention. Kenilorea said his country needed ‘direct and supervisory assistance’ by those ‘who must be ready and willing to get their hands dirty’.60 The report set out elements of an intervention plan, necessarily entailing the full consent of the Solomon Islands government. The first stage required the restoration of basic law and order and a second, longer-term stage that would build new political and security structures to address 57

Alexander Downer, speech reproduced in Pacific Islands Report, East-West Centre, 1 August 2003 (online). 58 Elsina Wainwright, Our Failing Neighbour – Australia and the Future of Solomon Islands (Canberra: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2003), 3. 59 Ibid., 3, 6–7. 60 Ibid., 37.

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underlying social and economic problems. Essential conditions included a comprehensive multilateral effort. ‘Both in Solomon Islands itself and in the wider region … a solo Australian effort would raise questions about Australian intentions, and bring charges of neocolonialism’, as well as making Australia carry ‘a greater burden of cost and commitment than is necessary.’61 Among the regional countries identified as key to success was New Zealand. Other essential players identified were Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Vanuatu ‘as leaders in the southwest Pacific community’, all of which were involved in previous efforts to resolve the ongoing crisis. In addition, the imprimatur of the Forum was essential for underscoring the legitimacy of the project. Support from the EU, Commonwealth, the ASEAN Regional Forum and the UN, as well as individual countries with an interest in the region – Indonesia, France, the UK, South Korea and Japan – was also highly desirable.62 One commentary described the report as ‘alarmist’ for mentioning the possibility of a failed state in the region becoming a haven for transnational criminality and terrorist-related activities such as money laundering.63 Also referenced was an assertion that John Howard had intended that Australia ‘go it alone’ in the intervention, and that New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke ‘negotiated hard with Howard and persuaded him that the intervention should have “the approval of the Pacific Islands Forum and the involvement of as many island states as possible – not to mention the invitation of the host country”’.64 But this is simply a quote from a New Zealand journalist’s editorial opinion aired three years after the event and with no apparent basis in evidence.65 It seems highly unlikely that the Howard government, loathe to act in the first place, with an influential report urging multilateral cooperation, and well aware of the reputational costs of not doing so, ever intended going it alone, especially without New Zealand. Australia had every reason to engage as many other actors as possible not just for sharing the cost burden but for underpinning the legitimacy of an intervention. Going it alone would have been a complete reversal of its approach to the East Timor intervention when the Howard government insisted on a set of legitimating conditions, including a strong multilateral contribution, a

61

62 63 64 65

Ibid., 40. Ibid., 50–1. Fry, Framing the Islands, 258. Nicola Baker, cited in ibid. See Audrey Young, ‘Riots Highlight New Zealand Presence’, New Zealand Herald, 21 April 2006 (online).

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clear invitation to intervene and a mandate from an authoritative body – in that case the UN. This time, however, legitimation would be provided by the Forum under the auspices of the Biketawa Declaration. In the event, although Australia inevitably dominated due to the relative size of its contribution, New Zealand played a significant secondary role, with Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga also providing personnel, having been party to the agreement with the Solomon Islands government.66 Additional personnel would subsequently be provided by Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati, the Cook Islands, Nauru, Niue, Tuvalu, the FSM, Palau and the RMI, making it a Forum-wide operation that cannot be dismissed as mere window dressing.67 In April 2003, the Solomon Islands prime minister, Sir Allan Kemakeza, formally applied to Australia for assistance. Following consultations between the governments of Solomon Islands, Australia and New Zealand, RAMSI was unanimously endorsed by both the Solomon Islands parliament and the Forum.68 It was an unprecedented regional response to a crisis faced by a Forum member, and the first under the Biketawa Declaration.69 In the absence of an official UN mandate, it is said that much disquiet had been expressed in Australian government circles about the legality of any intervention mission.70 A complicating factor here was that, at the time, Solomon Islands recognized Taiwan and a formal UN mandate may have been vetoed by China.71 Nonetheless, RAMSI was welcomed by both the president of the UN Security Council and UN SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan and supported by the Commonwealth,72 thus shoring up formal legitimation processes. The RAMSI mission was to last fourteen years. Restoring basic law and order in the first instance was carried out with relative ease – the arrival of more than 2,000 security personnel soon persuaded militants to surrender their arms. But the longer-term project of reforming local policing along with capacity development in government was to prove 66

See Jon Fraenkel, ‘Reassessing the 2003–17 Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands’, The RUSI Journal, 164 (1), 2019, 52. In the end Australia bore around 95 per cent of the costs. 67 See the general RAMSI website for further basic information (www.ramsi.org/work/). 68 Joanne Wallis and Michael Wesley, ‘Unipolar Anxieties: Australia’s Melanesia Policy after the Age of Intervention’, Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, 3 (1), 2016, 29. 69 Jon Fraenkel, Joni Madraiwiwi and Henry Okole, The RAMSI Decade: A Review of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, 2003–2012 (Honolulu: East-West Centre, 14 July 2014), 12. 70 Ibid., 80. 71 In September 2019, Solomon Islands switched recognition to China, as did Kiribati a few weeks later. 72 Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, ‘Solomon Islands Country Brief’, n.d., circa 2020 (online).

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much harder. Reform required a whole new generation of local police to be trained and then gain the necessary experience and seniority to take charge. The civilian parts of the mission, organized under three ‘pillars’ – law and justice, economic reform, and machinery of government – were aimed at ‘state-building’, or at least at instituting a functioning state bureaucracy with fewer opportunities for corrupt practices. It was this aspect that was to generate hostility among a number of government figures, especially with respect to intervention in financial matters. But rather than pin the blame entirely on RAMSI, one local commentator suggests that Solomon Islanders had to step up and take responsibility: RAMSI cannot and never will be able to nation build and state build in Solomon Islands; only Solomon Islanders can legitimately and realistically do that. The onus is on Solomon Islanders and not on RAMSI to rebuild Solomon Islands. RAMSI, however, offers Solomon Islanders and its political leaders an easy target to blame for their own failures. I do not want to be construed as an apologist for RAMSI, but Solomon Islanders cannot just sit back, lament and complain.73

Over the period 2006–2007, the situation deteriorated again. National elections in April 2006 and the appointment of a new prime minister, Snyder Rini, with links to previous corrupt practices saw rioting erupt in Honiara. Rini was forced to resign after only a few days and Sogavare again took office. Sogavare was later provoked by a rather ill-advised Australian Federal Police raid on his office in October 2006 in pursuit of evidence against a government appointee wanted in Australia on unrelated matters. RAMSI was much criticized for mishandling the riots, raiding Sogavare’s office and intruding into the machinery of government and financial affairs. Sogavare complained bitterly at the 2006 Forum meeting about Australian interference in domestic affairs, prompting a RAMSI Review Task Force.74 In 2007, Forum Secretary-General Greg Urwin reported on a revised governance structure for RAMSI to guide its strategic direction while also reporting continued overwhelming support for the mission within the Solomons.75 The situation calmed down after new governments were elected in both Australia and Solomon Islands in 2007, although anti-corruption measures continued to be problematic for more harmonious relations. Eventually, as RAMSI wound down and external assistance was delivered by more routine aid channels, the situation ‘normalized’. 73 Aqorau, ‘Crisis’, 255. Tony Angelo, ‘Commentary on the Pacific Islands Forum’, New Zealand Yearbook of International Law 2005–2006, 15 (4), 2007 (online). 75 Pacific Islands Forum, Annual Report 2007 (online). 74

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Analyses of the whole interventionist exercise in Solomon Islands have, not unexpectedly, varied considerably in their approaches. One assessment by Australian journalist Graeme Dobell discerns two main lines. First, there was the official government line that Solomon Islands was a failing state pleading for help and that, as a regional leader, Australia had (eventually) responded appropriately and with full legitimacy. An alternative approach, dubbed the ‘Oz academic orthodoxy’, viewed Australia as driven mainly by the US alliance in the context of the ‘war on terror’, with its ‘new interventionism’ comprising ‘a mix of neo-liberal dreaming about fixing weak states and security fears about the South Pacific “arc of instability”’.76 In Dobell’s assessment, the official government line is seen as glibly skipping over ‘Australia’s hesitations in the five years before intervention, and the trial and error of RAMSI’s long life [obscuring] the truth of policy creation: ad hoc responses to cascading events, and indecision masquerading as flexibility’.77 To some extent, that is fair comment. Yet had Australia intervened earlier, it would almost certainly have attracted accusations of the full range of neocolonial sins. The record, as documented in various places in this book, shows that governments of all stripes in Australia have been keenly aware of how readily such accusations can be made, especially in the Island Pacific where the neocolonial narrative is such an easy one to push. But what of Dobell’s assessment of the ‘Oz academic orthodoxy’? It would be hard to deny that discourses of arcs of instability and state failure along with the dramatic events of 9/11 did not impact on general security thinking and a sense of vulnerability to clandestine forces in global politics. Certainly, the Bali bombings of 2002, in which eightyeight Australians were killed and many more injured, brought it close to home. And Australian governments are always receptive to pressures from major allies given Australia’s reliance on the security umbrella they provide.78 All these factors undoubtedly contributed to a turnaround in Australia’s posture by mid-2003. Gone was the talk of Pacific Islands sorting out their own troubles and attention focused more on the danger of failing states in Australia’s neighbourhood, as Howard’s speech on 1 July 2003 to the Sydney Institute indicated: We know that a failed state in our region, on our doorstep, will jeopardise our own security. The best thing we can do is to take remedial action and take it 76 Graeme Dobell, ‘Australia, Solomon Islands and RAMSI’, Strategist, 23 October 2017 (online). 77 Ibid. 78 Wallis and Wesley, ‘Unipolar Anxieties’, 27.

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now…. We are forging new arrangements to meet the challenges posed by the potential failure of nation states in the Pacific…. We recognise that such an action represents a very significant change in the way we address our regional responsibilities and relationships. But our friends and neighbours in the Pacific are looking to us for leadership and we will not fail them.79

And in October 2003 Defence Minister Robert Hill also spoke specifically of the terrorist threat: We obviously must work to prevent future terrorist incidents … the intervention of Pacific Island Forum countries in the Solomon Islands is contributing to the same objective. It is in part about reducing the danger that vulnerable Pacific island states will become havens for transnational crime, including terrorism.80

This also followed Australia’s participation in the ‘coalition of the willing’ supporting the US war in Iraq but which lacked a UN mandate. On that occasion, the absence of a mandate, and therefore the imprimatur of international law, was overridden by an apparent determination by the Howard government to support the US at all costs. Had the opposition Labor Party been in government, however, it would have been a different story. There is also the question of Australia’s reputation. One of the academic analyses selected by Dobell to illustrate the ‘Oz academic orthodoxy’ argues that a primary concern for the Howard government was in fact ‘to bolster Australia’s international reputation in the “War on Terror” by being seen to keep order and manage transnational security problems in its regional sphere of responsibility’ and that reputation was not the sole motive for the intervention but rather ‘a central consideration within a mix of factors’.81 Reputation is certainly a factor to be taken into account, but it has more than one aspect. Australia had clearly stated concerns about being cast as a neocolonial power, something mentioned only in passing in this particular analysis, although it figured prominently in official discourses and in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute report. Australia’s leadership of the mission was, in any case, seen precisely as an act of neocolonialism and a desire to impose its own agenda by some commentators.82 Australian leaders may be entitled to think that they cannot win either way. 79

Quoted by Nautilus Institute, ‘Australian Government Rationale for RAMSI’, n.d. (online). 80 Quoted in ibid. 81 Dan Halvorsen, ‘Reputation and Responsibility in Australia’s 2003 Intervention in the Solomon Islands’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 67 (4), 439. 82 See, especially, Chappell, ‘“Africanization”’.

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There can be no final word on all the factors at work behind the intervention, but an observation by long-term Honiara resident and highly respected journalist Mary-Louise O’Callaghan suggests that intervention sooner rather than later would have better served Australia’s reputation: Most [Solomon Islanders] already know from the four agonising years of rule by the gun (from 1999 to 2003) just how bad things can get. While the majority of Solomon Islanders did not join in the ethnic tensions, as they are called, between the two largest islands of Guadalcanal and Malaita, they were forced to watch as any semblance of governance crumbled steadily under the weight of the guns and the criminals wielding them. Most also remain to this day uncomprehending of how their most powerful neighbour, Australia, could sit on its hands for those four long years.83

10.5

Regional Politics after 2006

The year 2006 was an especially difficult one for the region, with further crises occurring in a number of places. As we have seen, Solomon Islands experienced more major political turmoil along with riots and destruction of property in the business district. East Timor also had a major political crisis over the April–May period that saw more than a hundred people killed and, again, widespread destruction of property along with the fall of the government, drawing Australian and New Zealand police and military back in to assist in quelling unrest. Criminal violence in Papua New Guinea appeared to be on the rise, with tensions over land disputes, human rights violations by police, endemic violence against women and girls, and a state of emergency declared in the Southern Highlands following a general breakdown in law and order. Trouble had also been brewing in Tonga where pro-democracy activists, determined to press for reforms to provide greater parliamentary representation for commoners, and to address corruption in government, continued to face an obdurate monarchy that had for years defended the political power and privileges of Tonga’s tiny ‘noble’ elite. With the death of King Tupou IV in September 2006, and the succession of Tupou V, expectations of reforms heightened and activists pressed harder. By November, it seemed that reformers were to be granted much of what they had been asking for. But this did not defuse tensions. In November, a highly charged political atmosphere saw crowds gathering in the capital, Nuku’alofa. Demonstrators were initially peaceful but disruptive elements soon precipitated full-scale rioting in the heart of the business 83

Mary-Louise O’Callaghan, ‘RAMSI – The Way Ahead’, in Sinclair Dinnen and Stewart Firth (eds.), Politics and State Building in Solomon Islands (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2008), 185–6.

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district, much of which was destroyed. Blame for the riots, which also resulted in eight deaths, was assigned both to the intransigence of the entrenched elite when faced with legitimate demands for reform and to pro-democracy activists for inciting the violence.84 Tongan authorities called for external assistance and, once again, Australia and New Zealand responded, this time within days, deploying around 150 military and police personnel to Nuku’alofa under New Zealand command. An Australia news report ran a headline declaring ‘Tonga Pro-Democracy Movement Slams Intervention’.85 But this was rather misleading. The criticisms by key opposition figure Akilisi Pohiva were directed not at Australia and New Zealand but at the profound failure of the Tongan government to recognize the urgent need for democratic reform over many years.86 Meanwhile, Nauru was facing serious difficulties arising mainly from financial mismanagement, and the Biketawa Declaration was invoked in 2004 due to concerns about its national security and stability, leading to the Pacific Regional Assistance to Nauru, which operated until 2009 to provide budgetary assistance and financial reforms.87 Nauru, incidentally, had hosted a notorious asylum seeker detention facility on behalf of the Australian government, boosting national income considerably. Nauru had also experienced ‘a chaotic political path that saw repeated shifts in leadership since 2003’ with a cycle of ‘successive presidents being ousted, re-elected and again ousted’.88 When Baron Waqa assumed office in June 2013, becoming Nauru’s fourteenth president, there was a turn to authoritarianism unusual in Micronesian states. He was to retain the presidency for six years. One commentary noted that, as host to the Australian detention centre, the Nauru government had ‘entrenched executive power in the knowledge that criticism from Canberra will be low-key at most’, serving to demonstrate that the Biketawa Declaration committing to democracy and the rule of law did not ‘have to be taken too seriously’.89

84

See Ian Campbell, ‘Across the Threshold: Regime Change and Uncertainty in Tonga 2005–2007’, Journal of Pacific History, 43 (1), 2008, 95–109. 85 ‘Tonga Pro-Democracy Movement Slams Intervention’, ABC News, 19 November 2006 (online). 86 ‘Reform Pledge After Political Riots Erupt in Tonga’, ABC News, 17 November 2006 (online). 87 Henry Ivarature, ‘Regionalism: Performance and Promise’, in David Hegarty and Darrell Tryon (eds.), Politics, Development and Security in Oceania (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2013), 188–9. 88 Mar-Vic Cagurangan, ‘Lurching Towards Authoritarianism’, Pacific Island Times, 5 August 2018 (online). 89 Stewart Firth, ‘Instability in the Pacific Islands: A Status Report’, Lowy Institute, 4 June 2018 (online).

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It was, however, taken seriously following events in Fiji in 2006.90 In this case it was not just creeping authoritarianism but another full-scale military coup. As discussed previously, the return to power of the Qarase government in the May 2006 elections was the catalyst for yet another major crisis when it became clear that Bainimarama would not accept the government’s legitimacy. The ‘coup to end all coups’, as Bainimarama described it, justified under a completely specious ‘doctrine of necessity’,91 involved no hostage-taking, no threats to anyone’s life and no harassment of Indo-Fijians by frenzied Indigenous nationalists as in 1987 and 2000. Even so, it was a coup and, having taken a stance on upholding rule of law and supporting elected governments, the Forum was to adopt a much more robust approach than with previous coups. Another EPG established by the Forum in the immediate aftermath of the coup noted statements of condemnation issued by the UN Security Council, the EU president, the Commonwealth and individual countries: Norway, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. Suspension from the Commonwealth followed almost immediately while the EU, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US considered various measures in the form of diplomatic and other sanctions.92 The EPG issued an unequivocal statement that the military takeover was unacceptable and declared that Fiji’s interim government should uphold the 1997 constitution and take full account of the views of Fiji’s regional neighbours and the wider international community on the importance of constitutionality. It further called on the interim government to commit to a firm timetable for national elections within two years.93 But Fiji’s foreign relations deteriorated further as it became clear that Bainimarama, far from moving to restore democratic rule, was set to retain power for some time. By the end of 2009, following a complex series of domestic developments, Bainimarama had abrogated the constitution, instituted a state of emergency and imposed draconian restrictions on the media and on public gatherings. In the same year, it was announced that work would not begin on a new constitution until 2012 with general elections delayed until 2014. Bainimarama wanted time to achieve what he argued was a much-needed transformation of social relations in Fiji to reorient politics away from issues of race to basic development needs. 90

This section draws on Stephanie Lawson, ‘Fiji’s Foreign Relations: Retrospect and Prospect’, Round Table, 104 (2), 2015, 209–20. 91 Anita Jowitt, ‘The Qarase Versus Bainimarama Appeal Case’, Journal of South Pacific Law, 13 (1), 2009, 24–31. 92 Pacific Islands Forum, Forum Eminent Persons’ Group Report Fiji, 29 January–1 February 2007 (online). 93 Ibid.

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But in 2009, perceiving only delaying tactics on the part of the regime, Australia and New Zealand imposed further diplomatic sanctions while the Commonwealth and the Forum both suspended Fiji’s membership. Australia and New Zealand also attempted to pressure the UN to scale back its deployment of Fijian peacekeepers abroad, but to no avail. While Fiji’s suspension from the Commonwealth was not without precedent, suspension from the Forum was. The Forum chair’s statement noted that the unanimous decision to suspend Fiji responded ‘directly to the confirmation by the military regime in Fiji … that it rejects fundamental Forum obligations and core principles, as outlined in the Biketawa Declaration and other key guiding documents of the Forum’.94 The Forum had earlier established a Forum-Fiji Working Group consisting of senior officials from Australia, the FSM, Fiji, Kiribati, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tuvalu. It had met regularly with Fijian officials throughout 2008 to discuss the election timetable, restoration of civilian rule, upholding the 1997 Constitution and cessation of human rights abuses.95 Bainimarama’s regime, however, became increasingly uncooperative with the Working Group, culminating in Fiji’s refusal to attend the 2008 Forum summit in Niue. The outgoing Forum chair, Tongan Prime Minister Feleti Sevele, reported a sharp deterioration in the Forum’s relations with Fiji to ‘one of disappointment and of an uncertain future’.96 By January 2009, the Working Group had met thirty-five times but achieved almost nothing. At the next Forum meeting in Port Moresby, Fiji was finally suspended for ‘failure to address constructively … the expectations of [F]orum leaders to return Fiji to democratic governance in an acceptable time frame’.97 Many believed that Fiji’s suspension was instigated primarily by Australia and New Zealand, again fuelling assumptions about neocolonialism. Certainly, Fiji’s suspension from the premier regional organization intensified Bainimarama’s animosity towards Australia and New Zealand in particular, and he was forthright in blaming them for persuading other Pacific Island countries to back the move.98 Other commentators also endorse the notion that Australia and New Zealand were the prime instigators of Fiji’s suspension.99 Even so, the decision was 94 Pacific Islands Forum, Outcomes, Forum-Fiji Working Group, 19 January 2009 (online). Nic Maclellan, ‘The Region in Review: International Issues and Events, 2008’, Contemporary Pacific, 21 (2), 2009, 324–35. 96 Pacific Islands Forum, ‘Speech by Outgoing Forum Chair’, Niue, 19 August 2008. 97 ‘Fiji Suspended from Pacific Islands Forum’, ABC News, 2 May 2009 (online). 98 ‘Fiji Blames Australia for Suspension’, SBS News, 24 February 2015 (online). 99 Joanne Wallis, Pacific Power? Australia’s Strategy in the Pacific Islands (Melbourne: Melbourne University Publishing, 2017), esp. part 2. 95

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unanimous. Indeed, it was arrived at via the famed ‘Pacific Way consensus’. And it is hard to imagine that all other member countries simply fell into line with the wishes of Australia and New Zealand. On the contrary, another source insists that although Australia and New Zealand did push for Fiji’s suspension, Samoa’s Tuila’epa was also ‘very strong on the suspension and supporting principles of Biketawa’. Tuila’epa ‘had a robust exchange with Bainimarama who accused him of being Australia and New Zealand’s lapdog…. He was nothing of the sort [and] there was definitely a consensus in the Forum that Fiji should be suspended and stay suspended until electoral democracy returned’.100 We may also recall that Tuila’epa had been a strong supporter of the Biketawa Declaration, urging other Pacific Island leaders to support the principles it embodied. Bainimarama certainly used Fiji’s suspension from the Forum to ‘spin a narrative of a big power [Australia] unfairly punishing a small country’ and behaving like a regional bully.101 Such narratives are common enough, but they are simplistic. Australia, along with New Zealand, cannot be seen as having set the Forum’s entire agenda over Fiji’s suspension with all the Island members simply following suit to please them, as if they lacked any will of their own. Further, the Bainimarama regime scarcely lacked agency either. Among other things, it was to expel the high commissioner from New Zealand in 2007, his immediate successor in 2008 and yet another in 2009, along with his Australian counterpart, alleging interference and lack of cooperation with the regime.102 Bainimarama was to go on to forge new, non-traditional diplomatic links in the period that followed. But he failed completely in persuading other Pacific Island leaders to oust Australia and New Zealand from the Forum. Commenting on this issue in 2014, Papua New Guinea’s Peter O’Neill repudiated Bainimarama’s position, adding that Australia and New Zealand were ‘very much part of’ the region.103 Another twist came with developments within the MSG. Although endorsing the 2009 decision in the Forum, MSG members were to take a different approach in their own organization. In 2007, the MSG had declared that the situation in Fiji was an internal matter capable of resolution only by the people of Fiji, albeit via constitutional and democratic 100 Confidential interview by author with former senior Samoan diplomat, Apia, Samoa, 2016. 101 Jenny Hayward-Jones, ‘Fiji’s Election and Australia: The Terms of Re-Engagement’, Lowy Institute, 12 September 2014 (online). 102 Chris Merritt and Patrick Walters, ‘Fiji Expels High Commissioner’, Australian, 4 November 2009 (online). 103 Peter O’Neill quoted in ‘Papua New Guinea PM Peter O’Neill Dismisses Fiji’s Push to Remove Australia from Pacific Islands Forum’, ABC News, 28 November 2014 (online).

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processes,104 thereby taking a more conservative line than the Forum. Then, in 2010, it was Fiji’s turn to chair the MSG. The incumbent at the time was the prime minister of Vanuatu, Edward Natapei, who declined to hand over the chairing of the group to Bainimarama on the grounds that it would undermine the MSG’s democratic ideals. Suggestions that Natapei may have been under Australian pressure to do so have been rejected by his close colleagues who insist that Natapei was very firm in taking his stance on principle.105 In the event, Natapei’s successor, Sato Kilman – interestingly a member of the Forum’s EPG which had reported in the critical terms noted above – took a very different approach and subsequent developments saw MSG acceptance of Bainimarama, even though some felt uncomfortable with ‘having a military dictator among them’.106 Vanuatu was later to outdo its MSG co-members in embracing the coup leader by awarding him the rather apt title of Chief Warwar.107 The MSG was to support the Bainimarama regime right through to the elections of 2014 – a development seen by some as humiliating to Australia in highlighting its impotence in keeping a firm grip on regional developments.108 But again, that reading takes account of just one set of dynamics. Melanesian members made no attempt to sponsor a motion to lift Fiji’s suspension in the Forum. They would have to have done so not only in the face of Australian and New Zealand opposition but from some, possibly most, of their Polynesian and Micronesia counterparts as well. As we have seen, Samoa’s Tuila’epa had been highly critical of the Bainimarama regime and had pushed for Fiji’s suspension. In the lead-up to the suspension, Tonga’s Feleti Sevele had also been publicly critical of Bainimarama’s lack of cooperation with the Forum.109 So too was the Forum secretary-general, Samoan Tuiloma Neromi Slade, along with the premier of Niue, Toke Talagi, who was Forum chair at the time of Fiji’s suspension. Fiji’s relations with Tonga reached a new low in 2011 when a high-ranking member of the Fiji military and son of the late Ratu Mara, Lieutenant Colonel Tevita Mara, fled Fiji after accusations of plotting to 104



105 106 107 108 109

Brij V. Lal, ‘“Anxiety, Uncertainty and Fear in Our Land”: Fiji’s Road to Military Coup, 2006’, in Stewart Firth, Jon Fraenkel and Brij V. Lal (eds.), The 2006 Military Takeover in Fiji: A Coup to End all Coups? (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2009), 37. Natuman, interview; Sope, interview. Sope, interview. Brij V. Lal, The Strange Career of Commodore Frank Bainimarama’s 2006 Fiji Coup, DP 2013/8 (Canberra: State, Society and Governance in Melanesia, Australian National University, 2013). Graham Davis, ‘Time to Rethink when “Bad Guy” King of Pacific’, Australian, 29 March, 2011 (online). Maclellan, ‘Region in Review’, 324–35.

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overthrow Bainimarama. He was picked up by a Tongan navy vessel in Fijian waters and subsequently made a guest in the Tongan Royal Palace, much to the displeasure of the Bainimarama regime.110 In the event, Bainimarama took around eight years to prepare the country for elections under a new constitution. On the positive side, this constitution eliminated all traces of the race-based electoral provisions, which had previously ensured that electoral strategies would be based largely on appeals to racial/ethnic identities. In this respect, the 2013 constitution accords much more closely with international democratic and human rights standards, although other aspects left much to be desired.111 Bainimarama was returned with a substantial parliamentary majority in September 2014 as prime minister in relatively free and fair elections, and again in 2018, albeit with a reduced majority. In 2022, however, he was defeated by a coalition led by the other former military coup leader, Sitiveni Rabuka. It remains to be seen whether Fiji has finally laid its ‘coup culture’ to rest. Over the period from 2009 until his electoral defeat, Bainimarama was to pursue various tactics in regional politics. As we see in Chapter 11, these include attempts to sideline the Forum, and Australia and New Zealand in particular, through the establishment of an alternative regional body and a much more robust ‘look North’ strategy aimed at creating or building on other non-traditional diplomatic partnerships. These and other developments involving Fiji demonstrate that small countries can and do exercise agency in international politics and are by no means powerless vis-à-vis larger and ostensibly more influential states. 10.6 Conclusion Crises in Oceania from the 1990s, along with broader developments in global affairs, saw significant shifts in regional dynamics, attitudes towards intervention and the political role of the Forum. The decade from 1999 to 2009, in particular, saw Australia and New Zealand drawn into substantial interventions, but with Pacific Island countries also contributing to missions under the auspices of the Biketawa Declaration. Action under the latter was a key indication of the Forum’s growing willingness to confront serious regional political problems in a coordinated manner. Given the initial reluctance of Island members of the Forum to entertain any action compromising sovereignty, this was a 110 ‘Fiji Irate Over Tongan Rescue’, Age, 17 May 2011 (online). 111 For a critique see Citizens’ Constitutional Forum (Fiji), An Analysis: 2013 Fiji Government Draft Constitution, 26 March 2013 (online).

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major development. This was perhaps due partly to generational change among Island leaders; the circumstances of the immediate post–Cold War period when much more emphasis globally was put on democracy and good governance; and the new global security environment ushered in by 9/11, along with discourses surrounding weak/failing/failed states. It would be a mistake to think that only Australia and New Zealand (and their Western allies) were concerned about the last point. Pacific Island countries were just as concerned, if not more so, and their people had much more to lose. The same period took Australia and New Zealand into new territory as well. Intervention in former colonies is obviously a highly sensitive issue, raising anxieties about neocolonialism, legitimacy and accompanying reputational costs. The last of these, however, can cut both ways. Arguably, Australia suffered reputational damage in the Solomons case for its reluctance to intervene, ostensibly on the basis that Solomon Islanders needed to sort matters out for themselves, and Australia did not want to be seen as a neocolonial power. The subsequent switch in policy, and justification for it, was couched almost entirely in terms of the risks associated with regional security against the background of the failing states/terrorism discourse in which the neocolonial issue became submerged. There was, nonetheless, a serious concern on the part of the major intervening powers with legitimacy and, in all cases, intervention was underpinned in the first instance by insisting on formal requests from the countries concerned. With East Timor, it may have been a very reluctant acquiescence on the part of Indonesia, but in the Island Pacific, from Papua New Guinea/Bougainville and Solomon Islands to Nauru and Tonga, intervention was largely welcomed. The East Timor intervention was also supported by a formal UN mandate and further legitimized by a broad regional component. In the Solomons case, in lieu of UN authorization, the Forum mandate under Biketawa provided the key legitimating element, along with the all-important regional multilateral component to which all Forum members contributed. Fiji was an altogether different matter, with the succession of coups never involving physical intervention. Rather, suspension from the Forum in 2009 was a diplomatic strategy also legitimated by the Biketawa Declaration and a very significant departure from its response to earlier coups. In 1987, we may recall, the coup resulted directly from the electoral defeat of Ratu Mara’s government and was sanctioned by Mara himself, and none of his contemporaries among Forum Island members uttered a critical note or voiced any support for the democratic processes that had been overthrown. The Pacific Way at this stage meant

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maintaining a consensus on silence. Generational change, however, has seen shifts towards stronger support for a ‘good governance’ agenda that includes democratic political processes and a more active role for the Forum in promoting these in the interests of regional stability. Those who might suggest that all this amounts to a diminishing of agency on the part of Island leaders in the face of pressures from Australia and New Zealand would do a disservice to those leaders, further suggesting that they and the communities they represent do not value democracy and good governance. All these developments also highlight a shift in the understanding of the Forum as a regional organization of independent states with a political role and voice in Oceania. In the early days of the Forum, the interpretation of this role was oriented largely to denouncing French colonialism and the nuclear-testing regime but having no role in the domestic political affairs of its member. Subsequent events, however, obliged Forum members to confront uncomfortable issues and to broaden the scope and understanding of the Forum’s political role in regional affairs and beyond. The Pacific Way has changed irrevocably as a result.

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11

The Political Economy of Regionalism

The end of the Cold War ushered in not only an adjustment in security thinking but also a major shift in how issues of political economy in Oceania were to be framed. This occurred as a new paradigm of globalization gathered momentum around the world in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union’s command model of economic management. Globalization itself was scarcely a new phenomenon, but the post–Cold War world provided an environment in which certain of its dimensions came to dominate the agenda for political economy, including development and aid. The example provided by the collapse of the Soviet Union energized the proponents of liberal democracy as well as those proclaiming the unrivalled superiority of capitalism. Although more nuanced perspectives on both capitalism and globalization identify many variations on these themes, a one-size-fits-all approach under the rubric of neoliberalism gained prominence, especially among traditional funders of development aid. This was to inform much of the discourse on development in Oceania from the early 1990s into the early twenty-first century. Against this general background, two successive master strategies were implemented in a quest to drive deeper regional integration and cooperation. First, the Pacific Plan, devised by the Forum, was born at least partly out of the neoliberal turn with an emphasis on spurring economic growth  – albeit with sustainable development, good governance and security as additional goals. Promulgated in 2005, the Plan came to be regarded as a technocratic scheme, lacking ‘ownership’ by Island leaders, and failing to achieve much beyond what was already being done through the major agencies and organizations operating in the Island Pacific. It was succeeded in 2014 by a new Framework for Pacific Regionalism, which attempts to encompass a broader range of actors, including CSOs, and which appears to have been more successful in garnering enthusiasm for the regionalist project among stakeholders. In the meantime, Fiji began to forge an alternative approach to regional organization with the establishment of the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) in 2013 as well as enhancing its own profile in the 292

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11.1  Globalization, Development and Neoliberalism 293

broader international sphere. These developments have sought, at least in part, to enhance ‘South–South’ cooperation, a term originally designating technical cooperation to promote development among countries of the global South. But the term has acquired ideological overtones as well, especially given its associations with countering ‘hegemonic governance’, indicating the extent to which institutions of global and regional governance have been dominated by the global North and capitalist/neoliberal agendas. In turn, these developments are seen as contributing to a nascent ‘post-hegemonic regionalism’, which in Oceania suggests that the countries of the Island Pacific, rather than the metropolitan powers, are beginning to take control of the regional agenda. 11.1

Globalization, Development and the Neoliberal Agenda

Globalization tends to be framed mainly in terms of economic criteria including growth in trade (and shifts in the terms of trade), the expansion of international financial institutions and the increasing power of transnational corporations, all assisted by technological advances in computing, communications and cyber technologies. But globalization has political, social, cultural and environmental dimensions as well. Its political dimensions include the strengthening of both regional and global governance as well as the projection of military power by dominant states and/or alliances. Social and cultural dimensions encompass the interchange of ideas, practices and cultural products. The environmental aspects encompass the disruption of earth systems due to extensive industrialization. For low-lying Island countries, it hardly needs to be stated that climate change is a special, very pressing concern, although other forms of pollution and land and ocean degradation are also highly problematic. At another level, the economic and political dimensions of globalization are frequently said to be undermining the status and power of the sovereign state itself, which is perhaps more of a concern for smaller states than it is, say, for China or the US. Globalization also has a long history, although as a term it only made an appearance in an English-language dictionary in 1961. When it did so, it marked the explicit recognition ‘of the growing significance of the world-wide connectedness of social events and relationships’.1 This trend gained considerable momentum after the Cold War with an expansion of all its dimensions. The origins of the phenomenon, however, are sometimes located in much earlier periods, in fact as far back as the first 1

Richard Kilminster, ‘Globalization as an Emergent Concept’, in Alan Scott (ed.), The Limits of Globalization: Cases and Arguments (London: Routledge, 1997), 257.

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circumnavigation of the globe by European explorers in the early modern period and the establishment of the Manila galleon trade across the Pacific Ocean that followed from the late 1500s,2 as discussed earlier. From this perspective, the islands of Oceania have long been enmeshed in globalization processes. The period from the 1850s to 1914, when much of the formal colonizing process took place, has been identified as one in which the islands began to be integrated into the global economy as ‘the buccaneers of global capitalism arrived on their shores’.3 In opening the way for these activities, colonial governments fostered basic industries to produce a cash economy, and therefore a tax base, so that colonies would not become financial burdens for metropolitan powers.4 These developments were often highly profitable for private companies in the Pacific Islands, but not many benefits trickled down to local populations. Even so, the idea of ‘developing’ local populations – often associated with a civilizing or modernizing process – was embodied in a range of colonial, missionary, commercial and other relations.5 Following the Second World War, and in the process of decolonization as well as the dynamics of the Cold War, the idea of development aid as such took off. Its most notable manifestation was the US-sponsored Marshall Plan for rebuilding Germany and western Europe in the wake of the devastation there and the onset of the Cold War. It aimed to produce both stable trade relations as well as a geopolitical bulwark against the spread of communism from the Soviet bloc. Aid was also extended to the decolonizing world and, again, Cold War concerns were a major factor with both the Soviet bloc and Western countries competing for influence, although humanitarian impulses relating to poverty reduction were also factors. Before the 1980s there was very little regulation of aid to less developed countries and therefore no coordinated aid regime. Rather, a nonsystem of laissez-faire prevailed in which a range of donors  – public and private, multilateral and bilateral – more or less competed to provide loans and grants of various kinds. The work of the SPC, however, meant that there was a measure of coordination in the Island Pacific alongside bilateral aid relations with former and current colonial powers. Along with a global recession in the 1980s and the rise of leaders 2

Arturo Giráldez, The Age of Trade: The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). 3 Stewart Firth, ‘The Pacific Islands and the Globalization Agenda’, Contemporary Pacific, 12 (1), 2000, 181. 4 Ibid. 5 Georg Frerks, A Brief History of Aid Conditionality: The Use of Peace Conditionalities in Conflict and Post-conflict Settings, Conflict Research Unit Working Paper (The Hague: Clingendael Institute, 2006), 5.

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such as Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US, new thinking on development aid saw a strengthening of neoliberal ideas and the notion of policy-based lending become entrenched, first in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and then in World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) thinking. Policy-based lending implied that aid should be provided in tranches subject to recipients demonstrating that ‘structural adjustments’ in domestic economic policy – cuts to public sectors, currency devaluation, deregulation, privatization and general ‘austerity measures’ – were matching donor expectations. This, in a nutshell, was aid conditionality. Furthermore, better coordination among major donors was to ensure ‘cross-conditionality’.6 The cluster of ideas supporting this trend became known as the ‘Washington consensus’ given the location of its most influential proponents.7 The policy prescriptions characterizing this consensus tipped the relationship between states and markets, or between public and private power in the allocation of resources8 – the very essence of political economy – in favour of the latter in each case. Taken together, these changes saw the emergence of a regime that dictated the terms on which development aid would be dispensed. Although NGOs and private donors were not obliged to follow the same trajectory, neoliberal principles came to dominate the more general aid scene. As for the great majority of the world’s poor, the fruits of neoliberalism were meant to trickle down from the new entrepreneurial classes created by the reforms, thereby providing broad benefits to the masses. A second generation of political conditionalities followed in the 1990s relating to ‘democracy, the rule of law, good governance, human rights and the continuing promotion of the market economy’.9 This was prompted by the end of the Cold War and the apparent victory of liberal democracy and capitalism as conveyed in the notion of the ‘end of history’,10 although this appeared to be contradicted by an equally significant turn to identity politics expressed in the ‘clash of civilizations’.11 While capitalism and key aspects of neoliberal ideology were to remain in the ascendant, despite major financial crises, there has been a mixed

6 Peter Gibbon, ‘The World Bank and the New Politics of Aid’, European Journal of Development Research, 5 (1), 1993, 36–8. 7 See John Williamson, ‘The Strange History of the Washington Consensus’, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 27 (2), 2004–2005, 195–206. 8 John Ravenhill, ‘The Study of Global Political Economy’, in John Ravenhill (ed.), Global Political Economy, 6th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 18. 9 Frerks, ‘A Brief History’, 6–7. 10 Francis Fukuyama, ‘The End of History’, National Interest, 16 (Summer), 1989, 3–18. 11 Samuel Huntington, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 72 (3), 1993, 22–49.

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record on democracy and human rights, especially given the return to authoritarianism in Russia. China’s pro-democracy movement was also comprehensively crushed following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, although this scarcely caused a blip in China’s spectacular economic growth under the system of state-sponsored capitalism initiated by Deng Xiaoping’s ‘reform and opening’ in the late 1970s. The good governance agenda was also informed by security concerns about failing or fragile states and the activities of international criminal networks as well as the rise of terrorism in the wake of 9/11, as discussed previously. Another important aspect of global politics in the early post–Cold War period was the emergence of a human security discourse linked explicitly to human-centred development as promoted by the UN Nations Development Program (UNDP). The 1994 United Nations Human Development Report argued that traditional definitions of security – confined as they were largely to ‘security of territory from external aggression, or as the protection of national interests in foreign policy or as global security from the threat of nuclear holocaust’  – neglected the more basic concerns ‘of ordinary people who sought security in their daily lives’.12 The report went on to define human security in terms of safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease and repression as well as ‘protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life – whether in homes, in jobs or in communities’.13 There was also an explicit link between security, development and the environment. This reflected the sustainable development paradigm emerging from the UN’s 1987 Bruntland Commission Report, which maintained that development must meet the ‘needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.14 The human security and sustainability paradigms together produced a concept of sustainable human development, which in Oceania saw a Suva Declaration on Sustainable Human Development in the Pacific endorsed by the Forum at its 1994 summit.15 Even so, this paradigm was not to feature prominently in economic development ideas within the Forum where neoliberal ideas continued to dominate. The SPC, however, did remain more attuned to the UNDP agenda through its technical assistance programs, and was the main organization to engage with the Millennium Development program initiated in 2000 to address the 12

United Nations, United Nations Development Report (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 22. 13 Ibid., 23. 14 See United Nations, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future, 1987 (online). 15 South Pacific Forum, Communiqué, Brisbane, 31 July–2 August 1994.

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substantial range of sustainable human development concerns, although a dedicated human development program was not created by the Pacific Community until 2007.16 But it was within the Forum, rather than the SPC, that the key initiatives for economic reform were driven. It is against this general background that shifts in perspectives on development aid in the Island Pacific are best understood. 11.2

The Political Economy of Aid

By the beginning of the 1980s, virtually all countries and territories of the Island Pacific had become dependent on international aid. The trend began in the earlier post-war period with both bilateral and multilateral programs, including those initiated by the SPC and, later, the Forum, and had grown throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Despite the energy crisis triggered by oil price rises in the latter decade, which saw donor countries struggle with their own economic problems, relatively generous aid had continued to flow due, at least in part, to the fact that Russia and China had shown increasing interest in the region.17 Japan, too, had embarked on a program of substantial aid to Island countries, motivated by the fact that the Law of the Sea had created vast ‘exclusive economic zones’ covering marine resources. As the world’s leading distant water fishing nation at the time, access for Japanese fishing vessels was a major concern, but so too was Japan’s desire to assert a presence in the region and to demonstrate to its major ally, the US, that it could contribute to the broad regional security scenario.18 The economic bases of Pacific Island countries have consisted mainly of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, although some were also endowed (or cursed) with mineral resources. The economic geography of these countries means that disadvantages accrue from small and dispersed populations, considerable distances from markets and poor transport links leading to high costs and low volumes.19 A South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement came into force in 1981 as a non-reciprocal trade agreement through which Australia and New 16

See Pacific Community, Making a Difference: The Human Development Programme 2008– 2012 (Noumea: Secretariat of the Pacific Community, 2012) (online). 17 E. K. Fisk, ‘Development and Aid in the South Pacific in the 1980s’, Australian Outlook, 36 (2), 1982, 32. 18 Sandra Tarte, Japan’s Aid Diplomacy and the Pacific Islands (Canberra and Suva: National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University and Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, 1998), 2. 19 Richard Pomfret, ‘Multilateralism and Regionalism in the South Pacific: World Trade Organization and Regional Fora as Complementary Institutions for Trade Facilitation’, Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 3 (3), 420.

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Zealand offered duty-free and unrestricted access for specified products originating from Island Forum members. It was to provide some benefits for export industries but rules of origin for manufactured goods limited these.20 Before this, the 1975 Lomé Convention also granted most African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries preferential access to the European common market.21 Tourism was also on the rise from the early 1980s, especially given advances in aviation technologies. A subsistence lifestyle was still the principal mode for most Island populations but aspirations to higher standards of living, encompassing health, education, housing, infrastructure, transport, manufactured goods and so on meant that ‘development’ was a priority. The quest for development had, and continues to have, a momentum of its own, driven by both the aspirations of the recipients as well as by strategic donor interests. In the present period, the Island Pacific remains one of the most aiddependent regions in the world and, indeed, on a per capita basis, Official Development Assistance is higher in the region than anywhere else in the world.22 A snapshot in 2019 revealed that between 2011 and 2016, an average of US$2 billion was distributed each year, equal to about 6.5 per cent of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP). Australia remains the leading donor to the region (45 per cent of total aid in the period), followed by New Zealand (9 per cent), China (8 per cent), the US (8 per cent) and Japan (6 per cent), while the ADB and the World Bank respectively account for 5 per cent and 4 per cent.23 In the early post–Cold War period, with neoliberal ideas on aid regimes in the ascendance, a World Bank report castigated Pacific Island countries for failing to grow their economies at more than around 0.1 per cent per annum despite relatively favourable conditions, including the high levels of development aid per capita. This had produced a ‘Pacific paradox’. Much of the blame was attributed to bloated public sectors that, it was said, imposed limits to growth due to their ‘heavy carrying cost and efficiency-drag’. Solomon Islands was singled out as exemplifying this trend. Although many other considerations appeared in the report, ranging from the need for more effective donor coordination, the role of NGOs in development projects, the importance of 20

See South Pacific Forum, ‘South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Co-operation Agreement’, 4 December 1980 (online). 21 Pomfret, ‘Multilateralism’, 421. 22 Matthew Dornan and Jonathan Pryke, ‘Foreign Aid to the Pacific: Trends and Developments in the Twenty-First Century’, Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 4 (3), 2017, 386. 23 Alexandre Dayant, ‘Follow the Money: How Foreign Aid Spending Tells of Pacific Priorities’, The Interpreter, Lowy Institute, 17 April 2019 (online).

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environmental protection and the difficulty of applying standard economic models to Small Island Developing States, the tenor of the report clearly supported public sector downsizing.24 The report also criticized Australia’s and New Zealand’s bilateral aid programs for encouraging aid dependence and failing to establish the correct policy environment for reforms.25 At the same time, an influential publication emerged from the National Centre for Development Studies at the ANU (funded by the Australian government) on prospects for the Island Pacific. A principal author, Rowan Callick, clearly took his cue from mainstream neoliberal thinking and set out a rather grim ‘Doomsday Scenario’ unless decisive action was taken on issues ranging from pollution and deleterious agricultural practices to population growth and mass unemployment while also encouraging entrepreneurship: The South Pacific … has had a good enough run, and now is its chance to stand on its own two feet. This means, above all, accelerating the conceptual shift on the part of the region’s decision makers, from a traditional emphasis on the importance of distribution of wealth  – where a chief or big man gains stature from his gifts and from the generosity of his feasts – to an emphasis on production, on building, managing and re-investing that wealth. A new type of generosity is thus required – one that may mean standing by to make room for people with special talents, especially to do business profitably. This shift can only take place through an example being set by the South Pacific’s leaders themselves – politicians, senior officials and traditional chiefs. As such leaders travel increasingly widely in East Asia, it would be understandable if they were to seek to emulate the comfortable, generous lifestyles of their counterparts there. But those rapidly developing societies have achieved their goals only after undergoing decades, first, of considerable constraint and discipline combined with industrial – and industrious – effort.26

Callick went on to set out the steps required of Island governments including ‘tighter budgetary discipline, measures to enhance competitiveness, corporatization and privatization, reform of the financial sector, adjustment of exchange rates, alteration of the way wages are determined and reorganization of government priorities so that a greater proportion of the budget is spent on education, health and infrastructure’. Furthermore, in place of a ‘fierce nationalism’ and a ‘defiant 24

World Bank, Report No. 11351-EAP, Pacific Island Economies: Toward Efficient and Sustainable Growth, 8 March 1993 (online). 25 William Sutherland, ‘Global Imperatives and Economic Reform in the Pacific Island States’, Development and Change, 31 (2), March 2000, 462. 26 Rowan Callick, ‘A Doomsday Scenario’, in Rodney V. Cole (ed.), Pacific 2010: Challenging the Future (Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University, 1993), 7.

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independence’, success would depend on a greater sense of regional and global interdependence, starting within the Forum. This, he maintained, was the most appropriate organization through which to enhance openness in trade and investment as well as the movement of skilled workers, both foreigners and nationals. Free trade, in particular, would help to ‘frame the right mentality’. Bold action was required ‘before looming disasters impose their own grim patterns on the next generation and beyond’.27 This gloomy message was reinforced the following year in a major speech by Australia’s minister for development cooperation and Pacific Island affairs in the Labor government, Gordon Bilney, who referred to the World Bank report in emphasizing a failure to thrive among the Island states while urging the adoption of new policy frameworks. Mention was made of ‘extravagant national symbols’  – a reference to unsustainable national airlines. Environmental problems were also highlighted, including pollution, biodiversity loss and the unsustainable exploitation of resources occurring in some countries, compromising the well-being of future generations. This legacy, he said, was hardly in keeping with the traditional values so often emphasized by Island leaders.28 In concluding, Bilney claimed that Australia was in no way attempting to impose its own solutions but rather seeking to work in partnership with Island leaders.29 Critical responses to the depiction of the Pacific Islands  – and Islanders – in the terms set out here saw in it a longstanding Australian desire, at least on the part of key actors in government, the civil service, the media and certain parts of academia, to shape the Island Pacific according to their own interests and values and indeed to remake it in Australia’s own image.30 Despite elements of benign intent, and notwithstanding that a number of Island leaders endorsed the reforms (although others, including Ratu Mara, did not), it was said to amount to an act of Orientalism through which the power to represent ‘others’ through the prism of a racist imaginary was linked to a form of hegemony or neocolonialism. Moreover, Callick, Bilney and others of their ilk were seen as simplistic in overhomogenizing the Island Pacific and ignoring the region’s diversity.31 The same, however, can be said of invocations of the Pacific Way. 27

Ibid., 10–11. 28 Gordon Bilney, Australia’s Relations with the South Pacific: Challenge and Change (Canberra: Australian Development Studies Network, Australian National University, 1994), 3, 6. 29 Ibid., 6. 30 Fry, Framing the Islands, 25–63. 31 Ibid.

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Another critic of the more general neoliberal trend promoted by both Australia and New Zealand noted that its models and estimations were based on an idealized view of reality that assumes (falsely) that people everywhere are rational self-maximizing individuals.32 Others highlighted the many errors implicit in ‘trickle-down’ economics along with the highly detrimental impact on customary ownership of livelihood resources, including land.33 One study also picked up on the role played by Island elites. Noting first that although restructuring was certainly externally driven, government policy makers in Pacific Island states were themselves ‘swayed by the arguments of neoliberal policy advocates within the various agencies driving economic reform into believing that economic restructuring (and latterly, trade liberalisation) will enable their small Island economies to effectively compete in a deregulated or liberalised global economy, and to achieve much-coveted economic growth’.34 Thus, although constructed by outside powers, the ‘new orthodoxy’ of neoliberalism was being internalized and perpetuated by local elites.35 The latter include, of course, not just politicians and bureaucrats but also home-grown business elites with their own set of interests – interests supported by the neoliberal agenda. There can be no doubt that the neoliberal orthodoxies of the time emanated from the broader global sphere and were promoted by influential sectors in Australia and New Zealand as much for their own consumption as for anyone else’s. Indeed, within Australia, neoliberalism had come to dominate economic and political thinking under the rubric of ‘economic rationalism’, which overturned decades of well-regulated state-led social and economic development underpinning Australia’s moderate social democracy. The trend was instigated by a new generation of economists who emerged from around the early 1980s and who ‘operated within largely self-referential and ideological economic doctrines that treated the state, regulation and taxation as a brake on economic activity’ and proceeded to reduce the purpose of economic management ‘to little more than the protection and accumulation of capital’.36 32

Maria Bargh, ‘Romance and Resistance in the Pacific: Neoliberalism and Indigenous Resistance in the Pacific’, Revue Juridique Polynesienne, 1 (118), 2001, 250–1. 33 Claire Slatter and Yvonne Underhill-Sem, ‘Reclaiming Pacific Island Regionalism: Does Neoliberalism have to Reign?’, in Bina D’Costa and Katrina Lee-Koo (eds.), Gender and Global Politics in the Asia-Pacific (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 195–210. 34 Claire Slatter, ‘The Politics of Economic Restructuring in the Pacific with a Case Study of Fiji’, unpublished PhD thesis, Massey University, 2004, 4. 35 Donovan Storey, quoted in ibid. 36 Michael Pusey, ‘Economic Rationalism in Canberra 25 Years On’, Journal of Sociology, 54 (1), 2018, 14.

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A further argument was that economic rationalism was (and remains) an ideological project foisted on Australia by powerful institutional groupings. These included the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the IMF, international credit rating agencies, national peak business organizations, business-funded think tanks and the major global accounting houses. Their aim was to ‘let big capital off the leash’ and free up markets through microeconomic reform, market deregulation, competition policy, privatization, cutting government spending and welfare reform, ‘in short the full Washington consensus’.37 The same ideology had taken hold in New Zealand, which, from around 1984, underwent a period of economic reform known as ‘Rogernomics’ (after Finance Minister Roger Douglas) that was possibly even more thoroughgoing than Australia’s.38 One irony of these developments is the extent to which they were driven by left-of-centre governments – the Hawke–Keating Labor government in Australia and the Lange–Douglas Labour government in New Zealand. Critical insights into these developments in Australia detected a shift towards the view that government was no longer about ideology, or even about politics, but rather about ‘responsible’ economic management.39 This translated readily enough into ‘good governance’, or at least a particular version of it. Given that this ‘ideological project’ was foisted on Australians and New Zealanders, it is hardly surprising that attempts to force it in turn on recipients of Australian aid in the Island Pacific would follow, despite figures such as Bilney insisting that they did not want to ‘impose’ such remedies for perceived ills. But they were not the only ones. A 1996 EU Green Paper on its relations with ACP countries also called for measures along the lines of structural adjustment, integration into a global trading system and good governance.40 This was in addition to pressures from the ADB, the IMF, the World Bank and other institutions with which Pacific Island countries had engaged for many years. As mentioned earlier, however, some Island leaders and other elites also supported the neoliberal agenda, or at least significant elements of it, and this was likely to have occurred even in the absence of pressures from Australia and/or New Zealand.41 37 Ibid., 15. 38 See Brian Easton, ‘Economic and Other Ideas behind the New Zealand Reforms,’ Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 10 (3), 1994, 78. 39 Tim Battin, ‘Economic Rationalism and Ideology’, Journal of Australian Studies, 16 (33), 1992, 12. 40 Cited in Firth, ‘Pacific Islands and the Globalization Agenda’, 185. 41 Tim Bryar and Anna Naupa, ‘The Shifting Tides of Pacific Regionalism’, Round Table, 106 (2), 2017, 157.

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One issue of particular concern appearing on the neoliberal agenda was land, which in the Island Pacific tends to be communally owned, providing the basis for the important subsistence sector as well as an ultimate welfare safety net. This is in addition to the spiritual and emotional attachment to place and the sense of cultural identity and intergenerational continuity it is said to provide, and which is now promoted globally as fundamental to Indigenous well-being and survival.42 For much of the Island Pacific, communal land ownership had been largely preserved under colonial rule  – indeed sometimes much more rigidly than under relatively more flexible pre-colonial practices  – although leases were permitted for commercial economic activity. Even so, tenure systems have been transformed, as much at the hands of local actors as anything else. There is much more to the story than can be explored here but, at the very least, it must be noted that managing land tenure systems in the independence period has been complex and difficult for Island governments, and often highly contested at the local level. Implicated in these difficulties, according to one commentary, is the ‘rhetoric of cultural preservation’ tied to an image of ‘an idealised social system founded on “traditional” land tenure conventions’.43 It has also been argued that customary communal land tenure, however defined, is not necessarily at odds with productive commercial usage. However, it was certainly at odds with a neoliberal lens that viewed communal land ownership as a barrier to economic development and that therefore promoted privatization and individual (or corporate) ownership instead.44 Such views have evidently found favour among some Island elites, especially in Samoa where moves have been underway to introduce land reforms to open the way to at least loosening communal ownership and allow land to be used as collateral for raising funds for commercial purposes. This means, however, that a default could see the permanent alienation of land from its communal owners.45

42

See United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Affairs, State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, 2009, ST/ESA/328 (online). 43 R. Gerard Ward and Elizabeth Kingdon, ‘Introduction’, in R. Gerard Ward and Elizabeth Kingdon (eds.), Land, Custom and Practice in the South Pacific (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 3. 44 See Spike Boydell, ‘South Pacific Land: An Alternative Perspective on Tenure Traditions, Business, and Conflict’, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 11 (1), 2010, 17–25. 45 Warwick E. Murray and John Overton, ‘The Inverse Sovereignty Effect: Aid, Scale and Neostructuralism in Oceania’, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 52 (3), 2011, 279. See also Iati Iati, ‘Controversial Land Legislation in Samoa: It’s Not Just About the Land’, Devnet New Zealand, 2018 (online).

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The principles underpinning ‘good governance’ were difficult to resist, even among opponents of neoliberalism: ‘Who cannot be in favour of accountable, efficient, transparent and responsive government and public administration apart from those who benefit from the opposite?’46 As we saw previously, good governance principles had made a brief appearance in the 1995 Forum Vision Statement and in the Aitutaki Declaration. But by 2000, with the experience of the Solomon Islands crisis and another coup in Fiji, the Biketawa Declaration took a much firmer position in support of good governance principles, including transparency and accountability, although these were always easier to support in principle than to achieve in practice. Critical responses to neoliberal reform proposals in the Island Pacific came, not unexpectedly, from CSOs. In 2000, the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) was established in Suva, bringing together regional NGOs based there for the purpose of organizing themselves around concerns that civil society was being left out of debates on trade liberalization and that the free trade agenda coming into the region did not prioritize ‘the key goals of human development and poverty reduction’.47 A major cause pursued by PANG was resistance to free trade agreements in the form of the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA) and the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER), both launched in 2001. The latter was to expand and became known as PACER Plus. The main criticism of these instruments was that they were being pursued by Australia and New Zealand for their own benefit and to the detriment of Pacific Island countries.48 In the meantime, from around 1997, Forum member countries had begun to send representatives to meetings that became annual Forum Economic Ministers’ Meetings where commitments were made to the full set of neoliberal reforms including deregulation, privatization, minimization of subsidies, enabling of foreign investment and moving towards free trade – the last of these having been further encouraged by the establishment of the WTO in 1995 to replace the more diverse arrangements provided under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that preceded it. It has been suggested that commitments to reform from Island leaders around this time were largely rhetorical and designed mainly to reassure donors that the flow of aid should continue even if the pace of 46

Firth, ‘Introduction’, in Stewart Firth (ed.), Globalisation and Governance in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU E Press, 2006), 2. 47 Thousand Currents, ‘Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG)’, 2020 (online). 48 Claire Slatter, ‘The New Framework for Pacific Regionalism: Old Kava in a New Tanoa?’, in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds.), The New Pacific Diplomacy (Canberra: ANU Press, 2016), 32.

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change was slow.49 However, at least as far as trade is concerned, Island leaders were not just passive subjects, prostrated in the face of external challenges and having to be pushed into action by metropolitan powers. Melanesian countries had already demonstrated some initiative with the formation of the Melanesian Spearhead Group Trade Agreement in 1993.50 Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tonga all joined the WTO – a body that has strong enforcement powers and presents all the challenges of a multilateral trading system. In addition, Papua New Guinea joined APEC in 1993 (and hosted it in 2018). These examples show that Pacific Island countries have pursued an active trade diplomacy agenda of their own.51 Despite these efforts, growth in the Island Pacific remained sluggish. In 2003, a bipartisan Australian Senate enquiry, entitled A Pacific Engaged, appeared at a time when security issues, discussed in Chapter 10, had been prominent. The report, however, focused less on these and more on economic cooperation and integration, promoting a Pacific economic union including free trade, free movement of labour and monetary union based, preferably, on the Australian dollar. Its fairly moderate tone showed an appreciation of both strengths and weaknesses in the region, acknowledged its irreducible diversity and appeared more community focused. But it nonetheless supported the continuation of a generalized neoliberal agenda for Oceania as a whole.52 Far less moderate was another high-profile critique from an explicit neoliberal perspective produced by Australian academic Helen Hughes, which noted that growth remained at less than 1 per cent per annum while population growth continued apace, exacerbating problems across the region. The little income growth that had occurred had gone to small urban elites while village standards of living continued to deteriorate, exacerbating crime and violence.53 She argued further that the AU$100 billion received as aid in the region, and spent largely on consumption, had produced distorted economies and damaged future prospects. She was equally critical of colonial-era practices that had failed to provide an adequate basis on which to build a prosperous future. If aid was to continue at all, she suggested, then it should be tied to specific projects 49

Firth, ‘Introduction’, 2. 50 Wesley Morgan, ‘Negotiating Power in Contemporary Pacific Trade Diplomacy’, in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds.), The New Pacific Diplomacy (Canberra: ANU Press, 2016), 252. 51 Ibid., 251. 52 See Australia, Parliament, Senate Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, A Pacific Engaged: Australia’s Relations with Papua New Guinea and the Island States of the Southwest Pacific, 12 August 2003 (online). 53 Helen Hughes, Aid Has Failed the Pacific, CIS Issue Analysis 33 (Sydney: Centre for Independent Studies, 2003), 1.

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rather than fed into annual budgets where it encouraged waste and corruption. Other recommendations supported strict conditionality.54 Among those who opposed her prescriptions there was little disagreement with the picture she had painted of problems in Pacific Island countries – the links between poverty, high youth unemployment and violence, poor health and education systems, significant gender inequality and rampant resource exploitation.55 Hughes also maintained that only Pacific Island people could solve Pacific Island problems – again, this was hard to disagree with and certainly a position supported by anti-neocolonialists. But her rigid ideological approach was said to make inappropriate comparisons, to ignore donor self-interest and to propose one-size-fits-all neoliberal prescriptions that failed to address different contexts across the region.56 The prescriptions offered by Hughes came just a few years after the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998, which had demonstrated only too clearly the failure of market mechanisms while also showing that effective government intervention and regulation (as displayed by Malaysia during the crisis) could produce better outcomes.57 By this time, World Bank thinking had also shifted towards a recognition that cuts to state functioning undermined the ability to provide the very conditions necessary for smooth market operation. This was in addition to the deleterious social consequences of public sector cuts that had produced even greater poverty. In introducing the World Development Report 1997, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn now described ideas supporting the minimal state as ‘extreme’, arguing that ‘development requires an effective state, one that plays a catalytic, facilitating role, encouraging and complementing the activities of private businesses and individuals’.58 A new paradigm – the ‘post-Washington Consensus’ – was now promoted by economists such as Joseph Stiglitz who emphasized the essential economic role of states along with concerns for poverty alleviation. And a new good governance agenda placed issues of human rights, transparency and democracy alongside public sector reform.59 The UN’s Millennium Development Goals, promulgated in September 2000, followed trends in revised thinking and committed world leaders to combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation 54 Ibid. 55 Ewan Morris, Helen Hughes and Aid to the Pacific, NZADDs Working Paper (Wellington: New Zealand Aid and Development Dialogues, August 2013, 4–5. 56 Ibid., 6–9. 57 Murray and Overton, ‘Inverse Sovereignty Effect’, 273. 58 James D. Wolfensohn, ‘Foreword’, in World Bank, World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), ii. 59 Murray and Overton, ‘Inverse Sovereignty Effect’, 273.

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and discrimination against women.60 To better deliver aid, the OECD facilitated the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, followed up by the 2008 Accra Accord and the Accra Agenda for Action. These focused on recasting donor–recipient relations as a partnership in which aid recipients took ownership by exercising leadership on development policies and strategies with donors committing to respecting partner country leadership and helping strengthen their capacity to exercise it.61 Donors were to move away from discrete aid projects towards more sector-wide approaches as well as general budget support. These shifts signified a reorientation from the neoliberal agenda towards a ‘neostructural approach’ developed in Latin America as an alternative to the centrality of market distribution and that looked to strategic state intervention to support growth with equity. It further entailed holistic approaches to development aimed at building social consensus by including a wider range of inputs from across society in determining policy priorities.62 Important elements of the old neoliberal agenda, however, prevailed and opinion leaders such as Helen Hughes remained influential, especially with the conservative government of John Howard in Australia, which, given that it held office in Australia from 1996 to 2007, oversaw many of the developments discussed in both this chapter and Chapter 10. In addressing problems of economic growth and development in the Island Pacific, along with related social and political matters, few doubted that a greater measure of coordinated regional action was desirable. But despite having long-established regional organizations, it seemed that the extent of effective regional cooperation and integration among the Island states to address issues of mutual concern was still rather limited. This led, in due course, to more concerted moves to develop a comprehensive plan to address the full gamut of social, political and economic problems in the region and to take member states forwards on a fresh, collective trajectory. 11.3

The Pacific Plan

We saw previously that the Forum moved in 2003 to carry out a major review of its functions as a regional organization. This was conducted by an EPG that reported in April 2004.63 It highlighted the ‘well-tested values 60

See United Nations, General Assembly, Millennium Declaration, 2000, A/55/L.2, undocs.org/A/RES/55/2. 61 OECD, The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action, 2005/2008 (online). 62 Murray and Overton, ‘Inverse Sovereignty Effect’, 274–5. 63 Pacific Islands Forum, The Eminent Persons’ Group Review of the Pacific Islands Forum, April 2004 (online).

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of the Pacific Way’ that, in addition to inspiring a ‘unifying regional consciousness’ underpinning the proposed Pacific Plan, included under its broad rubric ‘honesty, mutual respect, tolerance, recognition and acceptance of differences, a sense of justice, compassion, tolerance and understanding combined with an underlying awareness of the need to find unity and consensus and to work together’. This (rather romanticized) version of the Pacific Way was said to be one of the region’s greatest assets, but it needed to evolve and embrace new ways of thinking and acting so that it would come to denote a style of governance ‘that is respected for its inclusiveness, effectiveness and freedom from corruption’.64 The evolution of the Pacific Way in the right direction required a renewed emphasis on intensifying intra-regional links and cooperation, with the ‘big idea’ of Pacific interdependence being placed at the top of the regional political agenda. The report was long on platitudes but short on how exactly how its ambitions were to be achieved, simply pointing out that it was ‘an idea and a process, rather than a blueprint’. The first part of the process would be a ‘framework for action’ devised by the leaders themselves.65 A substantial list of policy areas featured longstanding concerns such as trade and transport along with a greater pooling of resources including standards and conformance, quarantine services and customs, increased trade facilitation, judicial and public administration, security and financial systems, digital strategies and communications technologies, processes for meeting international legal demands, regional law enforcement aimed at transnational crime and regional representation at international meetings. The report suggested introducing a regional panel of judges, a common list of Pacific prosecutors, a regional shipping registry, a regional financial intelligence unit and intensified training courses for regional managers, administrators and parliamentarians. It was recommended that security, too, should be more integrated to give real meaning to the Honiara, Biketawa and Aitutaki Declarations.66 In April 2004, the Forum adopted the Auckland Declaration, which set forth a vision statement that was virtually identical to that of the EPG report under the rubric of the Pacific Way. Beyond the platitudes, however, it set out a focus on four pillars – economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security  – going on to charge the Forum Secretariat with the task of developing the plan.67 This appeared 64

65 66 67

Ibid., 14. Ibid., 15–16. Ibid., 16. Pacific Islands Forum, Special Leaders’ Retreat, Auckland Declaration, Auckland, 6 April 2004 (online).

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to be on track when the Forum Secretariat produced, in due course, a document entitled ‘The Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional Cooperation and Integration’68 that was adopted at the Forum’s October 2005 summit meeting, along with the ‘Kalibobo Roadmap’ as a guide for implementing the plan in its first three years, although the plan itself envisaged a ten-year framework. Implementation of the plan was to be undertaken by the Forum Secretariat with oversight by a committee consisting of the Forum chair and representatives of all member states.69 Ahead of the 2005 Forum summit, the ADB and the Commonwealth Secretariat had published a voluminous joint report running to more than 250 pages and covering topics from the historical development of Pacific regionalism, problems of capacity and resource constraints, and ‘club theory’ to the future structuring of aid and trade regimes, the benefits of closer integration and pooling of resources, and the political economy of change, among others. Its overall aim was to contribute to the Pacific Plan by ‘strengthening the framework for economic analysis on a new Pacific regionalism’.70 Given that it was produced by ADB economists, it is hardly surprising that its emphasis was on economic growth and development based, for the most part, on free trade and market principles. Its proposals for regional market integration – defined in terms of lowering barriers for goods, services and people between countries, including nontariff barriers such as non-transparent standards, restrictions on foreign investment or operations, and restrictive visa requirements – would, it maintained, see benefits accruing from a larger market for Pacific firms, with more production at lower cost, more choice for Pacific consumers and more economic opportunities for Pacific workers, although there would be adjustment costs for Pacific companies subject to increased competitive pressures. The report further noted present or planned market integration arrangements in the Pacific including a free trade agreement among Forum Island countries (PICTA), a closer economic relations agreement among all Forum members (PACER) – both mentioned earlier – and an Economic Partnership Agreement between the Forum Island countries and the EU.71 Although its bottom line was the need to bring benefits to ordinary people, the ADB/Commonwealth 68 Pacific Islands Forum, The Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional Cooperation and Integration (Suva: Pacific Islands Forum, 2005). 69 Pacific Islands Forum, Communiqué, Thirty-Sixth Pacific Islands Forum, Papua New Guinea, 25–7 October 2005. 70 Philip Erquiaga, ‘Foreword’, in Asian Development Bank and Commonwealth Secretariat, Toward a New Pacific Regionalism, joint report to Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2005, ix (online). 71 Ibid., xvii.

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report was heavily top down in its general approach. Moreover, being essentially an exercise in economic analysis, its attention to political, social and cultural issues was marginal, to say the least.72 The lack of focus on these issues, which had been more prominent in the EPG report, was reflected in the Pacific Plan itself. Critiques of the Pacific Plan’s shortcomings were soon produced. One by Elise Huffer, in addition to noting a lack of grassroots consultations, argued that: Pacific Island countries have traditionally sought to make cultural identity the foundation of regionalism and that it is in their best interest to continue to build on this approach if regionalism is to have any meaning for the peoples of the Pacific Islands and if it is to become an effective tool for the betterment of governance and development in the Pacific.73

She went on to invest ‘Pacific Way’ regionalism with features that Mara himself would have approved, as symbolizing ‘a way of doing things specific to the Pacific: a way that emphasised moderation, respect, consensual dialogue, inclusiveness, as well as preparedness to negotiate, flexibility, adaptation and compromise’.74 In addition, it reflected a ‘constructed regional consciousness’ based on a ‘pan-Pacific ideal’; a gradual approach to modernization and development; a tool for continued cooperation with metropolitan powers; and a ‘diplomatic device for maintaining Pacific protocols and approaches’ (based on harmony and pragmatism) in regional and international affairs. The Pacific Way was also said to reflect the willingness of Pacific Island countries ‘to work together with metropolitan countries but that the latter should respect them and not confuse them with Africa or other developing regions’. It was acknowledged, however, that the Pacific Way was in need of a ‘facelift’, having suffered some damage from crises such as the coups in Fiji.75 This version of the Pacific Way therefore came complete with the same lofty statements on a range of values with which it would be impossible to disagree. There was no mention of the critiques advanced by Pacific Island scholars such as Hau’ofa and Wendt, nor that ‘culture’ is often an artefact of privileged elites far removed from the daily lives of

72

The report did, however, pick up on the importance of intellectual property rights and related these, albeit very marginally, to cultural products. See ibid., 131–5. 73 Elise Huffer, ‘Regionalism and Cultural Identity: Putting the Pacific Back into the Plan’, in Stewart Firth (ed.), Globalization and Governance in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2006), 44. 74 Ibid., 47. 75 Ibid.

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village communities where values of solidarity and reciprocity are actually enacted and where the idea of a pan-Pacific spirit may hold little meaning. Another commentator, writing in the period immediately after the EPG report and the Auckland Declaration, did recall such critiques, noting that the ‘Pacific Way ideology’ upheld among Pacific Island leaders had been challenged by other Pacific Islanders as an exclusivist vision of Pacific cultural identity that entrenched male chiefly authority, adding that ‘the rights of state elites to be the only group to speak for the regional community has been challenged over several decades by non-governmental organisations, sovereignty movements, the leaders of dependent territories, and women’s groups’.76 Huffer did, however, make a case for actually ‘bringing regionalism to local communities’ by enhancing dialogue between regional institutions and leaders and the very communities, which, in the end, is what governance at both regional and national levels is supposed to be all about: ‘the main objective would be that, whatever form of engagement is put forward, community voices, rather than solely those that are representative of the State, are heard directly.’77 This included a role for CSOs and raised more general issues for how regionalism had been both conceived and studied, given the longstanding emphasis on formal state actors and institutions and little on other modes of region building. Another commentary, however, highlighted a substantial history of regional networking at the community level, forged through religious and educational affiliations (such as the Pacific Council of Churches and the USP), and regional advocacy networks mobilized around specific causes such as women’s rights, labour rights, peace advocacy and environmental protection.78 Some of these networks of course challenge certain renditions of ‘culture and tradition’, especially those subordinating women. Having said all that, it remains the case that political leaders are actually elected and do represent constituencies made up of people, while CSO/NGO personnel are generally not elected and not accountable except perhaps to the aid donors that provide their life blood. Other critiques of the Pacific Plan centred on its promotion of market integration and free trade aspects, identifying the proposal in the ADB report for the PACER/PACER Plus agreement as a key element

76

Greg Fry, Whose Oceania? Contending Visions of Community in Pacific Region-Building, WP 2004/3 (Canberra: Department of International Relations, Australian National University, 2004), 6. 77 Huffer, ‘Regionalism and Cultural Identity’, 51. 78 Nicole George, ‘Pacific Women Building Peace: A Regional Perspective’, Contemporary Pacific, 23 (1), 2011, 37–8. See also Slatter and Underhill-Sen, ‘Reclaiming’.

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in Australia’s bid to impose its own, hegemonic version of regionalism.79 In the event, over a decade of negotiations finally produced a regional trade agreement likely to make little difference to either the Pacific Island countries or to Australia and New Zealand. The two largest Pacific Island economies, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, declined to join it, leaving their existing bilateral arrangements in place. Island countries had lobbied hard to include provisions for the movement of labour into Australia and New Zealand but in the end such provisions were set up separately. By the time negotiations reached a conclusion in 2017, it was clear that the ‘impacts of PACER Plus [had] been overstated by both advocates and critics’ and that there was ‘not much to celebrate beyond a deal being struck’.80 In addition to criticisms of the Pacific Plan, the Forum Secretariat itself had come under scrutiny via a report commissioned by the Forum Official’s Committee itself. A seventy-eight-page Review of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat covered issues from members’ participation and roles, core business, programs, funding, priority setting, operational management, governance and the Pacific Plan, to the difficulties created by the Secretariat’s location in Suva, given that Fiji remained suspended from the Forum at that time and that ‘the Secretariat’s work on good governance and political stability is supposed to assist member states to support effective democracies and avoid military intervention in political leadership’.81 A key finding was that the Forum’s own members were insufficiently engaged with the work of the Secretariat, and needed to take greater ownership of it. The report recommended that the Secretariat itself implement a communications plan to enhance its level of engagement with members, including regular visits to member states by the secretary-general and senior staff, ‘to exchange views and ensure that its messages and requirements are more broadly communicated within the governments of member states’.82 On the Secretariat’s workload and, in particular, the breadth of the work program and the numerous meetings required, it noted that in order to cope, staff spent much time on processes and procedures for running meetings and too little on the substance and relevance of agenda issues.83

79

Slatter, ‘New Framework’, 50–2; see also Shahar Hameiri, ‘The Region Within: RAMSI, the Pacific Plan and New Modes of Governance in the Southwest Pacific’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 63 (3), 2009, 348–60. 80 Matthew Dornan, ‘PACER Plus is Not Much to Celebrate’, East Asia Forum, 2 June 2017 (online). 81 Pacific Islands Forum, Review of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat – Draft Report, May 2012 (online). 82 Ibid., 4. 83 Ibid., 13.

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Similar problems were raised in comments and recommendations concerning the Pacific Plan. While noting that the Plan was due for a thoroughgoing review, and would likely produce a detailed ‘second generation Pacific Plan’, the report highlighted concerns around ownership of the Plan by member countries as well as the lack of mechanisms for priority setting.84 It went on to note that: [T]he Pacific Plan is not recognised or understood by those actively engaged within each member state in dealing with national planning, budget setting and/ or aid co-ordination. This is a significant issue because achieving many of the goals in the Pacific Plan is dependent upon the national allocation of resources. The lack of engagement by key government officials also limits the value of the current Pacific Plan in co-ordinating donor efforts or aligning work with development partners to achieve agreed regional goals. In many respects this lack of connection within member governments is the responsibility of members to address.85

Most of the report’s commentary, however, concerned the Secretariat’s functioning. When the Forum met for its 43rd summit in 2012, it simply noted that the report would be considered in the forthcoming review of the Plan. The Secretariat was asked, in the meantime, to take account of the recommendations in ongoing corporate and budget reform efforts.86 Given that the report went into areas of the Secretariat’s core business and senior management structure, which were much broader than the Plan, deferral was a weak response, there being ‘no good reason for tying recommendations to improve the effectiveness of [the Secretariat] to a review of the Pacific Plan’.87 The report itself was never released for public scrutiny,88 and one may speculate that it was embarrassing to senior Secretariat personnel who did not want it widely distributed. In the meantime, the region had experienced the fallout from the Global Financial Crisis and global recession over the period 2007–2012 with food and fuel prices increasing significantly and also impacting on tourism, remittances, inflation, demand, output and aid. A report produced by Australian treasury officials noted that Australia had more or less sailed through the crisis and maintained positive growth, which 84

Ibid., 42–4. 85 Ibid., 42. 86 The Communiqué was not available from the Forum’s own website but the full text is at ABC News, 31 August 2012, www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-31/an-forumcommunique/4237098. 87 Dornan, ‘Swept Under the Pandanus Mat’. 88 As noted in Chapter 9, a leaked copy became available via Masalai Blog, masalai​ .wordpress.com/2012/08/25/draft-report-review-of-the-pacific-islands-forum-secretariat/.

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meant, in turn, that remittances, tourism and trade were less affected. The resource-rich island countries were also relatively unscathed, although the SIS were far less able to cushion the impact.89 The report reiterated advice for building greater resilience to external shocks largely along neoliberal lines, including addressing inefficiencies in state-owned enterprises and greater deregulation as well as encouraging greater domestic and overseas competition.90 The same report, however, noted the devastating impact of natural disasters that needed to be taken into account. Since the 1950s, Pacific Island countries had experienced more than 200 disaster events, affecting 3.5 million people and costing in excess of US$6.5 billion. Examples included the following: during disaster years, the World Bank reported average disaster costs of 46 per cent of GDP in Samoa; over the period 1972 to 2004, Fiji suffered annual losses of F$20 million per year from cyclones and storms; the earthquake and accompanying tsunami that hit Solomon Islands in 2007 cost around 90 per cent of the recurrent budget estimate; in Niue the cost of Cyclone Heta in 2004 exceeded the value of GDP by over five times; in 1989, a series of cyclones in Vanuatu resulted in damage and economic losses amounting to twice the national income.91 We may also note that neoliberal solutions to natural disasters are thin on the ground, although market-led disinvestment in fossil fuel industries in favour of renewables provides some hope for the future, although is likely to prove too little too late. 11.4

The Pacific Islands Development Forum

A new development in regional politics occurred when Fiji’s Prime Minister Bainimarama, following Fiji’s suspension from the Forum in 2009, set up the PIDF in 2013. This was preceded by a series of ‘Engaging with the Pacific’ Leaders’ Meetings between 2010 and 2012, organized by Bainimarama, and which sought to bypass the Forum. The first PIDF outcome document noted that some 300 stakeholders attended the 2013 gathering in Fiji, including official attendance by fourteen Pacific Island states. Delegates had also been invited from around the world – from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, the US and Venezuela, plus organizations ranging 89

Patrick Colmer and Richard Wood, ‘Major Economic Shocks and Pacific Island Countries’, paper prepared for High-Level Conference on Pacific Island Countries: Fostering Inclusive Growth and Enhancing Resilience to Shocks (hosted by the IMF and Government of Samoa), 23 March 2012, 2, 6 (online). 90 Ibid., 21. 91 Ibid., 22.

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from Greenpeace, Oxfam and the Red Cross to the UN, the IMF and the ADB.92 Australia and New Zealand were invited but not as ‘core countries’  – only Pacific Island countries were to constitute the core. Samoa, Niue, the Cook Islands and Palau declined to attend. In the end, five heads of government from the Island Pacific turned up while the remainder sent lower-level representatives. The PIDF’s first (interim) director-general, Feleti Teo, maintained that the organization was not intended to replace or compete with existing regional bodies and their programs, but rather to provide a platform specifically for the PSIDS group that would stand apart from the metropolitan powers and operate as a lobby group within the UN. It was also to be distinguished by its multistakeholder makeup, reflecting new thinking at the UN about the need for inclusivity of stakeholders in the private sector and civil society that traditional organizations had not delivered.93 These points were reiterated by the subsequent substantive director-general, François Martel, who said that ‘[the] PIDF provides a Pacific only voice that can make itself heard without interference from developed countries’ while also providing ‘a proper platform for South– South dialogue’.94 On the PSIDS group, one former politician from Fiji said that it also strengthened a Pacific voice, ensuring that the interests of Pacific Island countries would not be compromised by the interests of Australia and New Zealand.95 It was also claimed that the PIDF would have no political or security role, focusing exclusively on the blue/green economy and sustainable development.96 On climate change, Martel pointed out that this really did highlight the division between the Pacific Island states and Australia and New Zealand. ‘If Australia and New Zealand want to be true friends of the Pacific Island Nations then their basic benchmark for any kind of policies related to climate change, should be their closest friends; their most vulnerable communities … the Pacific Islands.’97 Thus, while the PIDF may not have an explicit political agenda or mandate, it was clearly never intended to be apolitical. 92

Pacific Islands Development Forum, Outcome Document, Suva, 2013. 93 Feleti Teo, Interim Director-General, PIDF, personal interview, Suva, 16 September 2014. 94 François Martel, Director-General, PIDF, personal interview, 25 August 2016, Suva. 95 Kaliopate Tavola, ‘Towards a New Regional Diplomacy Architecture’, in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds.), The New Pacific Diplomacy (Canberra: ANU Press, 2016), 27. 96 Sandra Tarte, ‘A New Pacific Regional Voice? The Pacific Islands Development Forum’, in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds.), The New Pacific Diplomacy (Canberra: ANU Press, 2016), 81. 97 Quoted in Len Garae, ‘Exclusive Interview with PIDF Secretary-General’, Vanuatu Daily Post, 2 April 2016 (online).

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By 2021, formal PIDF membership included Fiji, the FSM, Kiribati, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Solomon Islands, East Timor, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu plus two non-state organizations: the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Government Organizations (PIANGO) and the Pacific Islands Private Sector Organization. Missing are Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Niue and any of the French and American territories. The 2019 outcome document claimed that the organization was now the premier regional South–South cooperation platform with ‘a standing of the highest regional and international status’ and that it stood ready ‘to speak in one voice in the defence of the Pacific Islands’ interests and in the future’.98 Invitations had been issued to an unspecified number of countries around the world to attend but relatively few sent representatives. These included Argentina, Australia, Venezuela, China, India, Korea, Kosovo, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore and the UK as well as the EU. An interesting absence on this occasion was Indonesia, especially since it had been so anxious to curry favour with Fiji and other Pacific Island countries in recent years. After a half dozen years of operation, the PIDF had developed a modest international profile and, ‘on paper at least, the usual architecture of a regional body – a Leaders council, executive board, senior officials’ committee, a secretariat, a portfolio of memorandums of understanding with “partner organisations”, a logo and a web-site’.99 And in 2016, it gained observer status at the UN General Assembly. But the only PIDF summit held outside Fiji was hosted by Solomon Islands in 2016 and was poorly attended. There were no summits in 2017 or 2018 apparently because no member state was willing to host one.100 The 2019 meeting was again held in Fiji but, as of 2023, no further summits had been held although the COVID-19 pandemic may have accounted at least partly for a pause. Given that it was Bainimarama’s pet regional project, it was unlikely that Fiji would allow it to simply fade away while his regime remained in power. The new government, however, may do just that, given that Fiji was still providing most of its funding despite expectations that regional members would contribute staff and other resources. Lack of commitment by other members even to attend ‘summits’, let alone host them, certainly does not bode well for its future. Even so, as Aqorou and Bately 98 Pacific Islands Development Forum, Conference Outcome Document, Nadi, 2019, 9 (online). 99 Transform Aqorou and James Bately, ‘The Pacific Islands Development Forum: A Shaky Future?’, In Brief 2019/8 (Canberra: Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University, 2019), 1. 100 Ibid.

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note, organizations are notoriously hard to kill off and the PIDF may retain vestigial value at least as a platform for Fiji’s leadership ambitions (with or without Bainimarama) in the region. 11.5

The Framework for Pacific Regionalism

In 2013 the Pacific Plan underwent a thoroughgoing review led by Sir Mekere Morauta, a former prime minister of Papua New Guinea, which found that the Plan was not delivering. During the course of their investigations, which included wide-ranging consultations with various stakeholders, from NGOs to other non-state actors, the review team had come to question ‘whether the Plan, in its current form, is driving regionalism or, rather, reacting to events and disparate imperatives emerging from other national and international forums’. Its bureaucratic apparatus and processes were found to be cumbersome, its agenda clogged with an unmanageable list of priorities and ownership of the Plan far too limited at the political level. Despite this, leaders ‘attach importance to the Plan and to getting it right’.101 A consistent message emerging from consultations was, first, that the principle of creating links between the sovereign countries of the region and identifying where the region could gain from sharing resources, governance and aligning policies remained valid even if they had not progressed very far; and second, that a framework for articulating and guiding the priorities and processes of regional integration was still needed.102 But Forum members needed to ‘reflect on how ready they are for deeper forms of integration, including difficult issues such as sharing sovereignty and the recognition of regional priorities that may not always equate to national priorities’.103 This reflected previous observations about insufficient ‘political buy-in’ from leaders with an agenda driven largely by officials and regional agencies.104 Other criticisms were more specific in suggesting that the agenda was dominated by donors  – with too much power vested in Australia and to a lesser extent New Zealand  – rather than ownership being exercised by Pacific Island countries.105 These echoed criticisms from the civil society sector. But if this was indeed the 101 Pacific Islands Forum, Pacific Plan Review 2013: Report to Pacific Leaders, vol. 1 (Suva: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2013), 17. 102 Ibid. 103 Mekere Morauta, ‘Preface’, in Forum, Pacific Plan Review, 3. 104 Dame Meg Taylor, ‘The Future of the Pacific Islands Forum and the Framework for Pacific Regionalism’, in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds.), The New Pacific Diplomacy (Canberra: ANU Press, 2016), 42. 105 Tess Newton-Cain, ‘Rebuild or Reform: Regional and Subregional Architecture in the Pacific Island Region’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 140 (January–June), 2015, 53.

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case, then it indicated a vacuum in Island leadership in controlling the agenda and driving the Plan forwards. The issue of the extent to which Australia and New Zealand, as major donors, wielded undue influence or pressure on Island Forum members was also addressed by the review team. Their conclusions, however, did not accord with those supporting the general notion of hegemonic regionalism exercised by Australia in particular. The assertion ‘was frequently put to the Review, and regularly appears in academic and media commentaries, but the Review found little or no evidence of any Machiavellian donor influence on the agenda’.106 Further, the arguments of those opposed to the participation of Australia and New Zealand in the Forum ‘were for the most part jingoistic or poorly informed’.107 The review went on to note that: The consensus among the most sagacious of the Review’s interviewees was that the metropolitan countries have a uniquely important role to play in the Forum … they have substantial populations of Pacific islanders and remitting diasporas; they are integrated into the region’s political, commercial and transport networks; and they are the countries that this vulnerable region turns to in humanitarian and environmental crises, security hiatuses and other emergencies. They are also dependent on the Pacific Ocean, its resources and rights of passage across it, and they are affected by its trans-boundary threats.108

Having said that, the Review suggested that donor dialogues might be better managed by distinguishing more clearly between the conversations that a ‘donor member country’ may wish to have as a member, from the conversations it may wish to have as a donor. More clearly disaggregated platforms for those two different dialogues on both political and aid-effectiveness grounds was therefore required. The Review emphasized that this was not a commentary on membership but rather that there are two different types of conversation to be had, at different times and in different places.109 Although the Review team had not been tasked with enquiring into Forum membership, many stakeholders had nonetheless expressed opinions on the subject, including the distinction between ‘self-determining’ and other forms of territorial sovereignty in defining eligibility for full membership that, it was reported, appeared ‘flawed in terms of the contemporary requirements and parameters of regionalism’. The argument was that the Forum had moved well beyond its early agenda of supporting 106 107 108 109

Pacific Islands Forum, Plan Review 2013, 71. Ibid., 79. Ibid. Ibid.

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decolonization and advocating for a nuclear-free Pacific. Issues in contemporary regionalism, such as trade and transport, were now entirely within the mandate of non-self-determining territories to resolve, ‘and regionalism would be better served by fully including, not excluding, such territories in the debate’.110 This kind of thinking was undoubtedly behind the decision of Forum members to grant full membership to the French territories. The Review proposed that the Plan be recast as a ‘Framework for Pacific Regionalism’. A new Framework should reassert the original leaders’ visions and expand it to take account of important subregional differences, including those of the SIS group – namely, the Cook Islands, the FSM, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu. As we have seen, the SIS group had been established within the Forum in 1990–1991 to focus on their special needs as countries facing special challenges in terms of vulnerability, sustainability and resilience. The Review further noted that much regional activity related to service delivery by CROP agencies and that little had been achieved by the Plan itself. The key challenge, as always, lay in delivering concrete improvement to the lives of those covered by any plan or framework.111 In 2014, Forum members formally endorsed the Framework for Pacific Regionalism  – effectively a recasting of the Plan  – prefaced by a Forum Leaders’ Statement that reiterated the challenges facing the Pacific Island countries in terms of ‘complex vulnerabilities, dependencies, and uncertainties that arise for countries and communities as our region changes with modernity, the processes of globalisation, and the damaging effects of climate change’. The Pacific Way made its ritual appearance, this time posited as ‘the expression of a common sense of identity and purpose leading progressively to the sharing of institutions, resources, and markets, with the purpose of complementing national efforts, overcoming common constraints, and enhancing sustainable and inclusive development’.112 The new Framework adopted similar objectives to those of the Plan: sustainable development; inclusive economic growth; strengthened governance; and security to ensure ‘stable and safe human, environmental and political conditions’. But it also included a process for setting priorities that the Plan had lacked and limited the number of priorities to be 110 Ibid., 78. 111 Ibid., 82. 112 Pacific Islands Forum, Framework for Pacific Regionalism (Suva: Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, 2014) (online). Note that on the issue of climate change, the Plan had incorporated concerns about this in 2009 under its sustainable development pillar, along with a more specific commitment to improving lives and well-being.

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considered at any one time, noting that their proliferation under the Plan had produced a clogged agenda with no clear pathway for real action. Proposals for new regional initiatives could be put forward by any interested stakeholder in accordance with a range of ‘tests’ for regional action and implementation: a market test, a sovereignty test, a regionalism test, a benefit test, a political oversight test, a risk and sustainability test, and a duplication test. A Specialist Sub-Committee on Regionalism (SSCR) would present leaders, via a Forum Officials’ Committee, with summaries and recommendations on focused initiatives. No more than five, ongoing or new, would be considered at any one time, giving leaders more time to debate the most important issues.113 The bottom line for some critics, however, was that it retained the core elements of the neoliberal economic agenda, albeit in a more palatable form.114 Others, however, hailed the Framework as perhaps ushering in a new ‘post-hegemonic regionalism’.115 This took its inspiration from regional developments in Latin America where moves to eliminate neoliberal strictures imposed by the World Bank and IMF had led to new forms of regional political interactions and projects with states, social movements and leaders producing ‘new understandings of the regional space’.116 Given the greater scope provided for the role of civil society in the Framework, at least in formulating priorities, there are some resonances with the experiences reported from Latin American. A new, proactive Forum secretary-general, Dame Meg Taylor, had also been appointed around this time  – a change at the top that was likely to see the new Framework driven forwards. In its first year of operation, the Forum’s call for proposals attracted sixty-eight submissions, with twenty-seven of those coming from NGOs and professional associations and twenty-three from regional and international agencies. Pacific governments, educational institutions, individuals and private sector groups made up the rest.117 This illustrates the broader base for participation facilitated by the Framework. The new process saw the SSCR select five issues as having met the various tests, thereby warranting prioritization under the Framework: fisheries, climate change,

113 Ibid., 3–10. 114 Slatter, ‘New Framework’, 61. 115 See, for example, Helen Leslie and Kirsty Wild, ‘Post-hegemonic Regionalism in Oceania: Examining the Development Potential of the New Framework for Pacific Regionalism’, Pacific Review, 31 (1), 2018, 20–37. 116 Pia Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie, ‘The Rise of Post-Hegemonic Regionalism in Latin America’, in Pia Riggirozzi and Diana Tussie (eds.), The Rise of Post-hegemonic Regionalism: The Case of Latin America (Heidelberg: Springer Dordrecht, 2012), 3. 117 Leslie and Wild, ‘Post-Hegemonic Regionalism’, 28.

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information communications technology, cervical cancer prevention and West Papua118 – an interesting mix of commercial, environmental, technical, health and political concerns that leaders now had more time to discuss. The 2016 Forum Communiqué showed, however, that while some issues elicited considerable attention, others did not. There was a lengthy report on fisheries, for example, but very little on cervical cancer prevention beyond the need for a regional bulk procurement program for the vaccine, noting at the same time that UN Children’s Fund had already made a program available.119 From a political viewpoint, West Papua was perhaps the most challenging issue – and one that had not appeared on the Forum’s agenda since 2006. Its emergence a decade on reflected a significant rise in lobbying among Pacific Island countries – especially Solomon Islands at this time – as well as non-state groups such as the FLNKS, the ULMWP and PIANGO. The full extent of the Forum’s statement was that: ‘Leaders recognised the political sensitivities of the issue of West Papua (Papua) and agreed the issue of alleged human rights violations in West Papua (Papua) should remain on their agenda. Leaders also agreed on the importance of an open and constructive dialogue with Indonesia on the issue.’120 It also proposed a Forum ‘fact-finding mission’, although this was subsequently refused by Indonesia on the grounds that it was offensive. Given its contentious nature, and Papua New Guinea’s sensitivities in view of its relations with Indonesia, the presence of the West Papua issue on the agreed listing of priority areas was especially noteworthy, being a hard political issue of the type that the Forum had previously been loath to raise. It has since retained prominence, especially with the formation of a Pacific Coalition for West Papua initiated by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sogavare (who was also chair of the MSG at the time), which continues to act as an additional international lobby group, taking the matter beyond the region to international bodies, including the UN Human Rights Council.121 We return to the issue of West Papua in Chapter 12. The other challenging subject making the final five priorities in the Framework’s first year was climate change. This put Australia and New Zealand at odds with the key concerns of Island countries, and the Forum’s SIS group in particular, which had been given special

118 119 120 121

Pacific Islands Forum, Communiqué, Papua New Guinea, 8–10 September 2015. Pacific Islands Forum, Communiqué, Pohnpei, 8–10 September 2016, 3–4. Ibid., 3. See Johnny Blades, ‘Pacific Islands Stand Ground on West Papua Push’, Interpreter, Lowy Institute, 7 August 2019 (online).

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recognition in Framework processes and priorities.122 It was not the first time the issue had been on the Forum agenda but it now gained additional momentum. At the 2015 Forum summit, the SIS group issued their own Port Moresby Declaration on Climate Change, calling, among other things, for the forthcoming Paris climate conference (COP21) to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.123 The wider Forum also issued a Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Declaration on Climate Change Action, and extended two current regional frameworks  – the Pacific Islands Framework for Action on Climate Change and the Pacific Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Management Framework for Action – for another year.124 The position of Australia and New Zealand – both at the time under conservative leadership, and indeed with Australia’s Tony Abbott having a well-deserved reputation for climate change denialism – was one of intransigence on the 1.5°C target, maintaining support for the 2°C target in the face of pressure from Island leaders. This meant that Pacific leaders could not take a formal Forum commitment to 1.5°C to Paris although they agreed that the SIS group could do so. However, only a week ahead of the Forum meeting in Port Moresby, the PIDF held its third annual summit, issuing their own Suva Declaration on Climate Change that supported ‘limiting warming to well below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels’.125 One other development at the Forum’s 2015 summit was the Hiri Declaration on Strengthening Connections to Enhance Pacific Regionalism which specifically supported Framework goals and ambitions.126 It is said to have effectively replaced the Auckland Declaration as ‘the basis for political support for the regional project’,127 although it is perhaps more accurately described as an update. Either way, it attracted little attention from the usual academic or media commentariat. Much more attention was given to the 2018 Boe Declaration on Regional Security – an update of the 2000 Biketawa Declaration. The Boe Declaration now placed greater emphasis on environmental issues in general, and climate 122



123 124 125 126 127

See Pacific Islands Forum, Smaller Island States Regional Strategy 2016–2020, adopted at the Special Smaller Island States Leaders’ Meeting, Koror, Palau, 24 June 2016 (online). Pacific Islands Forum, Smaller Island States Leaders’ Port Moresby Declaration on Climate Change, 7 September 2015 (online). Pacific Islands Forum, Communiqué, 2015, 3. Pacific Islands Development Forum, 2015 Suva Declaration on Climate Change, Suva (online), emphasis added. Pacific Islands Forum, Hiri Declaration on Strengthening Connections to Enhance Pacific Regionalism, 2015 (online). Matthew Dornan and Tess Newton Cain, ‘The Moresby Forum: A Reframed Pacific Regionalism?’, DevPolicyBlog, 30 September 2015 (online).

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change in particular, as presenting the most significant security threats to the Island Pacific and, in turn, to economic prosperity in the region. This accorded with a human security paradigm capable of embracing a wide array of both environmental and social concerns, although notably lacking were gender issues and their implications for peace and security.128 The 2016 Forum meeting saw further priorities announced: people with disabilities, oceans, regional mobility and harmonization of business practices while the 2017 meeting, building on the theme of ‘oceans’, seized on the idea of the ‘Blue Pacific’ as an inspirational motif underpinning the entire regional project: Leaders recognised The Blue Pacific as a new narrative that calls for inspired leadership and a long-term Forum foreign policy commitment to act as one ‘Blue Continent’. In considering the shifts in the global and regional contexts, Leaders recognised the opportunity of The Blue Pacific identity to reinforce the potential of our shared stewardship of the Pacific Ocean and reaffirm the connections of Pacific peoples with their natural resources, environment, culture and livelihoods…. The Blue Pacific is the catalyst for deeper Pacific regionalism.129

According to Dame Meg Taylor, this narrative succeeded in ‘building solidarity and shifting the prevailing narrative of the region as small, dependent and vulnerable’.130 Other commentators agree: ‘the Blue Pacific empowers Pacific Island countries by giving them agency to frame and tell their own narratives and map their own spaces and places – their region – in the face of overwhelming global interest by powers who want to draw Oceania into their maps and agendas’.131 As with the more general Framework, it is incumbent on the leaders to maintain momentum, balancing individual national interests with collective regional action. The geostrategic environment in which this has been occurring, and in which the dynamics of development aid and political economy now operate, include other major players, among which China now stands as the most important in the region. Moreover, the threatened withdrawal of the Micronesian states over the appointment of Dame Meg’s successor as secretary-general obviously detracted very substantially from the ambitions expressed in the Blue Pacific narrative, although a crisis was in the end averted. 128 Nicole George, ‘Gender Security and Australia’s 2018 Pacific Pivot: Stalled Impetus and Shallow Roots’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 73 (3), 2019, 213–18. 129 Pacific Islands Forum, Communiqué, Apia, 5–8 September 2017, 3. 130 Dame Meg Taylor, ‘Framing the Blue Pacific through a Strategic Lens’, Matangi Tonga, 19 February 2019 (online). 131 Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, ‘Mapping the Blue Pacific in a Changing Regional Order’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China Alternative? Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), 41–2.

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11.6 Conclusion Oceania has been enmeshed in globalization processes that had their beginnings in exploration, colonization and the rise of capitalism. The end of the Cold War ushered in a period in which these processes became underpinned by a distinctive set of neoliberal values and practices that instigated in turn a new agenda for aid and development throughout the global South. Oceania’s metropolitan powers (i.e., Australia and New Zealand) had adopted neoliberal strategies promoting deregulation and privatization in their own domestic spheres that made it almost inevitable that aid and development policy for the Island Pacific would follow suit. Advocates of reform in the 1990s pushed these strategies as a remedy for all the ills of Pacific Island countries and certainly played up the idea of a looming ‘doomsday scenario’ if Island leaders failed to grasp the nettle. By the time the Pacific Plan was adopted by Forum members in 2005 it was generally recognized that structural adjustment strategies inspired by neoliberal ideas had largely failed to deliver the promised outcomes and, although the Plan still reflected elements of the neoliberal agenda, its impact was limited. A principal purpose, however, had been to foster ways and means of addressing economies of scale and increasing efficiencies by pooling scarce resources across a range of key activities. But it neither inspired Island leaders nor engaged civil society groups, failing to reach grassroots communities in any substantial way. The best that can be said is that it enhanced opportunities for existing regional agencies to pursue their own programs and agendas. Its lack of success in pursuing broader regional integration strategies, however, probably had as much to do with the Forum Secretariat’s modus operandi at the time that, as the Morauta Review found, itself scarcely engaged Island leaders or their communities. Whether the Framework for Pacific Regionalism – and the Secretariat itself – is able to sustain more effective engagement across the board and produce more tangible outcomes in the longer term remains to be seen, although Dame Meg’s proactive approach from 2014 proved to be a positive influence. The shift from the Plan to the Framework has also been seen as signalling the rise of ‘a new era of post-hegemonic regionalism’. Whether it can really be read in this way is open to question, not least because it would require all earlier periods to be characterized as ‘hegemonic’, which in turn implies that Pacific Island states had been unable to exercise agency to any real effect. Other developments, however, may be seen as asserting a more independent stance, and the establishment of the PIDF operating independently of the metropolitan powers is perhaps more readily

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characterized as ‘post-hegemonic’. Then there are the three subregional organizations based on the Melanesia/Micronesia/Polynesia division that also operate independently of metropolitan powers and, in the case of the MSG, have done so for some considerable time. But the issue of ­hegemony/post-hegemony in the present period invites ­consideration of other actors in the region, including Indonesia and China. These and related geopolitical issues are addressed in Chapter 12.

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12

Geopolitics in the Pacific Century

The twenty-first century has long been touted as the period in which the centre of gravity in world affairs will shift decisively in accordance with the spectacular economic growth in the broad Asia-Pacific region over the last five decades or so, precipitating a shift in the distribution of geopolitical power. The complex contours of the geopolitical landscape, and the seascape for that matter, are increasingly shaped by strategic concerns centred on the rise of China  – concerns implicit in the concept of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). Previous conceptions of the Asia-Pacific super-region generally assigned little importance to the countries of the Island Pacific, especially in the early post–Cold War period when strategic denial – of the USSR by the US and allies – lapsed into a period of benign neglect. The Island Pacific now looms rather larger in the context of Indo-Pacific geopolitical dynamics, with various strategies of ‘rebalancing’ and ‘pledging’, ‘stepping up’ and ‘resetting’, by the US, Australia and New Zealand, among others, now deployed as counters to China’s growing influence, whether articulated specifically in those terms or not. How Oceania fits into the contemporary picture is complicated by these dynamics, but identity politics in one form or another is certainly part of the story. Australia and New Zealand have emphasized a shared regional history with the Island Pacific along with common interests and values, thus asserting a shared identity. The US, too, claims a Pacific identity and longstanding common interests and values. But traditional metropolitan powers are now challenged by ‘non-traditional’ actors in Oceania, especially China, which provide alternative conceptions of a common identity as it continues to pose as a developing country, asserting that its partnerships fall under the rubric of ‘South–South’ cooperation, which carries its own ideological overtones. Identity politics also figures in ongoing issues surrounding Indonesia and West Papua  – issues that have become increasingly internationalized within Oceania and beyond. These have proved problematic for the MSG, with divisions emerging over how different members perceive 326

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their own interests as well as how their identities as Melanesians play out. A further aspect of both the Indonesia/West Papua issue as well as the role of China concerns colonialism or neocolonialism. While studies in colonialism have focused almost exclusively on European or Western colonialism and its legacies, the case of West Papua in particular suggests that the focus needs to be expanded. Standard perspectives are also challenged by analyses that cast China as a neocolonial power with hegemonic ambitions. Both these cases invite a reassessment of conventional postcolonial approaches. 12.1

Indonesia and the Internationalization of the West Papua Issue

In the early years of both the Forum and the MSG, the issue of West Papua scarcely registered on the agenda of either organization. The Dutch had departed the region in 1962 with West Papua subsequently becoming part of Indonesia, thereby shifting its political geographic location to Southeast Asia. But the issue has grown significantly over the last two decades, both in Oceania and beyond, due to unremitting activism on the part of West Papuans within the Indonesian state as well as a small but effective band of activists in exile and supporters in various parts of the world. Although consistently denied by Indonesia, atrocities are well documented, showing that rape, torture, forced cannibalism, sexual mutilation and outright murder on a significant scale have been used to terrorize the Papuan population.1 Together with policies of transmigration, the killings are said to amount to genocide. If the aim was to reduce the Papuan population to a minority, this was achieved by the time of the 2010 Indonesian census when the nonPapuan population reached just over 50 per cent.2 None of this appears to have dampened West Papuan nationalist sentiments, with a new generation of activists continuing the demand for self-determination.3 And they have found receptive audiences both regionally and in the wider international sphere.

1

John Braithwaite, Valerie Braithwaite, Michael Cookson and Leah Dunn, Anomie and Violence: Non-truth and Reconciliation in Indonesian Peacebuilding (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2010), 61–3. 2 Jim Elmslie, West Papuan Demographic Transition and the 2010 Indonesian Census: “Slow Motion Genocide” or Not?, CPACS WP 11/1 (Sydney: Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, 2010). 3 Jim Elmslie, Camilla Webb-Gannon with Peter King, Anatomy of an Occupation: The Indonesian Military in West Papua (Sydney: Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, 2011), 2.

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A boost in West Papua’s international profile came at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 when leaders from Nauru, Vanuatu and Tuvalu declared support for West Papuan independence, the first time any countries had done so since Indonesia’s takeover. A month later, four West Papuans were included in the Nauru delegation to the 31st Forum summit meeting in Kiribati, resulting in the Forum issuing ‘an unprecedented statement calling for peaceful dialogue on the future of the country, and an end to human rights abuses’.4 While continuing to acknowledge Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua, subsequent Forum Communiqués have included expressions of concern about human rights, although at times it has slipped off the agenda. Indonesia has been a regular Post-Forum Dialogue partner since 1989 and therefore has a formal presence at the Forum summit, allowing it to exert some influence. In 2008, International Parliamentarians for West Papua was launched in the UK Parliament. As of 2021, it had a membership of around 140, composed substantially of current and former MPs from the UK, Australia and New Zealand with smaller numbers from European countries, the US and the Pacific.5 Another group, International Lawyers for West Papua, was launched in the Netherlands in late 2014.6 ‘Free West Papua’ (or ‘Free Papua’) offices also operate in the UK (since 2013) and in Australia (since 2015). Indonesia has consistently opposed these groups, attempting to pressure the countries that host them to close them down. Closer to home, West Papuans have found their strongest support in Vanuatu. It was here that independence leader and first prime minister, Walter Lini, enunciated the oft-quoted phrase: ‘Vanuatu will not be fully free until all Melanesians are free’.7 In June 2010, Vanuatu’s national parliament unanimously passed the Wantok Bilong Yumi Bill in support of West Papuan independence and committing Vanuatu to push for observer status for West Papua in both the MSG and the Forum and to advocate for West Papuans at the UN. In June 2014, Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Moana Carcasses addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, calling for international action. Appealing directly to then Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Carcasses accused the international 4

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, ‘Submission to Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee’ (Australia), Inquiry into Australia’s Relationship with Papua New Guinea and Other Pacific Island Countries, 8 July 2002, 26 (online). 5 International Parliamentarians for West Papua, www.ipwp.org/. 6 International Lawyers for West Papua, www.ilwp.nl/language/en/. 7 Quoted in Jonas Cullwick. ‘Vanuatu PM Made Strong Stand for West Papua, Kanaks at MSG’, Pacific Islands Report, East-West Centre, 8 July 2013 (online).

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community of ‘blatant negligence’ in their refusal to confront human rights issues and further called for the establishment of a UN country mandate to investigate.8 In early 2013, Solomon Islands announced support for West Papua’s bid for MSG membership at the summit later that year in New Caledonia,9 although this did not eventuate. In the lead-up to the MSG’s Honiara summit in June 2015, both local and visiting activists were busy raising public awareness and lobbying Solomon Islands politicians to support the West Papuan cause. A local newspaper applied the wantok concept as a symbol of solidarity, declaring that ‘Melanesians must not lose sight of the continued struggle and suffering our wantoks in West Papua are going through and their aspiration for regional and global recognition’.10 As for West Papuans themselves, they have increasingly identified with their ‘ethnic cousins’ to the east and local traditions in West Papua ‘have been mobilized and expressed in the language of a new cultural Melanesianism’.11 The West Papuan quest for recognition was also championed by former Vanuatu Prime Minister Joe Natuman. However, he was toppled by pro-Indonesia Sato Kilman just days before the June 2015 MSG meeting. Vanuatu’s previous strong support for full West Papuan membership of the MSG evaporated almost overnight under Kilman’s leadership, although it was regenerated after his departure from office. Another former prime minister of Vanuatu, Edward Natapei, suspected an Indonesian hand in the vote of no confidence that saw Kilman’s return to the top post and therefore as the voting head of government at the MSG summit.12 Support for West Papua from Papua New Guinea and Fiji has been tempered by their own interests in maintaining relations with Indonesia. In the early 1980s, Indonesian incursions had become a serious source of tension in relations with Papua New Guinea given reports of military incursions and other encroachments by Indonesia across their shared border. In 1984, around 12,000 West Papuans crossed into Papua New Guinea seeking refuge, creating further major difficulties, including with local Papua 8 Moana Carcasses, Speech at High Level Segment, 5th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council, Geneva, Pacific Islands Report, East-West Centre, 4 March 2014 (online). 9 Scoop Media, ‘Solomon Islands Govt Supports WPNCL Full Membership of MSG’, 30 April 2013 (online). 10 ‘Why MSG Must Stand with West Papua’, Solomon Star, 13 May 2015 (online). 11 David Webster, ‘“Already Sovereign as a People”: A Foundational Moment in West Papuan Nationalism’, Pacific Affairs, 74 (4), 2001–2002, 525. 12 ‘Vanuatu No-Confidence Vote Linked to West Papua MSG Membership: Natapei’, ABC News, 30 June 2015 (online).

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New Guinea villagers. Indonesia and Papua New Guinea subsequently negotiated a Treaty of Mutual Respect, Friendship and Cooperation, although most of its provisions were already covered by a previous agreement. Tensions eased, but border incidents continue from time to time.13 Fiji also has significant vested interests in the relationship with Indonesia through military and commercial links, and both Papua New Guinea and Fiji risk ‘diplomatic and commercial blowback’ as the price for any support they may give for West Papuans in the MSG.14 Indonesia is, after all, the largest country in terms of population in the vicinity of the Melanesian subregion and an important player in the politics of the newly branded Indo-Pacific region. The depth of Indonesian engagement with Fiji became apparent at the 2013 PIDF meeting. President Yudhoyono had been the chief guest and keynote speaker at an event focused on climate change and sustainable development. His was the first visit to Fiji by a serving Indonesian president. Yudhoyono committed to increases in aid and engagement with Pacific Island states, promising US$20 million over five years to address climate change and natural disasters, and speaking of plans to triple trade to a billion dollars in coming years while outlining how Indonesia ‘could act as a bridge for Pacific and Indian Ocean states’, thereby ‘offering Indonesia as a conduit by which Pacific Island nations, especially Fiji, could interact with not only the dynamic Asian region, but also the wider world’.15 Both Papua New Guinea’s and Fiji’s then current prime ministers, Peter O’Neill and Frank Bainimarama respectively, declared unequivocal support for Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua in the lead-up to the next MSG meeting, having previously pushed for granting Indonesia observer status in the organization in 2011. In early 2015, however, O’Neill spoke out against ‘the oppression of our people’ (i.e., fellow Melanesians) in West Papua, and said that Papua New Guinea, as a ‘regional leader’, had a ‘moral obligation to speak for those who are not allowed to talk’.16 This was a rare statement from a Papua New Guinean prime minister. But 13 R. J. May, Fifty Years after the ‘Act of Free Choice’: The West Papua Issue in a Regional Context, DP 2021/1 (Canberra: Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University, 2021), 6. 14 Sally Andrews, ‘West Papua: Melanesian Spearhead Group Has Tough Choices to make’, Interpreter, 3 April 2015 (online). 15 Jim Elmslie, ‘Indonesian Diplomatic Maneuvering in Melanesia: Challenges and Opportunities’, in Rouben Azizian and Carleton Cramer (eds.), Regionalism, Security and Cooperation in Oceania (Honolulu: Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2015), 103–4. 16 Quoted in Jemima Garret, ‘Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill Vows to Speak Out Against Melanesian “Oppression” in West Papua’, ABC News, 6 February 2015 (online).

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he later said that West Papuans should be represented in the MSG, not by the pro-independence groups who were not ‘legitimate’ representatives, but by the governors of the relevant provinces.17 Whether this idea originated with O’Neill rather than Indonesia is difficult to say, but it was to carry much weight at the 2015 Honiara summit. Papua New Guinea, incidentally, has observer status at ASEAN but aspires to full membership, for which it must have Indonesian support. The remaining MSG member, the FLNKS, which chaired the organization from 2013 to 2015, has stood much more firmly behind the West Papuan cause. It would be difficult to do otherwise, given its own status. In declaring support for full membership for the ULMWP, and opposition to the enhancement of Indonesia’s status, FLNKS leader Victor Tutugoro said that as a Melanesian political movement dedicated to promoting solidarity with other colonized people, the FLNKS was opposed to Indonesia, which was not a Melanesian country, becoming part of the organization.18 Previously, at the 2013 summit in New Caledonia, West Papuans had submitted an application for observer status through one of several major pro-independence groups, the West Papua National Council for Liberation (WPNCL), supported by the FLNKS as host. Ahead of the meeting, however, Indonesia had invited MSG members to undertake a ‘fact-finding’ mission in West Papua. Vanuatu, with pro-West Papuan Carcasses as prime minister and Natapei as foreign minister, boycotted the delegation after it was discovered that the program arranged by Indonesia precluded meeting with NGOs or church groups let alone pro-independence leaders or anyone likely to be critical of Indonesia. As it turns out, they were correct in their assumptions, as Indonesian authorities arrested a number of West Papuan activists who attempted to contact the MSG delegates.19 Following the mission, the MSG and Indonesia issued a joint statement that merely reiterated the mantra of inviolate state sovereignty, declaring that they all ‘supported [the] respective sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity and the principle of non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, consistent with the Charter of the United Nations’.20 17 ‘PNG PM O’Neill Calls for West Papua Provincial Governors to Represent Interests in MSG’, ABC News, 15 May 2015 (online). 18 Quoted in Nic Maclellan, ‘FLNKS Supports Melanesia Bid’, Pacific Island News Association, 24 June 2015 (online). 19 ‘Vanuatu Defends Boycott of Melanesian Spearhead Group Delegation to Indonesia’s Papua Province’, ABC News, 16 January 2014 (online). 20 Ina Parlina and Margareth S. Aritonang, ‘Melanesians Respect RI’s Sovereignty’ Jakarta Post, 16 January 2014 (online).

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The WPNCL subsequently failed in its bid for observer status, the reason given that its claim to represent 2.5 million West Papuans could not be substantiated. This argument had been promoted by Indonesia, which had ‘pressured members to refuse West Papua a place unless dissident groups were represented by a single entity and voice’.21 But this at least gave West Papuan activists clear criteria to meet. A second application was submitted by a new, larger and more representative umbrella coalition – the ULMWP – and it was this application that went before the official 20th MSG summit in Honiara in June 2015. The MSG’s Honiara decision resulted in limited recognition for the ULMWP on the basis that the organization only represented West Papuans resident outside of Indonesia. The notion that it would represent West Papuans within Indonesia would have compromised recognition of Indonesian sovereignty, which the MSG appeared determined not to do. At the same time, Indonesia was elevated to associate membership with its strongest support coming from Papua New Guinea and Fiji, although Vanuatu’s Sato Kilman also adopted a pro-Indonesian line – the only leader of Vanuatu to have ever done so. Kilman’s support for Indonesia was almost certainly conditioned by ‘aid diplomacy’  – a term tantamount to buying influence at best. The question of Indonesia’s representation at future MSG meetings raised other issues. The Communiqué anticipated that representation would be through the governors of Indonesia’s Melanesian provinces, but, although there are only two West Papuan provinces, the provision was for five governors.22 The intention was to extend the Indonesian definition of Melanesia’s boundary to include Maluku, North Maluku and East Nusa Tenggara on the basis that these provinces also contain Melanesian people. In fact, by including these provinces, Indonesia claimed to have around eleven million Melanesians altogether  – many more than the rest of the Melanesian countries put together, and certainly more than the two million or so West Papuans. The ethnicity of people in Maluku, North Maluku and East Nusa Tenggara, however, is predominantly proto-Malay, attuned to Malay culture and never previously identified as Melanesian.23 Ironically, Indonesia had previously opposed any assertion of Melanesian identity in these provinces, for among ‘Indonesians’ there were no distinctions

21

Netani Rika, ‘Indonesia Puts Pressure on Vanuatu: Leaders Choose Regional Solidarity Over Bully’, Islands Business Magazine, January 2015 (online). 22 Melanesian Spearhead Group, Communiqué, 25 June 2015 (online). 23 Fenneke Sysling, Racial Science and Human Diversity in Colonial Indonesia (Singapore: NUS Press, 2016); see also Wangge and Lawson, ‘The West Papua Issue’.

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to be made along cultural/ethnic lines. But in the context of its bid to join the MSG, Indonesia’s Melanesian credentials were now to be burnished – and exaggerated – highlighting once again the importance attached to identities in regional political contexts. How much weight these claims actually carried in the MSG is uncertain, but in supporting Indonesia’s bid for associate membership, Fiji’s foreign minister had no difficulty in declaring that Indonesia had ‘the largest Melanesian population in the world – more than all the other members combined’.24 It is highly unlikely that the statement was based on any actual ethnographic knowledge on the minister’s part, but rather a concern to nurture alternative diplomatic relations to those with ‘traditional partners’ at a time when it was suspended by the Forum. Reaction to the MSG’s decision on Indonesia and West Papua was mixed. For some it was a sell-out to Indonesia but for others the admission of the ULMWP to observer status meant that it had gained at least some form of international recognition for West Papuans. An opinion piece in the Jakarta Post said that the MSG’s recognition of Indonesia’s Melanesian groups opened up new opportunities for dialogue to advance recognition of Melanesian cultural distinctiveness and human rights issues.25 A New Zealand news source opined that Melanesian nations had ‘taken the lead in trying to broker a peaceful future for Indonesia’s contested West Papuan provinces’.26 The ULMWP’s secretary-general, Octo Mote, was also reported as putting ‘a positive spin on the development, saying the diplomatic recognition would help them to focus international attention on human rights abuses in the province’.27 Others noted that while the ULMWP’s bid faced difficult conditions in providing proof of their unity and representativeness, no such conditions were placed on Indonesia’s membership bid. Also rejected were claims by prime ministers O’Neill and Bainimarama that the ULMWP’s case was different to that of the FLNKS, because they were located outside of their home country.28 But given Indonesia’s record of violent responses to dissent in West Papua, ULMWP leaders could scarcely be located within it. In 2017, Vanuatu announced its intention to submit a resolution to the General Assembly calling for West Papua’s inscription on the 24

‘Questions over Indonesian Claim to Have Over 11 Million Melanesians’, Radio New Zealand, 13 April 2011 (online). 25 Budi Hernawan, ‘Contesting Melanesia: The Summit and the Dialogue’, Jakarta Post, 8 July 2015 (online). 26 Stefan Armbruster, ‘Melanesia Takes Lead on Brokering Peace for West Papua’, Pacific Scoop, 27 June 2015 (online). 27 Quoted in Liam Fox, ‘West Papuans Given Melanesia Bloc Access, But Not Full Membership’, 27 June 2015 (online). 28 ‘MSG Denied Us’, Solomon Star, 30 June 2015 (online).

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decolonization list.29 This followed a ruling in September 2017 by the chair of the UN’s Decolonization Committee who rejected a petition calling for West Papua to be listed on the grounds that it could only deal with the seventeen states defined as non-self-governing territories on its existing list. Indonesia, incidentally, was on the committee and its representative called the petition ‘a hoax and separatist propaganda’.30 Indonesia also accused Vanuatu of diverting attention from its own human rights problems, adding that, ‘[i]n this regard, the Indonesian Government is prepared to work and co-operate with the Government of Vanuatu in their efforts to address various human rights violation and abuses against the people of Vanuatu’, including ‘violence against women, corporal punishment against minors, appalling prison condition [sic], including torture of prisoners, and other challenges’.31 But Vanuatu has remained especially active and in 2019 included senior ULMWP members as part of its delegation at the UN General Assembly, the Forum in Tuvalu and the ACP group.32 The Forum meeting in Tuvalu called on both Indonesia and the UN commissioner to finalize the timing of a visit to West Papua, and to submit an evidence-based report on the situation there.33 In the same year, the ACP group of seventy-nine member states passed a resolution ‘calling for urgent attention to be paid to the ongoing human rights crisis in West Papua’.34 Indonesia has not cooperated in allowing the UN human rights commissioner to conduct an investigation and, when this was highlighted in a speech to the UN by Vanuatu’s prime minister, Bob Loughman, in 2020, it accused Vanuatu of an ‘excessive and unhealthy obsession’ with the issue.35 There has been considerable support at grassroots level across the Island Pacific, especially in Melanesia. Organized lobby groups include the Fiji Solidarity Movement for West Papua’s Freedom, Solomon Islands for West Papua and the Papua New Guinea Union for a Free West Papua.36 29 ‘When the World Discovered the Pacific’, Radio New Zealand, 24 December 2018 (online). 30 ‘UN Committee Rejects West Papua Independence Petition’, Radio New Zealand, 30 September 2017 (online). 31 Quoted in ‘Pacific Concern Relayed at UN over West Papua Abuses’, Radio New Zealand, 2 March 2017 (online). 32 ‘Vanuatu and Solomons Raise Papua at UN Rights Council’, Radio New Zealand, 18 September 2019 (online). 33 Ibid. 34 ‘79 ACP States Call for Human Rights Situation in West Papua to be Addressed’, Vanuatu Daily Post, 15 December 2019 (online). 35 ‘Indonesia Lashes Out at Vanuatu over West Papua at the UN’, Radio New Zealand, 28 September 2020 (online). 36 Nele Tebay, ‘Addressing the Papua Issue in the Pacific’, Jakarta Post, 5 March 2015 (online).

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Religious organizations, too, have been proactive. In 2016, the Catholic Diocese of Brisbane commissioned its own ‘shadow’ fact-finding mission, sending two (unofficial) delegates to West Papua who reported that ‘[t]he violence and intimidation of soldiers and police, the pervasive presence and activity of intelligence operatives and informants, the fear and distrust that this sows within the community, the loss of culture, and the ever growing economic and social marginalisation of Papuans represent a multilayered repression of the people of West Papua’.37 Other developments include a 2019 World Council of Churches (WCC) multinational delegation to West Papua, which observed that ‘indigenous Papuans appeared to be systematically marginalised and alienated from their land and resources [and] those on the team who had visited West Papua previously with a 1999 WCC delegation, expressed the view that discrimination and rights violations were as severe in 2019 as they were twenty years ago’.38 Amnesty International’s 2020 report also highlights ‘extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests and other crimes under international law and human rights violations against Indigenous Papuans; freedom of peaceful assembly and association, racial discrimination, and the rights to self-determination; political prisoners (prisoners of conscience) and the right to a fair trial and humane prison conditions; restrictions on media freedom; and forced internal displacement’.39 Given all of this, the West Papua issue can scarcely be viewed simply as a domestic affair for Indonesia. Indonesian responses to the widening internationalization of the issue have, nonetheless, continued to invoke sovereign rights to non-interference as well as an outright denial of abuses. It has adopted some proactive measures, including some aid diplomacy in the Pacific Islands, but this is a drop in the ocean compared to other donors.40 Indonesia also organized a ‘Pacific Exposition’ trade show in New Zealand in 2019, announcing a new era of partnership in the region under the rubric of a ‘Pacific elevation’, which appears to be in line with Australia’s ‘step-up’ and New Zealand’s ‘reset’.41 Other efforts to engage 37

Catholic Social Justice Commission of the Arch Diocese of Brisbane, ‘We Will Lose Everything’: Report on a Human Rights Fact Finding Mission to West Papua, 1 May 2016, 24. The report contains a verbatim record of an interview with an elderly woman who took part in the ‘Act of Free Choice’, recounting the ordeal of forced participation under threat by the security forces. 38 Johnny Blades, ‘West Papua: The Issue that Won’t Go Away for Melanesia’, Interpreter, Lowy institute, 1 May 2020 (online). 39 Amnesty International, ‘Indonesia: Civil and Political Rights’, Violations in Papua and West Papua: List of issues prior to reporting (LOIPR) for Indonesia CCPR Session 129, June–July 2020 (online). 40 See Wangge and Lawson, ‘West Papua Issue’, 76. 41 Mackenzie Smith, ‘Indonesia’s “Pacific Elevation”: Step-up or Power Play?’, Radio New Zealand, 15 July 2019 (online).

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with the Island Pacific, however, have been minimal. Indonesia’s diplomatic network in the region is underdeveloped and no attempt has been made to engage CSOs with concerns about West Papua. Indeed, Indonesia’s foreign policy approach focuses entirely on higher-level relations and is dismissive of any CSOs engaged in critical advocacy of West Papua issues,42 which are described as ‘paid groups who merely attack Indonesia’.43 As mentioned earlier, knowledge of the Island Pacific generally is also very thin on the ground with not a single centre for Pacific Studies in any of Indonesia’s 122 public universities,44 in contrast with Chinese efforts to build a knowledge base, with six Pacific Studies centres established as of 2020.45 Knowledge of West Papua itself is lacking, the Indonesian government never having produced a single report of its own on human rights or general social conditions there.46 Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also appears wanting in other ways. As of 2021, the fact that Indonesia had gained associate membership of the MSG several years earlier, or had connections with the PIDF, was not even mentioned.47 Indonesia’s relations as a Post-Forum Dialogue partner with the Forum, however, do appear on the Ministry’s site, which at least outlines the basis on which Indonesia’s principal interests in its Pacific Island diplomacy are established. This includes ‘an effort to get closer to countries in the Pacific region, especially in order to maintain the integrity of the NKRI [Unitary State of Indonesia]’, and ‘to enhance the image of Indonesia in the international world and … to mobilize support for Indonesia in international forums’.48 Apart from relations within the Forum, the Indonesia–Australia bilateral relationship has also come under scrutiny over the years in the context of West Papuan issues, with prescriptions for Australian foreign policy ranging from those urging that Australia adopt a strong moral position on the rights and interests of West Papuans, to those who see these as overridden by the imperatives of maintaining close relations with Australia’s most important near neighbour, especially after East Timor’s 42 See Rowan Day, ‘West Papua and the Australia–Indonesia Relationship: A Case Study in Diplomatic Difficulty’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 69 (6), 2015, 670–91. 43 Indonesian foreign affairs official quoted in Wangge and Lawson, ‘The West Papua Issue’. 44 Wangge and Lawson, ‘The West Papua Issue’. 45 Denghua Zhang, ‘Pacific Studies in China: Policies, Structure and Research’, Journal of Pacific History, 55 (1), 2020, 80–96. 46 Wangge and Lawson, ‘The West Papua Issue’, 79. 47 Indonesia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 8 April 2019 (online). 48 Indonesia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Pacific Island [sic] Forum’, 8 April 2019 (online).

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independence.49 Australia’s balance of strategic interests, however, will ensure that it does not interfere in Indonesia’s ‘internal affairs’, let alone challenge its sovereignty. Australia’s rhetorical support for human rights and democracy as moral goods in the wider regional and global sphere has rarely prevented it from turning a blind eye to human rights abuses and authoritarian practices when it suits their agendas.50 Much the same has applied to New Zealand–Indonesia relations, with critics noting that New Zealand has also put those relations well ahead of concerns over human rights.51 Looking to broader issues relating to Indonesia’s stance, it is clear that, like almost any other state, concerns about prestige, reputation and status underpin Indonesia’s self-image and identity as an international actor. Authoritarian regimes generally take greater offence than liberal democracies in reacting to criticism, sometimes in an almost pathological manner,52 and post-colonial states are more sensitive to perceived slights. Indonesia’s long history of authoritarian rule, as well as its own post-colonial status, has undoubtedly left legacies including hypersensitivity over challenges to both the legitimacy of its territorial holdings as well as to groups within the state that contest such legitimacy. Certainly, Indonesia is very much concerned about its reputation vis-àvis the West Papua issue and the extent to which it has become politicized both regionally and globally. However, both its domestic and foreign policy responses  – the latter often amounting to little more than shrill denials – reveal an unsophisticated grasp of the issues and an inability to devise a pathway forwards. The costs to Indonesia is not only in terms of reputation but is also a serious burden on its own security resources.53 For an instructive contrast with the Indonesia/West Papua case, we may recall the extent to which the issue of French colonialism, especially in New Caledonia, has been addressed. As noted in Chapter 9, while the current situation does not fulfil the aspirations of the majority of Kanaks for whom complete independence from France is the goal, it has at least reached a stage where violence on both sides has been virtually eliminated. Moreover, pro-independence groups can fly their flag, organize themselves politically and conduct peaceful protests – all legitimate 49 Day, ‘West Papua’. 50 See Rebecca Strating, ‘Enabling Authoritarianism in the Indo-Pacific: Australian Exemptionalism’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 74 (3), 2020, 301–21. 51 Marie Leadbeater, See No Evil: New Zealand’s Betrayal of the People of West Papua (Dunedin: Otago Univerdsity Press, 2018). 52 Steve Wood, ‘Prestige in World Politics: History, Theory, Expression’, International Politics, 50 (3), 2013, 387–411. 53 See May, Fifty Years, 16.

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activities in a democratic political setting. None of these are permitted in West Papua where public demonstrations of Papuan political identity, including the raising of the Morning Star flag – the latter regarded as an act of treason – have invariably met with mass arrests, abuses and even deaths.54 Comparisons between Indonesia/West Papua and the French Pacific territories also invite questions about Indonesia as a colonizing power. In reviewing the history of decolonization in the twentieth century, it was clearly all about bringing about an end to European colonization. There was good reason for this, but in the rush to push the decolonization agenda, new forms of colonialism were created, demonstrating that others could exploit imperialist opportunities just as easily. The UN itself played a key role in creating a situation in which powers such as Indonesia could act opportunistically, especially given the conditions of the Cold War. Yet the UN’s own complicity in these cases has barely come under scrutiny. Instead, its Special Committee on Decolonization devotes much time and energy to pursuing cases for the decolonization of small territories, mostly under the control of the UK, the US and France where the majorities have no desire for independence, having indicated this through referenda or other forms of self-determination. Given these factors, contemporary postcolonial approaches would do well to adjust their lenses, which have, to date, remained trapped within the standard West/non-West dichotomy.55 This also extends to the emergence of new centres of power outside the West. Holding centre stage in this present period of geopolitical dynamics in Oceania and across the broader Asia/Indo-Pacific region is of course China. 12.2

China in Oceania

When the People’s Republic of China emerged from the decade of chaos wrought by the Cultural Revolution in 1976, preceded by the equally devastating Great Leap Forward of 1958–1962, it was ripe for the great Reform and Opening-Up program initiated under paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. A few years earlier, China had taken the seat in the UN from the Republic of China (Taiwan) in 1971, along with permanent membership of the UN Security Council. From 1972, following US President Richard Nixon’s surprise visit to China, the US more or less normalized relations through recognition of the People’s Republic 54

Ibid., 5. 55 See Stephanie Lawson, ‘Regionalism and Colonialism in Contemporary Oceania’, Round Table, 106 (2), 2017, 143–53.

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of China. As the opposition leader in Australia, Gough Whitlam had visited China in 1971, ahead of his Labor government’s election in December 1972, after which Australia also extended recognition, as did New Zealand. At this time, China was still an impoverished nation where prospects for growth appeared unpromising and the capacity to pose any kind of strategic threat seemed highly unlikely in the foreseeable future. From 1978, however, Chinese policy switched from self-sufficiency and isolation to an ‘open door’ policy, bringing major changes in trade and foreign direct investment, technology, knowledge transfer and engagement with international financial and economic institutions.56 By 1980, China had joined both the World Bank and the IMF, and in 2001 it also joined the WTO.57 In 1999–2000, a ‘go global’ policy encouraged the outward expansion of Chinese enterprises, which saw overseas direct investment surge. Another key strategy in securing resources and in becoming the leading trading and investment nation saw the emergence, from 2013, of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – a massive infrastructure project including ports, roads, rail links and energy grids inspired by the concept of the ancient Silk Road trading network that ran between China and Europe from the second century bce . Despite problems, China’s adoption of capitalist, market-oriented approaches since 1978 led to remarkable economic growth, which saw it overtake Japan as the world’s second largest economy in 2010, with predictions then anticipating that it would pass the US around mid-century. As of 2021, with growth scarcely compromised by either the Global Financial Crisis or COVID-19, it was expected to achieve that goal by 2028,58 although by 2023 forecasts had become more modest given the extent to which China had persisted with a counterproductive ‘COVID-zero’ policy. In the meantime, Chinese foreign and security policy had also taken on new dimensions. Even in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, China had begun a re-evaluation of strategic threats to its interests. US involvement in Indochina continued to generate hostility, but the Soviet Union was sometimes perceived as a greater threat prompted in part by what China saw as Soviet ‘social imperialism’, along with a perception of ideological ‘revisionism’, especially after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia 56

Guocang Huan, ‘China’s Open Door Policy, 1978–1984’, Journal of International Affairs, 39 (2), 1986, 1–18. 57 Edgar A. Porter and Terence Wesley-Smith, ‘Introduction: Oceania Matters’, in Terence Wesley-Smith and Edgar A. Porter (eds.), China in Oceania: Reshaping the Pacific (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 5. 58 Tom Hancock and Enda Curran, ‘China Set to Topple US as Biggest Economy Sooner after Virus’, Bloomburg, 15 January 2021 (online).

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and Sino–Soviet border clashes in 1969.59 Chinese suspicions of Russia extended to the Island Pacific, making for an interesting convergence of Chinese and US perspectives. Pacific Island countries themselves found aspects of Soviet ideology highly distasteful, including its inherent atheism. Then there was the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. These factors, combined with US policies of strategic denial (supported by Australia and New Zealand), underscored considerable US engagement with the region and made Soviet penetration during the Cold War difficult.60 After 1989, however, US attention to the region diminished and it was content to leave much of the running to Australia and New Zealand, with Australia acting as its ‘deputy sheriff’, a moniker applied during John Howard’s prime ministership. China, in the meantime, began establishing its own network of relations. Unlike Russia, communist China was not viewed as a strategic threat. The Taiwan issue, however, introduced a different dynamic, with some Pacific Island countries choosing to recognize one rather than the other and sometimes switching between them. China had established formal diplomatic relations with Fiji and Samoa in 1975 and Papua New Guinea in 1976, with a number of other Pacific Island countries following suit as they reached independence. In 1985, the Communist Party of China’s secretary-general, Hu Yaobang, led a mission to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Samoa, the highest-level mission up to that point, with reciprocal visits from Pacific Island countries in the years that followed.61 Indeed, Beijing is renowned for its full ‘red carpet’ treatment of delegations from the Pacific Islands (and from elsewhere in the global South) complete with military parades and lavish banquets. At the same time, high-level Chinese delegations are sent to even the smallest of countries. For the Chinese government, the purposes are strategic and political rather than financial since the economic gain for China generally is negligible, although Chinese commercial companies do benefit from contracts in even the smallest of places.62 59 See, generally, Linda D. Dillon, Bruce Burton and Walter C. Soderlund, ‘Who Was the Principal Enemy? Shifts in Official Chinese Perceptions of the Two Superpowers, 1968–1969’, Asian Survey, 17 (5), 1977, 456–73. 60 Robert C. Kiste and R. A. Herr, ‘The Potential for Soviet Penetration of the South Pacific Islands: An Assessment’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 18 (2), 1986, 42–60; John C. Dorrance, ‘The Soviet Union and the Pacific Islands: A Current Assessment’, Asian Survey, 30 (9), 1990, 908–25. 61 Shusen Liu, ‘China’s Engagement with the South Pacific: Past, Present and Future’, in Michael Powles (ed.), China and the Pacific: The View From Oceania (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2016), 54. 62 Denghua Zhang and Graeme Smith, ‘China’s Foreign Aid System: Structure, Agencies and Identities’, Third World Quarterly, 38 (10), 2017, 2235, 2240–1.

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With economic power come other strengths. China now occupies a leading role on the international stage, with diplomatic, trade and other links firmly established around the world and a developing military capacity to give it true great power status. Its military spending is now second only to the US, and it has had a nuclear weapons capability for at least as long as France. Along with these developments, and the highly ambitious Xi Jinping’s rise as paramount leader, China has adopted an assertive posture vis-à-vis the West, ‘amplifying a change in international dynamics from patterns of multilateral cooperation towards a pattern of competition’.63 This includes competition for influence, and a key strategy for securing it among developing countries is via aid. When US aid to the Island Pacific declined following the end of the Cold War (except for Micronesian territories), China was ready to advance a soft power strategy.64 This has been complemented by the Confucius Institute program that has established centres for Chinese language and culture studies around the world, including USP, the University of French Polynesia, the National University of Samoa and the Papua New Guinea University of Technology. Further complicating aid and foreign relations is the contest with Taiwan. As of 2021, Taiwan still had formal diplomatic relations with four Pacific Island countries: Palau, the RMI, Nauru and Tuvalu. Kiribati and Solomon Islands switched their recognition to China in 2019, a development believed to have resulted from a major ‘cash splash’ by Beijing,65 and causing considerable consternation among other relevant powers including the US and Australia, despite their own recognition of China.66 This came at a time when Taiwan had made concerted efforts to strengthen its profile in the region through a New Southbound Policy encompassing Southeast Asia and Oceania and its own ‘pivot’ to the Indo-Pacific. Taiwan also sought to enhance a Pacific identity through emphasizing the Austronesian heritage of its Indigenous people and the reinstitution of an Austronesian Forum that had been established in 2008 but had become inactive.67 On the broader geopolitical and diplomatic front, however, Taiwan’s ability to compete with China is diminishing. 63

Bruce Jones, China and the Return of Great Power Strategic Competition (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, February 2020) (online). 64 Ratuva, Contested Terrain, 76. 65 ‘China Gains the Solomon Islands and Kiribati as Allies, “Compressing” Taiwan’s Global Recognition’, ABC News, 21 September 2019 (online). 66 Terence Wesley-Smith, ‘A New Cold War? Implications for the Pacific Islands’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China Alternative? Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), 84–5. 67 David Scott, ‘Taiwan’s Pivot to the Indo-Pacific’, Asia-Pacific Focus, 26 (1), 2019, 29–57.

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Another aspect of a Chinese presence in Oceania goes beyond official Chinese state strategies and reaches back much further in time. One could even start with the migration of Austronesian-speaking people out of southern China and Taiwan several thousand years ago. Ancient forebears aside, the modern era has seen Chinese people moving into various parts of Oceania from the early years of British colonization in Australia when indentured Chinese labourers were employed and, later, during the gold rush period from the mid–nineteenth century. Small numbers also arrived in New Zealand. But in both countries, racist policies saw strict limitations imposed. The notorious White Australia policy, which was later to forestall Pacific Islander movement into Australia, was inspired primarily by fear of large-scale Chinese immigration. It was formally adopted by the newly independent Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 and not abolished until 1973, with vestiges remaining until 1982. Chinese labour under various schemes had also been used in some Pacific Island colonies and on trading vessels, while modest numbers of independent traders and others established small communities around the region. Evidence of Chinese heritage is to be found in the names of prominent Pacific Island leaders including former Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan and former Kiribati President Anote Tong.68 The contemporary period has seen continuing Chinese emigration to parts of Oceania, although not on a large scale, except for Australia and New Zealand. Australia’s 2016 census showed that, of a total population of almost 23.5 million, there were 1.2 million people of Chinese descent.69 Figures from New Zealand’s 2018 census show that, out of a total population of around 4.7 million, just over 230,000 identified as ethnic Chinese.70 As for the population of Chinese or Chinesedescended people in the Pacific Islands, figures are hard to come by. It is possibly around 100,000, which, although seemingly small, makes it a significant group in many countries. In the present period, China is the only development partner whose own people are emigrating into Pacific Island countries, with some ethnic Chinese also coming from Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.71

68

For an overview of the diverse historical patterns of Chinese presences in the island Pacific see Paul D’Arcy, ‘The Chinese Pacifics: A Brief Historical Review’, Journal of Pacific History, 49 (4), 2014, 396–420; Bill Willmott, ‘The Overseas Chinese Experience in the Pacific’, in Michael Powles (ed.), China and the Pacific: The View from Oceania (Wellington: Victoria University Press), 93–103. 69 Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016 Census, QuickStats (online). 70 New Zealand, StatsNZ, ‘New Zealand’s Population Reflects Growing Diversity’, 23 September 2019 (online). 71 Firth, Instability, 7.

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Chinese communities in the Island Pacific are diverse, coming from different provinces in China (and elsewhere) and for varying purposes. Unfortunately, some Chinese (along with other Asian groups) engage in criminal activities – money laundering, trafficking of drugs and people, extortion, prostitution, loan sharking, illicit gambling, etc. – and some enter the islands illegally. Other groups come for entirely legitimate purposes and many have established family businesses, usually on a relatively small scale. Legitimate Chinese-owned enterprises, however, have sometimes acted as flashpoints for local unrest, as evidenced by ‘anti-Chinese’ riots in Solomon Islands and Tonga in 2006 and Papua New Guinea in 2009, although these are frequently related to broader socio-economic and political tensions.72 In Tonga, for example, Chinese-owned homes and businesses were targeted in riots associated with pro-democracy protestors who blindly turned on locally owned enterprises. The riots ended with the destruction of much of the capital’s business district.73 The costs for rebuilding the latter were, somewhat ironically, funded largely by concessional loans from China’s EXIM (Export Import) Bank, which now plays a major role in China’s ‘debt trap’, as we see shortly. Riots in Honiara in November 2021, precipitated by the government’s recognition of China, which was opposed by Malaitans, saw the return of Australian, New Zealand and Fijian security assistance to quell the unrest, which occurred mainly in the Chinatown area. In a new development, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sogavare accepted a Chinese offer in December 2021 of riot equipment along with a small police training detachment, no doubt causing consternation in Canberra and elsewhere. One other point worth noting, especially in the context of local violence, is that the presence of Chinese citizens in the Island Pacific, as elsewhere, enables China to deploy its military capability in protecting its overseas citizens during adverse events. To date this has occurred through evacuation, but there is obviously the potential for friction to develop as and when Chinese military capabilities develop further and possibly extend to protecting assets as well.74 12.3

China and the Geopolitical Balance

The rise of China and its impact in Oceania is said to have disturbed an established system ‘where a small number of allied powers exercise 72

Graeme Smith, ‘Chinese Reactions to Anti-Asian Riots in the Pacific’, Journal of Pacific History, 47 (1), 2012, 93–109. 73 ‘State of Emergency After Tongan Riots’, The Guardian, 17 November 2006 (online). 74 Peter J. Connolly, ‘Engaging China’s New Foreign Policy in the South Pacific’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 70 (5), 484–505.

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an enormous amount of regional influence’.75 The history of regional relations described throughout this book certainly supports the view that, with the exception of the UK, the former colonial powers have continued to maintain their very strong profile in regional politics throughout the independence period. Even the UK is re-establishing a stronger diplomatic presence through a ‘Pacific uplift’ following its withdrawal from the EU, since it cannot now be represented through the latter.76 The increasing presence of China, however, offers Pacific Island countries expanded opportunities and has been generally welcomed by Island leaders.77 But Chinese-funded development projects have not been without problems. These range from lack of environmental controls to quality control while many projects do not utilize local materials or labour or, where the latter is used, conditions are sometimes abysmal.78 And while Chinese aid is not tied to the political and economic conditionalities usually imposed by traditional donors, its concessional loan schemes create potential debt traps, which is another form of dependency.79 China’s links with Oceania are now multifaceted and vary according to the size, resource base and geopolitical location of each country. China has had a strong preference for bilateralism, although it has not eschewed multilateral forums and has been a Post-Forum Dialogue partner since 1989. China also established a China-Pacific Islands Forum Trade Office in Beijing, officially opened in 2002, and the Forum has a trade commissioner based there. The first China-Pacific Islands Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum was held in Fiji in 2006 with Premier Wen Jiabao pledging substantial preferential loans, a fund to encourage Chinese investment and an undertaking to remove tariffs on imports from the least developed Island countries.80 So although bilateral relations remain key, multilateralism is becoming an element in China’s strategies. Fiji had become especially receptive to deepening the relationship under Bainimarama’s leadership. His ‘Look North’ foreign policy stance was a response to pressure and sanctions from traditional aid and trade 75

Terence Wesley-Smith, ‘China’s Rise in Oceania: Issues and Perspectives’, Pacific Affairs, 86 (2), 2013, 370. 76 See Laura Clarke (British High Commissioner to New Zealand), ‘UK-Pacific Partnerships and Shared Values’, 3 July 2019 (online). 77 Ibid. See also Kate Hannon and Stewart Firth, ‘Trading with the Dragon: Chinese Trade, Investment and Development Assistance in the Pacific Islands’, Journal of Contemporary China, 24 (95), 2015, 865–82. 78 Hannon and Firth, ‘Trading’, 873. 79 For an overview of the aid scene, see Dornan and Pryke, ‘Foreign Aid’. 80 Porter and Wesley-Smith, ‘Introduction’, 17.

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partners following the succession of coups. ‘Fiji will not forget that when other countries were quick to condemn us following the events of 1987, 2000 and 2006, China and other friends in Asia demonstrated a more understanding and sensitive approach.’81 Even so, other factors have made the development of Fiji–China relations less straightforward. On the one hand, Fiji maintains longstanding informal relations with Taiwan. On the other, China has opposed proposals put to the WTO to assist small island states suffering adverse consequences of trade liberalization. Also, although China’s policies of non-interference along with the absence of Western-style aid conditionalities have been welcomed in the Pacific Islands, it did not want to appear as ‘too much out of step’ with the Forum position on Fiji after 2009.82 Fiji’s return to electoral democracy in 2014 has also seen an improvement in Fiji’s relations with both Australia and New Zealand. Opening a new consulate building in Sydney, Bainimarama declared that Fiji and Australia were ‘leaving old disagreements in the past, where they belong, and we’re writing a new chapter in our partnership – putting Fiji and Australia in a position to take our cooperation to historic heights’.83 Fiji is also a debtor to China, although Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu have much heavier debt loads. Debt is not necessarily a problem in itself. The main issue is the ability to meet interest payments or whole debt repayments when they fall due. But debt sustainability is often difficult in the Island Pacific where economic growth is slow at the best of times, where natural disasters ravage economies on a regular basis and where global financial crises and the COVID-19 pandemic have a disproportionate impact. Even so, with low interest rates, debt sustainability is possible with adequate levels of GDP, although this is less likely if the projects are not actually directed at increasing growth. Whether China is setting debt traps for Pacific Island countries has been a question for some observers. According to one report, there is little evidence pointing to any deliberate strategy, although the scale of Chinese lending and lack of institutional mechanisms supporting sustainability mean that China could well fulfil the expectations of critics supporting the debt trap thesis if it does not restructure its approach.84 81 Nemani Delaibatiki, ‘Fiji, China Relations Stronger’, Fiji Sun, 29 September 2014 (online). 82 Tarte, ‘Fiji’s “Look North” Strategy’, 18–129. 83 Quoted in Sandra Tarte, ‘Building a Strategic Partnership: Fiji-China Relations Since 2008’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China Alternative: Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), 375–95. 84 Rolan Rajah, Alexandre Dayante and Jonathan Prycke, Ocean of Debt? Belt and Road and Debt Diplomacy in the Pacific (Sydney: Lowy Institute, 21 October 2019).

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Among the less subtle commentaries, aimed at an Australia audience, was a Sky News article declaring that ‘Australia’s allies in the Pacific face a tragic economic struggle for survival as Chinese debt collectors who once offered rivers of gold begin to circle economies enduring one of the worst economic disasters in modern history’ and, despite come caveats, concluding that ‘Australians need to foster greater ties to its allies…. If we don’t the Great Red Dragon will swallow them up.’85 Another commentary, citing a Harvard University study presented to the US State Department, made similar claims, stating that ‘debtbook diplomacy is “likely to play an important role in China’s multifaceted campaign to erode strategic advantages” of America and its allies and shift the balance of power in Asia’.86 Other reports outline risks (to Australia, New Zealand and allies) in two possible ways. First, and least likely, although with profound consequences if it did occur, is that China may use its leverage through ‘diplomacy, debt, trade, or elite capture to establish a military base somewhere in the South Pacific’. A second risk, of less potential impact but with a higher probability, ‘is that China and Chinese businesses, through elite capture and corruption, are rapidly undermining institutions of governance which Western donors spend considerable money trying to support’.87 Another aspect of China’s involvement in regional politics is China’s framing of its identity as a ‘South–South’ development partner. A 2011 White Paper, its first on foreign aid, declared that its programs falls squarely into the category of South–South cooperation, embodying ‘mutual help between developing countries’.88 This was a year after China succeeded Japan as the world’s second largest economy and therefore hardly a ‘developing country’ any longer. The purpose in maintaining this posture is to provide a very explicit contrast with the global North and therefore a contrasting basis of legitimacy vis-à-vis traditional partners. In 2012, China’s deputy foreign minister, Cui Tiankai, stated that Chinese aid to Pacific Island countries, as an exercise in South–South cooperation, was completely different from Western aid,89 a point repeated by other Chinese officials on relevant occasions.90 By differentiating its aid

85 Jack Houghton, ‘China’s Cold War in the Pacific Has Already Been Won by Debt Trapping Vulnerable Nations’, Sky News, January 2021 (online). 86 John Kehoe, ‘US Report: China “Debt Trap” on Australia’s Doorstep’, Australian Financial Review, 14 May 2018 (online). 87 Jonathan Pryke, The Risks of China’s Ambitions in the South Pacific (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 20 July 2020) (online). 88 China, State Council, quoted in Huang and Lawson, ‘China in Pacific’, 198. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid., 201–2.

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program from those of traditional donors, China aims to establish an apparent identity of interests, with aid recipients in the Pacific and elsewhere, that aligns with its outreach to the developing world more generally.91 This strategy has yielded some success. A senior diplomat from Papua New Guinea, for instance, has argued that ‘PNG looks at China as a close, genuine partner and also a friend, a country that can represent our interests because China is still a developing country, and knows what we want’.92 Despite the rhetorical flourishes, it is difficult to imagine how the South–South motif can really underpin a deep sense of kindred identities, although it has instrumental value in invoking the North/South (or West/non-West) dichotomy in the broader context of regional and global politics. The South–South motif may also be seen as a rather transparent gloss on a situation that, from another perspective, establishes new relations of dependency throughout much of the developing world by means of the BRI and other measures. Certainly, there is no shortage of critical commentary, mainly from traditional partners, supporting the view that China’s activities amount to a concerted neocolonial project under the guise of South–South cooperation: ‘Xi Jinping has tirelessly stressed how the Belt and Road seeks to create a “community of common interests”… In reality, the BRI has already turned into a Chinese neo-colonialist project.’93 Furthermore: [T]he general features of China’s relations with many countries today bear close resemblance to the European colonial powers’ relations with African and Middle Eastern countries in the 19th and 20th century … we witness countries exchanging their primary products for Chinese manufactured ones; China dominating the local economy; countries becoming heavily indebted to the PRC [People’s Republic of China]; China exerting greater weight on local political, cultural, and security dynamics; and Chinese abroad living in their own ‘expat enclaves.’94

In addition to China’s economic outreach and soft power initiatives, critics also see its militarization in the South China Sea as a determined projection of hard power with serious consequences for Oceania, allowing ‘its fighters to reach deep into the South Pacific, jeopardizing US bases while advancing Beijing’s “neo-colonial ambitions”’.95 Another 91 Wesley-Smith, ‘China’s Rise’, 370. 92 Quoted in Zhang and Lawson, ‘China in Pacific’, 199. 93 Anthony Klevin, ‘Belt and Road: Colonialism with Chinese Characteristics’ Interpreter, 6 May 2019 (online). 94 Jean-Marc F. Blanchard quoted in Amatai Ezioni, ‘Is China a New Colonial Power?’, Diplomat, 9 November 2020 (online). 95 Kerry K. Gershanesk, ‘China’s Plan for Conquest of the South Pacific’, Asia Times, 7 September 2018 (online).

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commentator says that China’s increasing belligerence in the South China Sea has prompted legitimate concerns about its behaviour, and the possibility of extending that behaviour into the Island Pacific, but that it is unwise to push ‘Cold War style framing’ which risks strategic miscalculations based on a worst-case scenario rather than ‘keeping open the potential for alternative futures’.96 Others insist that China treats its client states in the global South as equal partners in the development enterprise and that to label Chinese activity as neocolonial is misleading.97 Recipients of Chinese aid, trade and other goods in the Island Pacific may also see it from a different perspective. A leading politician from Vanuatu argues that although China’s approach to development aid may be unorthodox, ‘the simple fact is that the assistance is meeting a development need or priority’ and the far less stringent processes in implementing large infrastructure projects make it ‘easier for small administrations like ours to seek direct assistance’.98 During her time as Forum secretary-general, Dame Meg Taylor also advanced positive perspectives on China’s role in the Island Pacific, rejecting approaches that posited a choice between China on the one hand and traditional partners in the region on the other, adding that, unfortunately, ‘this framing remains the dominant narrative in the public debate about our region in the context of today’s geostrategic competition’. Furthermore, the narrative ‘tends to portray the nations of the Pacific as passive collaborators or victims of a new wave of colonialism’.99 The preferred position of the Pacific Islands generally, she said, is ‘friends to all’, which some had expressed more formally by joining the NAM. In practical terms, the Blue Pacific agenda was set to reap significant benefits from the BRI. ‘Extending China’s Maritime Silk Road through our Blue Pacific could provide opportunities for creating regional infrastructure and access that could inspire new markets of trade between Asia, the Pacific and Latin America; not to mention between Pacific Island countries themselves.’100 96 Michael O’Keefe, ‘The Militarisation of China in the Pacific: Stepping Up to a New Cold War?’, Security Challenges, 16 (1), 2020, 96. 97 See Timothy S. Rich and Sterling Recker, ‘Understanding Sino–African Relations: Neocolonialism or a New Era?’, Journal of International and Area Studies, 20 (1), 2013, 61–76. 98 Ralph Regenvanu, ‘Opening Remarks’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China Alternative: Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), ix–x. 99 Dame Meg Taylor, ‘Opening Remarks’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China Alternative: Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), xi. 100 Ibid.

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Other perspectives from the Island Pacific, however, see not only possible benefits but also dangers. Commenting on Solomon Islands, Transform Aqorou warns that the government there needs to be conscious of the fact that: [I]t does not currently have the resources, moral fortitude and knowledge capital to effectively manage this relationship, a relationship that will be characterised by Beijing’s assertive influence, an increase in the number of Chinese companies in the country, especially with investments in natural resource-extractive industries and the potential for a continuing increase in the Chinese migrant population and their dominance in retail businesses.101

Commentary from critics in Fiji has also stood in contrast to the former Bainimarama regime’s embrace of China, warning of overdependency ‘on countries that do not share democratic values and respect for human rights’.102 Can the sum of Chinese activities in Oceania generally, and the Island Pacific in particular, be seen as part of a coherent instrumental plan to achieve dominance in the region? One commentator asserts that ‘the idea that China has a comprehensive strategic plan in the Pacific Islands is logically untenable and lacks factual support’.103 Another, however, says that the BRI is a means of harmonizing ‘a variety of Chinese state and nonstate actors in Oceania under a single policy’, although this should not engender ‘fear narratives’ about China’s ambitions in the region.104 Even so, concerns about China’s role, not just in Oceania but across the whole super-region from the Pacific through to the Indian Ocean, have seen very significant shifts in geopolitical strategic visions among other key actors. 12.4

‘Rebalancing’, ‘Stepping Up’ and ‘Resetting’

China’s increasing presence in the Pacific is widely seen as linked directly to the various moves by the US, Australia and New Zealand to ‘rebalance’, ‘step up’ or ‘reset’ relations in the region. The US rebalance may be traced to President Obama, shortly after his election in 2008, styling 101



102 103 104

Transfrom Aqorau, ‘Solomon Islands’ Foreign Policy Dilemma and the Switch from Taiwan to China’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China Alternative: Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), 320. Quoted in Tarte, ‘Building a Strategic Partnership’, 388. Zhou Fangyin, ‘A Reevaluation of China’s Engagement in the Pacific Islands’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China Alternative: Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), 253. Henryk Szadziewski, ‘A Search for Coherence: The Belt and Road Initiative in the Pacific’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China Alternative: Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), 286.

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himself as America’s ‘first Pacific president’, a reference to his birth in Hawai’i. But there were important foreign policy implications as well. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent far more time in Asia generally than any of her predecessors (seven trips by the end of 2011), including the 2011 Rarotonga Forum meeting. None of this activity impressed China. In reference to Clinton’s Rarotonga appearance, China’s state news agency claimed that her trip was ‘aimed at curbing China’s growing influence’ and ‘stirring up disputes’ and called on the US to ‘abandon its surreal ambition of ruling the Asia-Pacific and the world’.105 A key policy statement by Clinton outlined the administration’s geopolitical vision: ‘The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action…. American statecraft over the next decade will therefore [need] to lock in a substantially increased investment – diplomatic, economic, strategic and otherwise  – in the Asia-Pacific region.’106 The Obama administration also took forward a major trade agreement in the form of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), begun during George W. Bush’s presidency. Under Obama, it became part of the ‘rebalance’. Its earliest manifestation was as a minor initiative involving Brunei, Singapore, New Zealand and Chile but it came to include Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Vietnam, Peru and the US. The long and complex process of securing agreement was finally achieved in 2016.107 But although it had potential as a counterweight to China’s trade dominance, the Trump administration would have none of it and the TPP never entered into force. An alternative agreement signed in January 2018, however, proceeded under the rubric of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and included the eleven other countries. Neither the TPP nor the CPTPP gathered in any of the Pacific Islands but was rather a Pacific ‘rim’ affair. Even so, it was part of an important mix of developments in the broader regional political economy, albeit one that excludes (at least for the time being) both China and the US. The Trump administration, however, had other ideas about engagement with the wider region, including the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act involving US$1.5 billion of spending on programs in East and Southeast Asia designed to reassure allies of a 105



106

107

Quoted in Evan Osnos, ‘Clinton’s Show-Stopper in South Pacific’, New Yorker, 31 August 2012 (online). Hillary Clinton, ‘America’s Pacific Century’, Foreign Affairs, 11 October 2011 (online). Deborah Elms, ‘The Origins and Evolution of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Negotiations’, in Sanchita Basu Das and Masahiro Kawai (eds.), Trade Regionalism in the Asia-Pacific: Developments and Future Challenges (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2016), 29–49.

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continuing commitment to the region,108 although Trump’s ‘America first’ rhetoric detracted from this reassurance. Various assessments of Obama’s rebalance have, not surprisingly, diverged. Some noted that the US, even while deeply engaged in the Middle East, had scarcely ignored the vast region to its west with Obama’s policies representing considerable continuity with those of his predecessors.109 In 2008, for example, in addition to joining in TPP negotiations, the US had appointed its first ambassador to ASEAN.110 Others suggest that although the rebalance saw a strengthening of the relationship with regional partners, and appeared to gain traction in Southeast Asia in particular, it also provoked China and undermined trust,111 leading to its more aggressive posture.112 Another frequent observation was that although renewed US commitment to the broad region was largely welcome, virtually all countries also wished to maintain good relations with China.113 As for Australia and New Zealand, they may well be closely allied to the US, but they are also tied to China economically. Pacific Island counties, too, although consistently supporting the US at the UN General Assembly, are also increasingly reliant on China economically. While the US rebalance took on a different hue under the Trump administration, the broad Asia-Pacific remained a priority, morphing more clearly into the ‘Indo-Pacific’ geostrategic approach, as discussed shortly. In the meantime, both Australia and New Zealand announced policies directed at shoring up relations with Pacific Island countries. At the 2016 Forum meeting in Pohnpei, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a ‘step-change’ in Australia’s commitments to the region. Unlike other Australian Liberal leaders, Turnbull’s emphasis on climate change as a key regional security issue, which dominated his address to

108



109 110

111 112 113

Premesha Saha, From ‘Pivot to Asia’ to Trump’s ARIA: What Drives the US’ Current Asia Policy? ORF Occasional Paper No. 236, February 2020 (online). Michael J. Green, ‘The Legacy of Obama’s “Pivot” to Asia’, Foreign Policy, 3 September 2016 (online). Eric Shibuya, ‘Still Missing in the Rebalance? The United States and the Pacific Island Countries’, in Rouben Azizian and Carleton Cramer (eds.), Regionalism, Security and Cooperation in Oceania (Honolulu: Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2015), 58–9. Xiaoyu Zhang, ‘Why Obama’s Rebalance to Asia Was Unsuccessful’, International Studies, 55 (2), 2018, 87–105. John Ford, ‘The Pivot to Asia Was Obama’s Biggest Mistake’, Diplomat, 21 January 2017 (online). See, for example, Michael Powles, ‘The Regional Security Environment and Architecture in the Pacific Islands Region’, in Rouben Azizian and Carleton Cramer (eds.), Regionalism, Security and Cooperation in Oceania (Honolulu: Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2015), 32–42; and David W. F. Huang, Asia-Pacific Countries and the US Rebalancing Strategy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

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the Forum, had at least a ring of sincerity.114 Around the same time, a 2016 Australian Defence White Paper conceptualized Australia’s broad security interests in terms of the Indo-Pacific strategic environment and the importance of an overarching rules-based international order. It also set out, albeit briefly, the importance of the ‘South Pacific’, especially maritime security cooperation.115 A 2017 Australian government Foreign Policy White Paper, again projecting its vision through an Indo-Pacific prism, was replete with references to ‘resilience’, ‘agility’ and ‘empowerment’ and the need to ‘leverage’ opportunities in pursuing Australia’s interests in the context of a ‘more competitive and contested world’.116 It declared that Australia’s identity was defined, not ‘by race or religion, but by shared values, including political, economic and religious freedom, liberal democracy, the rule of law, racial and gender equality and mutual respect’.117 Commitment to stepping up engagement with ‘greater intensity and ambition’ would deliver more ‘innovative policy and make further, substantial long-term investments in the region’s development’.118 Specific policy areas included economic integration, labour mobility and skills training as well as security issues encompassing, in particular, transnational crime, natural disasters, climate change and maritime surveillance. Strong support for the Forum as the ‘pre-eminent regional organisation’ was also emphasized.119 Subsequent official pronouncements continued to talk up Australia’s longstanding presence in the Island Pacific as the largest development and security partner, always ready to assist in emergencies while acknowledging that much more needed to be done to meet both the challenges and the opportunities presented by the Blue Pacific Continent. The Defence Strategic Review of 2023, however, was very thin on mentions of the Pacific Islands, although replete with references to the challenges of China’s rise in the broader Indo-Pacific context.120 In March 2018, the Labour-led coalition government of Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand also announced a ‘reset’ of relations with the Island Pacific. Foreign Minister Winston Peters emphasized New Zealand’s identity as ‘a Pacific country’ but said that it could not afford to take the 114



115 116 117 118 119 120

See Malcolm Turnbull, ‘Remarks at Pacific Islands Forum – Micronesia’, 9 September 2016 (online). Australian, Department of Defence, 2016 Defence White Paper, Canberra, 2016 (online). Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper: Opportunity, Security, Strength, Canberra, 2017, 1 (online). Ibid., 11. Ibid., 101. Ibid., 103–04. Australia, Department of Defence, Defence Strategic Review 2023, Canberra, 2023 (online).

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region for granted. Although already enmeshed in the region, with over thirty New Zealand government agencies having some form of engagement with Pacific Island states, along with a number of NGOs, it was seen as necessary to ‘re-energize’ New Zealand’s approach in a context in which a new generation of post-colonial leaders had become ‘increasingly confident, independent, and assertive regionally and internationally’ and ‘more comfortable in courting a range of external partners’. Peters went on to reinforce New Zealand’s identity in terms of its ‘Polynesian character’, its own substantial Maori and Pasifika population and its interconnectedness with the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau and Tonga in particular. He also emphasized New Zealand’s identity as a country that, while respecting the desire of Pacific Island countries to manage their own international relationships, remained committed to values associated with the ‘traditional emphasis on human rights, the rule of law, transparency, good governance, and the promotion of democracy’.121 The reset was followed in 2019 by a major defence assessment aimed at translating ‘the high-level strategic policy of the Pacific Reset’ into New Zealand’s regional defence approach. Cultural symbolism was deployed alongside the document’s geostrategic elements, most notably in adopting a ‘Vaka Tahi’ (one boat or one canoe) model of Pacific partnership, representing ‘an effort to draw together our cultural linkages, practices, and key principles and policies into an accessible tool that will allow us to be more deliberate in our efforts to be a reliable and valued partner across the Defence organisation’.122 There were further references to the need for cultural awareness and to specific cultural practices such as talanoa (interpreted as a process of inclusive, participatory and transparent dialogue) and kotahitaga (unity, togetherness, solidarity, collective action) underpinning a shared Pacific identity with friendship and partnership as key values.123 The document was also replete with references to the Boe Declaration and consistent in highlighting the challenges of climate change and human security needs. Public statements have carefully avoided identifying the increasing influence of China as a specific factor in its reset. In the defence assessment document, China appeared just once, along with a number of other countries, as a Forum dialogue partner. But there is little doubt about the subtext of the Pacific reset.124 And although appearing more closely 121



122 123 124

Winston Peters, ‘Shifting the Dial, Eyes Wide Open, Pacific Reset’, speech at Lowy Institute, Sydney, 1 March 2018 (online). Ibid., 10. Ibid., 14. See, generally, Iati Iati, ‘China’s Impact on New Zealand Foreign Policy in the Pacific: The Pacific Reset’, in Graeme Smith and Terence Wesley-Smith (eds.), The China

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attuned to Blue Pacific imagery and pan-Pacific cultural tropes, the reset aligns with Australia’s step up and the wider geopolitical context within which both countries now operate. 12.5

The Indo-Pacific Concept

Obama’s rebalance is said to have laid the essential groundwork for the emergence of the Indo-Pacific concept in US strategic thinking.125 Unlike the TPP, the Indo-Pacific concept was carried forward by the Trump administration. Indeed, withdrawal from the TPP, which created something of a political and economic policy vacuum, is said to have been a major factor in the US administration’s push to seek other avenues of engagement, especially in Southeast Asia, which sits at the nexus of the two great oceans and where key strategic allies are located.126 The Indo-Pacific concept lent itself readily to this effort. But, inevitably, it has been subject to differing interpretations, depending on national perspectives and policy orientations and whether it is seen primarily as integrative in economic terms or as a strategic move. Although not explicitly cast in terms of checking China’s expanding influence, it acquired that connotation under the rhetorically aggressive Trump administration, which explicitly portrayed China as a threat.127 The Biden administration’s posture, however, is similar. One significant emphasis is the FOIP concept, initially articulated by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2016 and founded on certain key principles: a rules-based international order; no recourse to force, or the threat of force; and freedom of navigation of both air and sea.128 Abe is also credited with introducing the Indo-Pacific concept itself in a speech to India’s parliament in 2007 on the ‘Confluence of the Two Seas’.129 Given its key principles, the Indo-Pacific may be read as a term imbued with political significance that is neither simply descriptive nor value-neutral. China certainly sees it as a US-led geopolitical containment strategy.130 ASEAN has taken its own approach, led by Indonesian thinking on the

125 126 127 128 129 130



Alternative: Changing Regional Order in the Pacific Islands (Canberra: ANU Press, 2021), 143–66. Saha, ‘From “Pivot”’, 2. Ibid., 4. Brendan Sergeant, ‘The Pacific Islands in the “Indo-Pacific”’, Security Challenges, 16 (1), 2020, 26. William Choon, ‘The Return of the Indo-Pacific: An Assessment’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 73 (5), 415–16. Shinzo Abe, ‘Confluence of the Two Seas’, speech delivered to the Parliament of the Republic of India, 22 August 2007, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (online). Felix Heiduk and Gudrun Wacker, From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific: Significance, Implementation and Challenges, SWP Research Paper 9 (Berlin: German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 9 July 2020), 1.

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Indo-Pacific concept emphasizing the principal elements of openness, inclusiveness, transparency, respect for international law and the centrality of ASEAN itself.131 The inclusivity of the ASEAN approach has downplayed the geopolitical aspects of the FOIP idea, focusing instead on its economic dimensions and embracing the role of China, including the BRI. Viewed in strategic terms, the major Indo-Pacific subsystems have been identified as the north-east Indian Ocean and its littoral states, the North Asian strategic system encompassing the flashpoints of North Korea and Taiwan, the Southeast Asian strategic system with a focus on contested areas in the South China Sea and the arc of Pacific Islands stretching from Papua New Guinea around to New Zealand. The main underlying dynamic shaping the system as a whole is, without question, the US– China relationship.132 This feeds in turn into the posture of other players in the region. France, an Indo-Pacific power by virtue of its territories in both the Pacific and Indian Oceans and its strategic links with the traditional players within the region, has also adopted an Indo-Pacific strategic vision emphasizing the rules-based order.133 So too has Germany. In announcing its own Indo-Pacific strategy, it identifies the Indo-Pacific as the arena in which ‘the shape of the international rules-based order of tomorrow will be decided’.134 In addition to its ‘Pacific uplift’ of 2019, the UK in 2021 formulated its own defence-oriented ‘tilt to the IndoPacific’ as part of its new, post-EU ‘Global Britain’ posture.135 The geopolitical significance of the Indo-Pacific was first set out in a 2012 Australian White Paper linking ‘the Indian and Pacific oceans as one strategic arc that includes Southeast Asia’.136 Another White Paper released just months later in 2013 described the Indo-Pacific primarily as a maritime environment in which a security architecture consisting in ‘a series of subregions and arrangements rather than a unitary whole’ was undoubtedly evolving.137 Southeast Asia was seen as its geographic centre, acknowledging ASEAN’s key role. There was also an emphasis on ‘a positive and enduring bilateral US–China relationship at every 131 Choon, ‘Return of Indo-Pacific’, 416. 132 Ibid., 27. 133 Heiduk and Wacker, From Asia-Pacific, 36–9. See also Denise Fisher, ‘The Crowded and Complex Pacific: Lessons from France’s Pacific Experience’, Security Challenges, 16 (1), 2020, 37–43. 134 Sebastian Strangio, ‘Germany Joins the “Indo-Pacific” Club’, Diplomat, 3 September 2020 (online). 135 UK Parliament, House of Commons Library, Integrated Review 2021: The Defence Tilt to the Indo-Pacific, 11 October 2021 (online). 136 Australia, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australia in the Asian Century, Canberra, October 2012, 232 (online). 137 Australian Government, Department of Defence, Defence White Paper 2013, Canberra, 2013, 7 (online).

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level – economic, political, strategic and military-to-military’ – said to lie at the heart of stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.138 The IndoPacific concept was set to become an increasingly influential framework through which Australia’s strategic region was effectively rebranded.139 The 2013 Australian White Paper also sketched implications for the Island Pacific. Along with Timor-Leste, the ‘South Pacific’ could benefit from growth in the broader Indo-Pacific, mentioning ongoing demand for their marine, mineral, energy and forestry resources. On the other hand, population growth, high levels of unemployment and poor governance would likely ‘create the conditions for escalating crime and violence’ – difficulties compounded by the effects of climate change.140 The security capacity of South Pacific states to deal with internal, external or transnational threats and dependence on foreign assistance indicated that Australia’s assistance would continue, even as ‘the growing reach and influence of Asian nations opens up a wider range of external players for our neighbours to partner with’. But again, a long, shared history together with ‘deep business and people-to-people links’ was emphasized, along with a commitment to ‘strengthening sovereignty and assisting with security and stability in the South Pacific and Timor-Leste when required’.141 A succinct commentary referencing the White Paper and the Island Pacific’s general security environment noted that Australia, ‘like other dominant players in their own regions, will always be both damned and praised for its various actions’. Climate change stood out as problematic, leaving Australia with ‘much work to do in understanding security from a Pacific Island viewpoint’. Even so, it was likely to remain ‘the power most able and most likely to guarantee regional security in the interests of the Pacific Islands region’s people’.142 New Zealand, following the Ardern government’s reset, has been a much stronger ally in global climate change policy and more attuned to the basic human security needs threatened by lack of effective policy action. This has enhanced New Zealand’s soft power profile in the region while Australia has continued to rely more on its relative material strength as a middle power in economic and security issues.143 138 Ibid., 10. 139 See, generally, David Scott, ‘Australia’s Embrace of the Indo-Pacific: New Term, New Region, New Strategy?’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 13 (3), 2013, 425–48. 140 Ibid., 15. 141 Ibid., 15–16. 142 Jenny Hayward-Jones, ‘Australia and Security in the Pacific Islands Region’, in Rouben Azizian and Carleton Cramer (eds.), Regionalism, Security and Cooperation in Oceania (Honolulu: Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2015), 78. 143 Joanne Wallis and Anna Powles, Australia and New Zealand in in the Pacific Islands: Ambiguous Allies? (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2018), 10–11.

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In the meantime, new life was breathed into the Australia-IndiaJapan-US Security Quadrilateral Dialogue (the Quad). It had been largely dormant for a decade but was resurrected in 2017 in support of the FOIP. According to one analysis, this development was based on an unstated assumption that ‘deeper cooperation among four highly capable countries sharing common interests, values and threat perceptions has a greater chance of creating a balance of power favourable to the preservation of the current rules-based order across the Indo-Pacific’.144 These balance of power considerations are directly related to Xi Jinping’s more aggressive posture in the region, especially in the South China Sea, and his increasingly belligerent behaviour towards Taiwan. One possible strategy is to establish a joint infrastructure development fund to counter the BRI. Initial discussions in 2018 suggested that Australia, Japan and the US set up a Trilateral Partnership for infrastructure investment in the Indo-Pacific to ‘mobilise and assist private sector investment in infrastructure projects, digital connectivity and energy infrastructure’ with early proposals including developing electricity infrastructure in Papua New Guinea.145 A broader Quad initiative ‘is the next logical step [to] aid in arresting the decline in governance standards and norms associated with the BRI, as well as countering China’s broader narrative to developing countries that it is only Beijing that understands their development needs’.146 In 2019, somewhat belatedly, the US Defense Department released its own Indo-Pacific Strategy Report. It was aggressive in tone and explicit about its view of China asserting at the same time its own Pacific identity and place in the region: The Indo-Pacific is the Department of Defense’s priority theater. The United States is a Pacific nation; we are linked to our Indo-Pacific neighbors through unbreakable bonds of shared history, culture, commerce, and values. We have an enduring commitment to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific in which all nations, large and small, are secure in their sovereignty and able to pursue economic growth consistent with accepted international rules, norms, and principles of fair competition…. Inter-state strategic competition, defined by geopolitical rivalry between free and repressive world order visions, is the primary concern for U.S. national security. In particular, the People’s Republic of China, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, seeks to reorder the region to its advantage by leveraging military modernization, influence operations, and predatory economics to coerce other nations. 144 Lavina Lee, Assessing the Quad: Prospects and Limitations of Quadrilateral Cooperation for Advancing Australia’s Interests (Sydney: Lowy Institute, May 2020), 2. 145 Ibid., 23. 146 Ibid.

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In contrast, the Department of Defense supports choices that promote longterm peace and prosperity for all in the Indo-Pacific. We will not accept policies or actions that threaten or undermine the rules-based international order – an order that benefits all nations.147

The Island Pacific figured in several places, not least in relation to Guam and the CNMI through which the US would strengthen its hard power capability. It would also partner with Australia and Papua New Guinea on a joint initiative at Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island.148 Highlighted as well was a ‘revitalized engagement’ with the broader Island Pacific to ‘preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific region, maintain access, and promote our status as a security partner of choice’, noting that the islands ‘represent a region distinct from other regions in the Indo-Pacific because of the relatively small size of states, unique geography, and challenges to promote economic prosperity’. Reiterating the US’s own identity as a Pacific nation, it further emphasized shared values and interests as underscoring four important components special to the Island Pacific:149 First, we share a long history, born from commitments and support during the Second World War that compels a renewed U.S. commitment to stay. Second, we believe strongly in respect for a safe, secure, and prosperous, free and open Indo-Pacific that must preserve small states’ sovereignty. Third, we aim to focus on building capacity and resilience to address maritime security; Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated fishing; drug trafficking; and resilience to address climate change and disaster response, as signified by the 2018 Boe Declaration. Fourth and finally, we are committed to continued engagement in the region, by reaffirming and renewing partnerships.150

That the Indo-Pacific Strategy Report was issued under Trump, a consistent climate change denier who had repudiated the Paris agreement, simply illustrates the often conflicting, if not confused, elements of his policy agenda. Those issues aside, additional support for Pacific Island countries to the tune of US$65 million in new assistance was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in September 2019 under the rubric of a ‘Pacific pledge’. This was in addition to US$36.5 million announced at the 50th meeting of the Forum in August, as well as around US$350 million that US agencies invest annually in

147



148 149 150

Patrick M. Shanahan, Acting Secretary of Defense, US Department of Defense, IndoPacific Strategy Report: Preparedness, Partnership and Promoting a Networked Region, 1 June 2019, 1 (online). Ibid., 20. Ibid., 40–1. Ibid., 41.

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other projects ‘to build a more prosperous future for the people of the region’.151 In September 2021, and after Joe Biden’s election to the US presidency, a new trilateral security pact between Australia, the UK and the US (AUKUS) was announced. AUKUS has been widely viewed as a further strengthening of Indo-Pacific geopolitical strategy. One of the main concerns for Pacific Island countries has been that the pact involves the acquisition by Australia’s defence forces of nuclear-powered submarines. These are not the subject of bans under the SPNFZ treaty, although the very word ‘nuclear’ is enough to prompt negative reactions. For Pacific Island countries it is also taken as a sign of increasing geopolitical tension. Joe Biden, of course, has proved a very different US president from the start, evincing a willingness to work with China on climate change. At the same time, however, he has maintained a tough approach to China’s strategic ambitions, and Oceania remains a vital subregion in the broader IndoPacific scenario. Apart from the strategic importance of Guam, and the US’s Micronesian Compact partners, Forum countries comprise around half the total number of sovereign countries in the Indo-Pacific and control huge ocean resources in the western and central Pacific Ocean.152 This is an arena within which Pacific Island countries can exercise considerable diplomatic agency, particularly if they continue to engage in effective ‘club diplomacy’ while also making the most of opportunities through bilateral engagement with both traditional and non-traditional partners. As one observer notes, Pacific Island countries are now in a position to manage their interests ‘on a regional geopolitical stage with many suitors’.153 12.6 Conclusion Few would venture to assert with any confidence exactly how the geopolitics of Oceania in the Pacific century is likely to play out, but some of the challenges are clear enough. On the smaller stage, the Indonesia/ West Papua issue will continue to fester as long as Indonesia fails to recognize and act effectively on the genuine grievances and legitimate interests of West Papuans reflected in the equally legitimate concerns of their supporters in the wider regional and global spheres. At issue are basic human rights and human security needs that, from the perspective

151



152 153

US Embassy and Consulates in Australia, ‘U.S. Engagement in the Pacific Islands: UN General Assembly Update’, 3 October 2019 (online). Anna Naupa, ‘Indo-Pacific Diplomacy: A View from the Pacific Islands’, Politics and Policy, 45 (5), 2017, 905–6. Szadziewski, ‘Search for Coherence’, 307.

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of the Indonesian state, remain subordinate to its interests in maintaining sovereign authority while exploiting the considerable resources of the West Papuan provinces. At the same time, Indonesia is a key ally in the broader strategic Indo-Pacific concept and is crucial to the interests of allied powers in the region. But Indonesia’s reputation and standing among Pacific Island countries is likely to be compromised so long as it fails to deal with West Papuan grievances. On the wider geopolitical stage, the Indo-Pacific concept has evolved rapidly, becoming the central element in a narrative of regional and global geopolitics increasingly configured around the trajectory of China’s rise and the need to ‘push back’ against increasing Chinese influence. That China’s power has grown exponentially over the last few decades, and that its influence now extends globally, is undisputed, although not all sections of the commentariat agree on what it portends. From some perspectives, the ascent of Xi Jinping as paramount leader has seen China’s posture shift from an earlier ‘smiley face’ diplomatic stance to a much more aggressive one, especially vis-à-vis the US-led regional security order. Certainly, that is how it is seen from Washington as well as Canberra, Tokyo, Seoul and various other vantage points. And it cannot be denied that China has become much more uncompromising in its treatment of Taiwan, Hong Kong and its Uyghur population in Xin Jiang province and in its militarization of the South China Sea. The Ukraine–Russia conflict has also heightened concerns about China initiating a similar intervention to seize control of Taiwan, although China is no doubt aware of the enormous costs to Russia of the conflict across multiple factors – from economic to reputational. Concerns about China’s more aggressive posture, however, are not shared by all, especially in places where the aid and infrastructure programs proceeding under the BRI appear to have brought substantial benefits and where China has also made much of the South–South motif. Whether this motif really is taken for anything more than a rhetorical flourish is a moot point, but it may well work in evoking a long history of exploitative Western colonialism and neocolonialism against which China can build a contrasting image whereby partners in the development enterprise appear to be treated as equals. However, critics of China’s activities in the Island Pacific, as elsewhere in the global South, tend to see these activities as simply another form of neocolonialism, the outcomes of which may, in the longer term, be as threatening to Pacific Island countries as they are to the metropolitan powers that lead the existing regional order. Whether this should be dismissed as unwarranted alarmism remains to be seen. What is certain is that the dynamics of geopolitics in the Pacific century have changed irrevocably.

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13 Conclusion

This book has sought to provide an historically informed and politically attuned analysis of Oceania as a region encompassing the world’s largest geographic feature and an extraordinary variety of countries and people. The significant historical depth provided in this study is not just as a matter of passing interest. The analysis of contemporary regional politics is inextricably related to events and developments that have occurred over centuries, commencing with the earliest human settlements and continuing through to European exploration and colonization, the period of formal regionalization in the post-war period, decolonization, the Cold War, the various phases of regionalization, the rise of subregionalism and key developments in the post–Cold War period revolving around security, political economy and geopolitical dynamics. Within this broad framework, ideas about race, ethnicity and culture areas, modernization and development, democracy and human rights, sovereignty and selfdetermination, colonialism and neocolonialism, identity and agency, have all featured strongly. Identity politics has been a principal focus of this study, implicated as it is in the three sets of tensions in regional relations set out earlier, and which have proved problematic for building a cohesive regional society. To reiterate, the first derives from the historic legacies of colonialism involving mainly Western powers, although Japanese and Indonesian imperialism are important too. The Western colonial legacy came to play a key role in strengthening notions of a Pacific Way, a unifying pan-Pacific discourse that evolved during the period of decolonization and its aftermath to assert a distinctive Pacific Islands identity and diplomatic style vis-à-vis ‘the West’ in general and Australia and New Zealand as major proximate actors. This accords with the West/non-West (and North/South) divide in global politics – a divide that certainly captures some of the key dynamics at work in the region and that frames important aspects of the analysis. But it is not the only divide of importance. A second set of tensions, emerging from the Melanesia/Micronesia/Polynesia divide, has tended 361

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362 Conclusion

to work against pan-Pacific unity, giving rise to robust subregional identities that now form the basis of substantive subregional organizations and that have been implicated in some of the most problematic developments in the present period. The third set of tensions has been generated by the increasing presence of new actors in the region, particularly China and its version of South–South partnership. While the aid that China delivers has been largely welcomed in the Island Pacific, especially given that it comes without conditionality, the longer-term consequences are yet to play out. These challenges play into the geopolitical landscape encapsulated in the recent reformulation of the broader strategic regional nomenclature in terms of the ‘Indo-Pacific’. Also figuring in the geopolitical scenario, albeit at a different level, is the internationalization of the Indonesia/ West Papua issue. Although these developments are relatively recent phenomena, they are, along with the other sets of tensions, legacies of a multifaceted history extending over centuries. 13.1

The Legacies of History

The arrival of European explorers and adventurers from the time Balboa first sighted the Pacific Ocean more than half a millennia ago has, rather obviously, had a decisive influence on the formation of Oceania and the creation of a regional stage on which numerous actors have left their imprint. But they did not do so on a blank canvas. The story of regional politics begins with the first human settlements in Oceania, the societies they created throughout the Island Pacific and the cultural and other practices that sustained them over centuries. The extraordinary feats of ‘wayfinding’ achieved by early voyagers still figure prominently in narratives defining many contemporary communities. Even archaeological evidence of origins in southern China and Taiwan now also plays into identity politics configured around a common Austronesian heritage. The formation of the modern states of Australia and New Zealand from a basis in wholesale settler colonialism, which reduced their Indigenous populations to minority status, produced quite different demographies from those of the Island Pacific, especially in the case of Australia. And their very different histories of political, social and economic development produced, in turn, two countries whose identities align very much with ‘the West’ and whose affiliations with the Island Pacific have often been called into question. But whatever controversies may attend Australia’s and New Zealand’s membership of Oceania as a regional construct, and more especially the Forum as its premier regional organization, they have

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13.1  The Legacies of History 363

been at the centre of regionalization processes since the earliest days of colonization, while they were themselves still colonies. Australian and New Zealand settlers were at the forefront of establishing a ‘British Oceania’ that saw the push for colonization in the Island Pacific in the context of European rivalries and as an early manifestation of strategic denial to ensure their own security interests. With the addition of French, US and other colonial influences, this provided the basis for subsequent regional development. The UK itself, or more specifically its government(s), often appeared as a reluctant colonizer in the Pacific, drawn in mainly by the activities of its subjects on the other side of the world. Other colonizing influences, especially from Spanish, Dutch, German and Japanese sources, have all left their mark too but generally have less significance for contemporary regional politics, although the legacy of Dutch imperialism in the East Indies and West Papua is another matter. French imperialism has had a much more significant impact and France remains an important player in the region, as does the US with its major security interests in Micronesia. The series of political developments leading to formal regionalization processes over the last seven decades or so occurred initially in the context of post-war global politics in which the Cold War and the decolonization movement shaped the contours of both national and regional politics. US and Australian support for Indonesia’s annexation of West Papua, resulting in the latter’s effective removal from the region, also bears testimony to the legacy of Cold War interests, as does the way in which US interests played out in Micronesia in particular. The case of West Papua demonstrates how the decolonization movement, via the UN, was appropriated to serve Indonesia’s expansionism as well as US Cold War interests in securing Indonesia, with Australia and New Zealand following suit. West Papua’s considerable natural resources was another factor and has seen it fall victim to the resource curse through relentless exploitation, displacing Indigenous communities and contributing to intense political discontent. Cold War politics ensured some commonality of purpose among the Western colonial powers, but they were scarcely united along all fronts. France, in particular, stood out as a player determined to assert its identity in the international sphere and push its own specific agenda in the region as a means of enhancing its status in world politics in the wake of its humiliation in the Second World War. The shift in French approaches since the 1990s, however, has seen the French territories become integrated much more closely in regional politics, illustrating how both French behaviour and the Forum’s approach to membership has evolved

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364 Conclusion

over the years, although the decolonization of France’s Pacific territories remains an issue, as does its nuclear legacy. But just as one troublesome aspect of regional political divisions appears to have been more or less reconciled, at least for the time being, pressures arising from subregional dynamics have come to the fore. 13.2

A Divided Oceania?

Among the most important legacies of the European presence in the region is the tripartite division of the Island Pacific into the Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian subregions. Differences between these groupings, as well as similarities within them, that had developed over centuries were not complete figments of European imaginings, questions about their substance as ‘culture areas’ notwithstanding. But the extent to which these entities became solidified, not least through the agency of Indigenous people encompassed within them, has provided the basis on which robust subregional political identities have emerged. So, while these constructs may well have arisen in the milieu of Western social, political and geographic thought, incorporating assumptions based on the deeply flawed ‘raciology’ of the nineteenth century and continuing to raise issues of ethnographic integrity, they have considerable resonance among contemporary participants in regional politics who have made these categories their own, investing them with meaning and significance, and deploying them for their various purposes. The rivalry along the lines of the Melanesia/Polynesia divide is relatively longstanding and has its own characteristics and dynamics. Paradoxically, the enormous diversity of Melanesia is part of what makes it cohere as a ‘culture area’ along with certain socio-political characteristics that set it apart from the other subregions, especially Polynesia. Despite a much weaker sense of Micronesianess across the subregion, the Micronesian groupings at the elite level have more recently invested heavily in a subregional political identity, vying for status visà-vis the other groupings and creating a major crisis for the Forum in the process. Melanesian identity underscores West Papua’s aspirations for self-determination and plays into broader geopolitical developments, prompting in turn Indonesia’s move to also assert a partial Melanesian identity. Of course, identity politics is an ever-shifting phenomenon and the divisions and differences that may appear irreconcilable, or similarities that make entities seem coherent, at one stage may well disappear at another. Even so, the tripartite division of the Island Pacific has achieved a certain solidity, with the Forum recognizing the subregional organizations based on the Melanesia/Micronesia/Polynesia divide as reflecting

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13.2  A Divided Oceania? 365

‘the complex nature of political and economic relationships between the members of the Forum’.1 Notwithstanding the solidity achieved by the subregional groupings, they have not been untroubled by their internal tensions as exemplified, in particular, by the issue of Indonesia/West Papua in the MSG. The Melanesian Way has also demonstrated little efficacy in the face of domestic crises, as the cases of Bougainville and Solomon Islands attest. Having said that, region-wide responses to the latter crises, although slow in coming and not necessarily delivering perfect outcomes, have succeeded in alleviating the worst aspects of the crises. And in these cases, all Forum members have acted more or less in concert, at least when they have finally acted. Every member has an interest in maintaining stable national polities throughout the region. These are, after all, the building blocks of regional institutions. Coordinated regional responses to crises provide a more tangible, practical manifestation of an effective Pacific Way than the more vaguely articulated and highly clichéd rhetorical formulations expressed from time to time, although romantic imagery can also serve useful political purposes. The fallout from Fiji’s coups has presented particular difficulties for Forum politics over the years, especially given Fiji’s strategic location as ‘the hub of Pacific regionalism’ and Ratu Mara’s personal standing in the earlier years of regional politics.2 The first coup in 1987, ostensibly in defence of Indigenous Fijian rights, followed elections in which Mara himself had lost office – a very difficult pill for him to swallow. The allimportant consensus over constitutional ‘rules of the game’, essential to democratic politics, was quickly discarded. Regional responses at this time saw a clear division between Australia and New Zealand on the one hand and the Pacific Island countries on the other. While the former imposed sanctions, albeit fairly mild ones, the latter maintained almost total silence on the issue, demonstrating a certain solidarity in support of claims, articulated by both the coup leader and Mara himself, that Fiji’s domestic political affairs were really no one else’s business. This was a moment in which the differences in attitudes to democracy as an essential pillar of good governance, promoted primarily by Western countries, stood in contrast with claims to sovereignty and non-interference in a country’s internal affairs, which are so often invoked when democracy and human rights concerns are at serious issue. The latter stance was specifically associated with the Pacific Way at the time, reinforced by 1

Forum Secretariat, Review of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat  – Draft Report, Suva, 2012 (online). 2 Corbett and Connell, ‘The “Promise”’, 302–3.

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366 Conclusion

claims that the coup was in defence of Indigenous rights vis-à-vis an ‘alien’ population. Around three decades later, following the 2006 coup, attitudes among the Pacific Island countries had changed. No longer are coups and other critical problems with domestic political order off limits to the Forum’s agenda. Factors relevant to this change include major shifts within Fiji’s national political arena. Chiefly figures such as Ratu Mara no longer occupy the highest offices and the GCC in Fiji, which had continued to enjoy considerable influence under Indigenous nationalist dispensations until Bainimarama seized power, has been disbanded (although there is always the prospect of its reconstitution especially given the change of government in 2022). The scenario confronting other leaders in the Island Pacific in 2006 was, in any event, very different from that of 1987. There had also been generational leadership change throughout Pacific Island countries and less willingness to invoke a ‘traditionalist’ version of the Pacific Way to avoid confronting an illicit seizure of power. Although the MSG declined to suspend Fiji’s membership of the subregional organization, Melanesian leaders within the Forum itself did not oppose Fiji’s suspension in 2009, while among Polynesian countries, Samoan leader Tuila’epa was proactive in effecting this move and publicly criticizing the coup leader. When Tuila’epa himself faced loss of office in the 2021 national elections in Samoa, however, there was a moment when it seemed that constitutionalism there might also fail. But in the end, a new prime minister, Afioga Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa (Samoa’s first female leader in a country that historically has had very low levels of representation of women), was confirmed as head of the first new party of government in almost forty years, displacing Tuila’epa who had held office since 1998. Observers of both Samoan and broader regional politics must have breathed a collective sigh of relief when Tuila’epa finally agreed to step aside and assume the role of leader of the opposition. All this shows just how difficult it is to treat the Island Pacific under the rubric of a singular, authentic Pacific Way through which the selfimage of Pacific Island states and territories is collectively and effectively expressed through a form of regional society seamlessly encompassing Indigenous actors and agency (notwithstanding that all not all actors from the islands are Indigenous). This may have been the vision of Ratu Mara, and in some instances it has achieved significant resonance. But it has failed to overcome the important divisions and differences within the Island Pacific detailed in earlier chapters. This leads us to consider once again the Pacific Way as a unifying ideology, at least for the Island Pacific, its role in supporting the West/non-West divide in regional

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13.3  The Pacific Way Revisited 367

politics and implications for postcolonial (and decolonial) theory in the context of ‘hegemonic regionalism’. 13.3

The Pacific Way Revisited

To the extent that the Pacific Way constitutes a unifying discourse, it has two closely related elements. The first seeks to bridge differences within the Island Pacific, the second is to establish difference between the Island Pacific as a whole vis-à-vis ‘others’. The second element is essential to the first, especially given the divisions evident within the Island Pacific. Although compromised by assertions of subregional identities and national interests, the Pacific Way has had some success in marking a distinction between the political and social values said to be inherent in the (mainly Indigenous communities) of the Island Pacific on the one hand, and ‘Western ways’ (including Australia and New Zealand) on the other. This was not exactly the way in which Ratu Mara initially conceived it, speaking as he did in terms that embraced Fiji’s former colonizing power as a partner in the smooth transition to independence in contrast with other parts of the former colonial world. But the way in which the ambit of the phrase was expanded in the years that followed gave it much more of a postcolonial resonance. As with most modes of postcolonial theorizing, the Pacific Way came to depend at least partly on the West/non-West binary cast in a distinctly oppositional mode, although its expression in these terms has been relatively moderate. It has rarely been invoked in repudiation of colonialism and all its works, as expressions of postcolonial ideology in other contexts have tended to do. But, as in many other post-colonial situations, it has been inclined to identify certain elements of Western political practice, especially those involving competitive elections on the basis of a universal adult franchise, as alien to the context of traditional politics. There is certainly some truth in this insofar as Polynesian systems historically tended strongly to authoritarianism, allowing little scope for criticism and dissent. These systems, however, were claimed to be democratic ‘in their own way’, operating on the basis of consensus as the dominant mode of decision-making in contrast with Western modes, depicted as purely adversarial and majoritarian. But neither assertion is an accurate reflection of actual practice. In the Western case, it has been argued that the practice of constitutional democratic politics requires a very high level of consensus about the legitimacy of the institutions and practices that actually underpin adversarial politics, including the legitimacy of political succession when a governing party loses office. This ensures stability and continuity even

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368 Conclusion

under conditions where power is hotly contested, and the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, following former President Trump’s defeat in the November 2020 elections, provides a striking example of what happens when that consensus fails. Australia, too, experienced a failure of constitutionalism in 1975 when the elected prime minister was dismissed from office by the governor-general contrary to longstanding conventions. So, despite high levels of consensus about the legitimacy of democratic systems and transitions of power in Western democracies, they are obviously not immune to their own crises from time to time. At the regional level in Europe, we have also seen that EU decisionmaking is marked by deliberative and consensual approaches and is not an arena in which an adversarial style of politics is the norm. This is not to say that regionalism in Europe is without problems, as Brexit and the apparent rise of populist nationalisms across the continent attest. The point, however, is that it is highly misleading to characterize regional decision-making in Europe as essentially adversarial and to then use this to assert differences as between Western and non-Western modes of politics, policy making and diplomacy. This suggests that more critical attention be directed to taken-for-granted assumptions about distinctive ‘political cultures’ as sources of explanation rather than as aspects of a politics of culture. Having said that, there is definitely a sense in which aspects of Pacific Way decision-making have been informed by certain modes of politics in the Island Pacific, or at least parts of it. In its early stages, the Pacific Way was invested with distinctly Polynesian elements due partly to the preponderance of high chiefly figures from Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa. But closer inspection shows that the mode of ‘consensus’ in domestic politics from which the Pacific Way model was derived at this time required not a deliberative and inclusive process of democratic decision-making but rather obedience to established political authority and repudiation of dissent as a legitimate form of political expression amounting to a form of elite hegemony. The ASEAN Way is similarly constructed, albeit in the absence of anything resembling a Polynesian hierarchy. In contrast, in democratic settings, it is accepted that criticism and dissent are a vital part of the political process itself. Decisions endorsed by a majority, however, are usually accepted, by consensus, as having been arrived at via a legitimate procedure even if one disagrees with the particular policy outcome in question. The way in which consensus is understood as a mode of political procedure is therefore not as straightforward as one may at first assume. More generally, although some may defend it as a meaningful cultural symbol, the Pacific Way has become a rather clichéd term with

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13.4  Hegemonic Regionalism and Indigenous Agency 369

romanticized overtones, appearing frequently in lofty statements issued by the Forum and in terms that embrace all its members, including at times Australia and New Zealand. But it also remains a largely elite formulation, as identified in early critiques by Island scholars and other commentators who, as we have seen, have asserted that the rights of state elites to be the only authoritative voice of the regional community can no longer go unchallenged.3 This also illustrates the fact that ‘hegemony’ operates at different levels, including at local and national levels as well as along class and gender lines. But questions of hegemony in the context of regional politics in Oceania also involve issues of a different order. 13.4

Hegemonic Regionalism and Indigenous Agency

The ongoing participation of colonial powers in both the Pacific Community and the Forum, and the extent to which these powers exercise control through aid and development programs, inevitably raises issues of hegemonic regionalism and the extent to which Islander agency can genuinely be exercised. While colonial/metropolitan powers certainly played a dominant role in the earlier years of formal regionalization, from the time of the Canberra Pact and the establishment of the SPC to the emergence of the Forum, it is also clear that Indigenous agency has developed considerable momentum, contributing decisively to the configuration of both regional and subregional organization in the present period. Initially, Indigenous agency in regional politics emerged together with some sense of collective identity vis-à-vis the colonial powers, although it was never simply a case of unified Islander resistance to the impositions of an equally unified set of metropolitan powers. France clearly provoked most of the ire among almost all the other participants in the regional enterprise in its refusal to countenance any move to decolonization and its determination to pursue nuclear testing. The record shows that Australia and New Zealand, as well as the UK – all strongly supportive of decolonization in the post-war period – were just as frustrated with French attitudes and played a major role along with Island leaders, especially Fiji’s Ratu Mara, in promoting the idea of a new regional organization through which the leaders of the newly independent and self-governing island countries could gather to discuss the political issues affecting their individual and collective interests. Mara’s attitude to British colonial rule in Fiji, which even by the early to mid1960s he was reluctant to see off, also shows just how ambiguous colonial relations could be. 3

Fry, Whose Oceania?, 6.

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370 Conclusion

Despite the push to establish a venue for political discussion, the early years of the Forum saw little inclination by Island leaders of the time to engage proactively with a political agenda, with the exception of such issues as nuclear testing and marine resources. At the same time, there was a marked tendency in both Australia’s and New Zealand’s approach to take a back seat in Forum discussions. Australian delegates, in particular, had a delicate path to tread, being easily accused of throwing their weight around if attempting to lead policy discussions on the one hand, but also of neglect if seen to be insufficiently engaged on the other. Australia has continued to tread this path in Forum politics. The reluctance of the Howard government to respond to repeated requests to intervene in the Solomon Islands crisis in the early 2000s, on the grounds that it was up to Solomon Islanders to manage their own troubles, attracted further accusations of neglect and indifference. But when Australia did finally agree to participate in an intervention, albeit with a formal invitation from the Solomon Islands government and with the agreement and cooperation of all Forum members, it was inevitably accused of heavyhandedness and promoting its own neocolonial agenda. Yet alternative remedies offered by critics were thin on the ground. A notable exception to the relatively passive approach adopted by most Island delegates in the early years of the Forum was Ratu Mara of Fiji  – undoubtedly the dominant figure of the period and standing out among his peers as the most confident and outspoken. But he, too, sometimes found it difficult to push his Island colleagues into more proactive engagement with the larger picture of regional cooperation in which national interests might need to be compromised. He was alert, as well, to the resentment he might provoke if he was seen as adopting too much of a leadership role among them, indicating that perceptions of hegemonic behaviour could at times extend beyond the erstwhile colonial powers. At the same time, Mara was scarcely shy in adopting an aggressive stance towards Australia and New Zealand if they appeared unwilling to support his favoured position on policy issues. This early period also witnessed some reluctance on the part of Mara and his mainly Polynesian colleagues to embrace the prospect of the Forum expanding to include Melanesian members. As Papua New Guinea moved to independence, Australia was especially concerned to promote its participation in Oceania’s regional politics, possibly to steer it away from closer engagement with ASEAN countries although, at the same time, it was clearly in Australia’s interests that Papua New Guinea maintained good relations with Indonesia to ensure broader regional stability. When Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands eventually joined as full Forum members there was indeed a change in the

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dynamics. As reports of the period show, the rather conservative core island members now faced a more assertive Melanesian disposition. On the issue of Australia’s and New Zealand’s role in regional politics more generally, and the nature of their relationship with Pacific Island countries, the question of whether this amounts to hegemonic regionalism is certainly worth considering. Both have been an integral part of Oceania from the start, playing a major role in regional politics, both historically as colonial powers and in later periods as key stakeholders with considerable resources at their disposal, at least vis-à-vis their Island neighbours. They were major forces behind the establishment of both the SPC and the Forum. But their status as former colonial powers as well as donors in a North/South sense makes their membership of the Forum, in particular, appear anomalous. This raises the further question of whether the Forum would work better as a Pacific Island–only organization. Recent trends in subregional politics suggest that this is unlikely, illustrating just how important it is to take serious account of other cleavages in regional politics. Yet attention to these has been noticeably absent in most studies of regional politics to date, focusing instead on the dynamics attending the role of metropolitan powers in general, often treated as a singular entity. Even Australia and New Zealand, although often working closely together and sharing similar approaches to regional policy, have their differences, not to mention aggravations, the latter evident at times in a certain trans-Tasman rivalry aptly described in Freudian terms as the ‘narcissism of minor differences’.4 The Forum has managed the anomaly presented by the membership of Australia and New Zealand to date and, to an extent, made it work, notwithstanding the imbalances in political economy and geostrategic status that support notions of hegemonic regionalism. This is at least partly because the interests of Australia and New Zealand and those of Pacific Island countries are not mutually exclusive and their relations go beyond those of donors and recipients and the disparities that this entails. Having said that, there are times when Australia and New Zealand do act more as donors than as equal members, as attempts to impose neoliberal solutions to problems of sluggish economic growth suggest. Aid conditionality also remains an issue. Even so, accusations of persistent bullying and domineering behaviour, on the part of Australia in particular, are often based more on the assumption that this must be so given their size and relative power (and ‘Westernness’) rather than on actual evidence, as the 2013 Marauta Report found. 4

Goldsmith, ‘Diplomatic Rivalries’, 187–8.

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372 Conclusion

To overemphasize the extent to which these imbalances may work to subordinate the interests of Pacific Island countries to those of Australia and New Zealand also necessitates downplaying the agency of Island leaders and other Indigenous actors, both past and present, and framing their agency simply in terms of resistance vis-à-vis Western colonial or neocolonial impositions. The story of the Forum’s emergence in the 1970s to the present day shows a high degree of cooperation among all the relevant players as well as a convergence of interests on many issues. The standout exception in the present period has been climate change policy where Australia’s behaviour, in particular, has left much to be desired. Interestingly, it is in this context that former conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared an Australian Way, asserting in the face of international criticism directed at its half-hearted approach to achieving carbon reduction goals that Australia was not going to be lectured by others ‘who do not understand Australia’.5 But one may well ask whether Morrison really ‘understood’ the concerns of Pacific Islanders on climate change issues. The prospects of greater cooperation on climate change issues between Australia and Pacific Island countries improved significantly with the election of the Albanese-led Labor government in 2022, but the legacy of many years of inaction remains. In addition to manifestations of Islander agency via the three subregional organizational groups reflecting the Melanesia/Micronesia/Polynesia divide, organizations such as the PNA have been operating for many years along with a plethora of CSOs. There has also been the emergence of the PIDF as an alternative regional forum and the PSIDS UN group as an important international lobby group, especially on climate change. These latter developments, along with Fiji’s proactive approach to regional and international politics following its suspension from the Forum in 2009, as well as coup leader Bainimarama’s attitudes to Australia and New Zealand following this event, prompted much speculation about the future of Oceania’s regional architecture. The most radical development would have seen the departure of Australia and New Zealand from the Forum itself, as advocated by some Fijian supporters of the Bainimarama regime in terms that went well beyond problems of climate change policy: ‘The membership of Australia and New Zealand in the current regional architecture creates a dichotomy and an over-diversity of membership that has not supported the optimisation of benefits from regional initiatives.’6 5 ‘Climate Change: Australia Pledges Net Zero Emissions by 2050’, BBC, 26 October 2021 (online). 6 Kaliopate Tavola, ‘Towards a New Regional Diplomacy Architecture’, in Greg Fry and Sandra Tarte (eds.), The New Pacific Diplomacy (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 29.

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The question, however, is whether these sentiments reflected views around the region more generally, or within Fiji for that matter, which would have supported a significant change in regional political arrangements. Again, there is no doubting the dissatisfaction with Australia and New Zealand in relation to climate change policy. This has indeed provided incentives for Pacific Island countries to pursue strategies through organizations that exclude Australia and New Zealand. These are in addition to accusations that see Australia and New Zealand as pursuing neocolonial strategies in the region more generally. These come mainly from academic and media sources – often expressed simply as an assumption or assertion given that it is such an easy narrative to push. But as the record shows, most Australian and New Zealand actors have always been well aware of the ease with which such accusations can be made and have usually acted with caution when called on to intervene in regional affairs. There are also alternative views from around the region that see Australia and New Zealand as having made a serious effort to work with Pacific Island countries as partners and to play a positive role in regional politics, as the following indicate: Australia has assumed a prominent regional role given its size and resources and it acts in a natural way accordingly…. It is definitely a Western country but not a bad fit in the region because of that. In 1987 I described Australia as a dislocated Western country because of its negative reaction to the coup, but that was then…. Australia works well in the region. Generally, Australia and New Zealand play a very positive role in the region and work well as equal partners with Pacific Island countries.7 Australia and New Zealand are part of the Pacific family. They have made a tremendous contribution to the region, sometimes more than the US, and this contribution shouldn’t be forgotten…. The New Zealand ambassador in Washington often invites Pacific representatives to dinner which contributes to very warm relations.8 Sometimes the media likes to beat up stories about possible dissent within the Forum, including about Australia’s and New Zealand’s approach. But these two countries do appreciate the Pacific style of diplomacy…. Australia and New Zealand sometimes generate some resentment, but they are not the only ones. Fiji has generated just as much, if not more, in recent years.9 Over the years it is evident that Australian and New Zealand leaders come along [to the Forum] and listen a lot rather than do much talking. This is not because they don’t know a lot about the Pacific  – they are always very well briefed. But they certainly don’t want to be seen to be dominating at all, and are 7

Sitiveni Rabuka, 1987 military coup leader and current prime minister of Fiji, personal interview, Suva, 12 September 2014. 8 Aumua Amata, congresswoman, US House of Representatives (American Samoa), personal interview, Pago Pago, 29 August 2016. 9 Dame MegTaylor, former secretary-general, Pacific Islands Forum, personal interview, Suva, 23 August 2016.

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374 Conclusion more than content to let the Pacific island leaders voice their issues of concern, interest etc. The wishes of Pacific island leaders usually prevail.10 It is normal that Australia and New Zealand have influence in the region – they are Oceanic powers with more economic resources than most island countries. They are part of the Pacific…. Australia and New Zealand supported Kanaks before the Accords.11

Also implicated in the formulation of hegemonic regionalism through a postcolonial lens is the issue of culture or, more especially, cultural difference between Australia and New Zealand as Western entities on the one hand, and the countries of the Island Pacific as representing Indigeneity on the other. Again, while these certainly have some salience, to invest too much in ‘Islander identities’ in contrast with ‘Western identities’ is to reinforce the problematic insider/outsider categories along the lines of the West/non-West and/or North/South dichotomy. While these accord with the framework of conventional postcolonial approaches, as well as those supporting images of hegemonic regionalism, they tend to reduce the complexities of regional politics, and the identities involved within this sphere, to just one simple binary, assuming in the process that Island actors, and their Western counterparts in regional politics, speak with a unified voice. While it would therefore be a mistake to dismiss the importance of ‘otherness’, including on cultural grounds, it is equally important not to overhomogenize the entities involved, to exaggerate differences, to posit essentialized antagonisms between them and to lock them into a permanent binary system. Then there is the South–South motif underpinning the role of newer players in regional politics – China in particular. The invocation of the South–South motif, which, like the Pacific Way, tends to assert a commonality of interests among Island people vis-à-vis the West/global North, also bears critical scrutiny. Among the issues worth considering is whether the kinds of development currently underway under the South– South rubric are likely to challenge the dominant mode of capitalist relations that dominate the global political economy or simply replicate it in another form. China’s capital accumulation in the last few years, and its sponsorship of investment around the world through the BRI and other initiatives, has made a major contribution to contemporary global capitalism. Certainly, it has done nothing to undermine it. In the process, it has also become the world’s number one emitter of greenhouse gases, 10

Leiataua Dr Kilifoti Eteuati, ambassador-at-large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Apia, personal interview, 6 September 2016. 11 M. Roch Wamytan, President UC-FLNKS; former president, Congress of New Caledonia; former president of MSG; former president FLNKS, personal interview, Noumea, 20 October 2016.

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exceeding the levels of all other countries in the developed world combined and therefore posing the biggest single threat to the security and survival of the Island Pacific and its people. Pacific Island countries have generally welcomed Chinese development aid as well as expanded market opportunities. However, since much of the aid, while involving less stringent processes and accountability let alone conformity with a good governance agenda, comes in the form of concessional loans, servicing debts accruing from infrastructure projects, which may not always support local sustainable growth, brings other problems, including the ability of individual countries to maintain adequate expenditure in other important areas, from health, education and gender violence to climate adaptation and mitigation. The inability to service debts may also result in losing control of assets (financial or physical) if used as security against debts incurred, although the secrecy in which debt contracts are typically shrouded limit the available evidence for this.12 While Pacific Island countries may therefore welcome opportunities to exercise more independent agency in a competitive aid environment, these carry the risk of new relations of dependency that may limit the scope for agency in the future. Along with its growing economic power, China’s geopolitical ambitions must also be factored in. This brings into focus the possibility of hegemonic transition in the East Asian hemisphere. China may well promote the idea that its relations with Pacific Island countries, and elsewhere in the global South, are based on mutual respect and equality that depart significantly from the colonial/neocolonial impositions of the West, but power imbalances have a logic of their own and a different kind of hegemonic regionalism or ‘neocolonialism with Chinese characteristics’, which imposes its own constraints on the agency of local actors is not beyond the bounds of possibility. 13.5 Conclusion The legacies of history and the extent to which Western imperialism and interests have shaped the contours of regional politics in Oceania have been a focus of much of this study. Certainly, it has not attempted to understate these, let alone provide any sort of apology for them. But neither has it been drawn into overstating them, for to do so would be 12 Anna Gelpin, Sebastian Horn, Scott Morris, Brad Parks and Cristoph Trebesch, How China Lends: A Rare Look into 100 Debt Contracts with Foreign Governments (Washington, DC: Centre for Global Development, Peterson Institute for Global Economics, 2021) (online).

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376 Conclusion

to cast other actors into entirely subsidiary roles. Rather, it has sought to broaden perspectives on all the forces at play throughout the region, both past and present, especially with respect to the multifaceted politics of identity, a phenomenon that is implicated at so many different levels, adding further layers of complexity to the task of building regional society. Attention to this aspect of regional politics has shown not just how complex the issues are, but also how difficult it is to reduce these to any one conceptual or theoretical framework within which ‘the region’ can be analysed. This applies not just to analyses produced within political studies but to those formulated in other disciplinary areas as well, historiography, anthropology and geography in particular. It is for this reason that the present study has not attempted to apply any single explanatory or interpretive model but has rather drawn insights from many different perspectives to build a more comprehensive overview of Oceania as a region in which cooperation and competition, tensions and contradictions, challenges and opportunities are all at play at any given time. In light of these findings, it is worth reiterating that the approach taken in the analysis has sought to address some of the shortcomings of postcolonial approaches and the kind of ideology that attends these, including those which view hegemonic regionalism almost exclusively in terms of a West/non-West or North/South framing. If postcolonial approaches are to deal adequately with the complexities of all the dynamics at work in the regional politics of Oceania, they need to move beyond the dialectical view of history and ‘the imperial philosophy of difference’ that attends it, and not simply replicate it in an inverted form. For to do so elides important issues of non-Western forms of colonialism and neocolonialism, not to mention internal colonialism practiced by local Indigenous elites that represents another form of hegemony. Conventional postcolonial approaches have tended to avoid engaging with these, but they clearly have particular significance in contemporary regional politics in Oceania, as they do in other regional settings around much of the global South in the contemporary period. Much postcolonial analysis also presents as a counter-hegemonic discourse, often shrouded in an aura of moral superiority in the process. But it has rarely subjected the hegemonic practices, and agency, of Indigenous elites and other local actors to anything but superficial scrutiny, including the way in which cultural traditions can serve to exclude rather than include, disempower rather than empower. Clearly, these dynamics have been just as important to power relations within and between the societies that constitute Oceania as a region as other forms of hegemony on either a small or large scale. This study has therefore been concerned to produce a critique that goes beyond the familiar but often misleading or restrictive

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binaries found in so much postcolonial analysis: Western/non-Western, oppressors/oppressed, bad guys/good guys, and so on. Maintaining these dichotomies do not serve the cause of serious political, social or historical studies. Those concerned to address the normative project of exposing hegemony in human relations, and the variety of forms that domination and subordination take, must therefore look to exposing such practices wherever and whenever they occur rather than confining their investigations to a single set of relations posited in a simplistic oppositional format that limits the scope of genuine critical analysis.

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Index

A Pacific Engaged, 305 Abbott, Tony and climate change denialism, 322 Abe, Shinzo, 354 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders identity in Oceania, 41 inclusion in Festival of Pacific Arts, 36 Accra Accord (2008), 307 Accra Agenda for Action (2008), 307 Ardern, Jacinda, 352 Afghanistan 1979 Soviet invasion of, 340 Africa. See also consensus politics, in Africa; pan-Africanism authoritarian one-party states in, 235 comparisons with, 204 historical empires in, 58 négritude movement in, 175 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, 298, 302, 334 African one-party model, 146 African states comparisons with, 106, 144 African values, 235 Africanization thesis, 262, 265–7 and failed state discourse, 267 Afrocentrism, 173 agency, 26, 28, 32, 167, 289, 361 of Bainimarama regime, 287 Indigenous, 28, 64, 70, 111, 113, 153, 170, 237, 243, 291, 364, 366, 369, 372 of Indigenous elites, 29, 376 of Pacific Island countries, 323, 324, 359 Ahmed, Aijaz, 28 aid neostructural approach to, 307 aid conditionality, 295, 345 aid dependency, 274 Pacific Islands, 298 Air Pacific, 205

Aitutaki Declaration on Regional Security Cooperation (1997), 268, 304, 308 Alaska Russian settlement in, 61 Algeria war in, 117 American Samoa annexation of, 63, 86 membership of APIL, 190 observer status in Pacific Islands Forum, 226 and Pacific Islands Forum, 223, 228 political status of, 87, 225 American War of Independence, 59 Americas historical empires in, 58 Amnesty International and West Papua, 335 anga fakatonga, 162–4 Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (AACC). See Caribbean Commission Anglosphere, 59 Annan, Kofi, 279 anthropology, 232 and culture areas, 23 physical, 47 anti-neocolonialism, 306 anti-slavery movement, 63 ANZAC Pact. See Canberra Pact Aotearoa as Indigenous name for New Zealand, 42 Aqorou, Transform, 349 arc of insecurity, 262 arc of instability, 265 Area Studies, 2, 31 and Cold War, 20 culturalist approaches to, 4 and culture areas, 23 emergence of, 20 and links with CIA, 21 and modernization theory, 20

420

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Index 421 and regionalism, 31 in UK, 83 US formulation of, 20 ASEAN Way, xiii, 168, 234, See also Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Asia historical empires in, 58 Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), 350 Asian Development Bank (ADB), 295, 302, 309, 311 Asian financial crisis (1997/98), 306 Asian settler colonialism in Pacific Islands, 79 Asian values, 234 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), 6, 84, 305 Association of Pacific Island Legislatures (APIL), 190 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), xiii, 167–9, 197, 204, See also ASEAN Way approach to Indo-Pacific concept, 354 and Asian political culture, 9 and consensus politics, 9, 168 contrasted with EU, 9 Auckland Declaration (2004), 271, 272, 308, 311, 322 AUKUS, 359 Austral Islands annexation of, 62 Australasia, 1, 39 as subregion of Oceania, 1 Australia 1975 failure of constitutionalism in, 368 and climate change policy, 356, 372 as colonial power, 74 colonization of, 59, 71 concerns about neocolonial image, 281, 282, 290 condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 conditions for East Timor intervention, 264 and decolonization, 28, 103 early role in Forum, 208 in Forum politics, 370 funding of regional institutions, 201 and hegemonic regionalism, 371 identity of in Oceania, 12 and Indo-Pacific concept, 356 intervention in East Timor, 261, 263 location in Oceania, 36 membership of APEC, 6

migration to, 36 and neocolonialism, 370 nuclear testing in, 117 opposition to nuclear testing, 117, 121 Pacific Studies in, 84 people of Chinese descent in, 342 perceptions of in Forum, 213, 214 as proxy colonial power, 86 relationship with Indonesia, 261, 264 reputation in region, 135 reputational concerns, 218 response to May 1987 Fiji coup, 253 role in establishing South Pacific Commission (SPC), 88–92 role in establishing South Pacific Forum, 141 role in region, xii, xiii and SRO debate, 210 support for decolonization, 116 support for Indonesian annexation of West Papua, 109 support for Japanese control in Micronesia, 79 and Trilateral Partnership, 357 Australia-India-Japan-US Security Quadrilateral Dialogue (the Quad), 357 Australian colonies and influence on British imperialism, 71 Australian government 2016 Defence White Paper, 352 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper, 352 Australian Monroe doctrine, 73 Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), 277 Australian–New Guinea continent. See Sahul Austronesian speakers, 35 Bainimarama, Voreqe (Frank), 197, 250–1, 255, 259, 285–9 and 2006 Fiji coup, 285 and abolition of GCC, 366 and ‘Look North’ foreign policy, 344 and PIDF, 314, 316 and relations with Australia and New Zealand, 345 and West Papua issue, 330, 333 Bainimarama regime (Fiji), 238 Balboa, Vasco Núñez de, 37 Ban Ki-Moon, 328 Bandung Conference (1955), 108 Bandung group. See Non-Aligned bloc Belgrade, 108 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). See China, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

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422 Index Biden, Joe election of, 359 Biketawa Declaration (2000), 268–71, 286, 289, 304, 308, 322 and Fiji, 290 and legitimacy of intervention, 290 and legitimation of Solomon Islands intervention, 279 and Nauru, 284 Tuila’epa’s support for, 287 Bilney, Gordon, 300, 302 Bismarck Archipelago, 63 Black Brothers, 183 Black Lives Matter movement, 14 Blue Pacific agenda, 348 Blue Pacific Continent, 352 Blue Pacific imagery, 354 Blue Pacific narrative, 323 Boe Declaration on Regional Security (2018), 322, 353, 358 Bougainville crisis, 244, 261, 365 intervention in, 290 nature of troubles in, 262 Bougainville, Louis Antoine de, 62 Brexit, 5, 368 Britain and strategic rivalry, 62 British Empire, 29, 59–60, See also imperialism, British British Oceania, 60, 67, 72, 73, 363 Australian promotion of, 73, 74 legacies of, 202 New Zealand promotion of, 73, 74 Bruntland Commission Report, 296 Buck, Sir Peter (Te Rangihiroa), 52 Buddhism and suprastate governance, 7 Bury, Leslie, 137 Bush, George W., 350 Cakobau, Ratu Sir Edward, 134 Callick, Rowan, 299 Camacho, Felix Perez, 191 Canberra Agreement, 88, 94, 98, 100, 113 amendment of, 111 revision of, 209 Canberra Pact, 88, 90, 369 Cannadine, David, 147 Cape Horn, 69 Cape of Good Hope, 69 Carcasses, Moana, 328, 331 Caribbean Commission, 92, 93, 95 Caribbean Research Council, 93 Caroline Islands sold to Germany, 60

Catholic Diocese of Brisbane fact-finding mission to West Papua, 335 Chamorro and Micronesian identity, 195 Chan, Sir Julius, 183, 342 chiefly authority, 178 and Pacific Way, 311 Polynesian, 49, 53, 159 Tongan, 239 chiefly systems in Pacific Islands, 236 Chile as colonizing power in Rapa Nui, 92 China 1969 Sino–Soviet border clashes, 340 aid activity, 1 ancient Silk Road, 339 and South–South motif, 326, 347, 362, 374 and Soviet imperialism, 339 as actor in region, xii as neocolonial power, 327 as South–South development partner, 346 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 339, 348, 349, 357, 360, 374 Centre for Australian, New Zealand and South Pacific Studies, 84 Confucius Institute program, 341 COVID-zero policy, 339 cultural revolution, 338, 339 and debt sustainability in Pacific Islands, 345 and development aid, 375 exclusion from definition of Oceania, 41 EXIM (Export-Import Bank), 343 funding of MSG Secretariat, 184 ‘go global’ policy, 339 governance standards and norms, 357 Great Leap Forward, 338 and identity as South–South development partner, 13 and Indo-Pacific concept, 356 in regional politics, 42, 323 membership of APEC, 6 and neocolonialism, 375, See also neocolonialism, Chinese, 348 ‘open door’ policy, 339 and origins of Austronesian speakers, 35 Pacific Studies in, 336 and post-Forum dialogue, 215 pro-democracy movement in, 296 Reform and Opening-Up program, 338 and regional politics, 254, 279 and regional tensions, 223 rise of, 30, 326, 343, 352

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009427609.017 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Index 423 soft power strategy, 341 South–South motif, 360 two-China policy, 147 UN membership, 338 China-Pacific Islands Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum, 344 China-Pacific Islands Forum Trade Office, 344 China-Taiwan issue, 42, 340, 341 Chinese historic presence in Pacific Islands, 42 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 84 Chinese communities in Oceania, 342–3 Chinese emigration to Oceania, 342 Chirac, Jacques, 219 Christianity and chiefly power, 178 Indigenization of, 178 and Melanesian socialism, 178 and status of women, 258 Chuuk membership of MCES, 191 civil society, 304, 315, 317, 320, 324 exclusion of corporate/commercial interests, 19 meaning of, 18 regional, 18 civil society organizations (CSOs), 19–20, 272, 292, 304, 336, 372 and regionalization, 8 Clarke, Helen, 271, 278 clash of civilizations, 295 climate change, 8, 187 and Boe Declaration, 322, 323 and globalization, 293 and Micronesian organizations, 190, 192 and PLG, 189–90 and PSIDS group, 372 and regional politics, 315, 322, 351, 356, 372, 373 and SIS group, 226 and subregionalism, 229 US/China cooperation, 359 Clinton, Hillary, 350 Clipperton Island, 77 and eastern boundary of Oceania, 40 Cold War and competition for influence, 294 end of, 295 and Indonesia/West Papua issue, 109 legacy of, 363 onset of, 294 colonial regionalism. See regionalism, colonial

colonial rule British, 115–16 colonialism, xii, 12, 24–30, 39, 57, 327, See also neocolonialism; postcolonialism; imperialism British, 49, 210, 363 British, compared with French, 216 British, in Fiji, 145–50, 152–4, 166, 170, 245, 369 competitive nature of, 77 concept of, 58–9 condemnation of, 108 Crocombe’s critique of, 155, 158 delegitimation of, 103 Dutch, in West Papua, 104–7 European, 86, 338 European, impact on Oceania, 70 French, 229, 291 French, criticisms of in Forum, 217 French, in New Caledonia, 174 German, 63 internal, 24, 26, 376 as issue in South Pacific Forum, 215 legacies of, xii, 18, 232, 361 in Melanesia, 176 non-Western, 2, 24, 30, 32 nuclear legacy of, 219, 225 and postcolonial approaches, 2 as regional political concern, 223 settler, 362 Tongan, 49 as vector of Eurocentrism, 27 Western, 375 colonization literal sense of, 57 colonizer/colonized binary, 2 Columbus, Christopher, 60 Commonwealth (of Nations), 202, 279 condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 membership of Oceanic countries, 74 Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) membership of APIL, 190 membership of MCES, 191 membership of Pacific Islands Forum, 226 and Pacific Islands Forum, 228 political status of, 87, 225 strategic importance of, 358 Commonwealth Secretariat, 309 communal land ownership in Pacific Islands, 302–3 Compact of Free Association, 87, 224, 225 comparative politics, xiv

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424 Index Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), 350 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), 219 Confucianism and suprastate governance, 7 Congress of Micronesia, 224 consensus politics, 161 in Africa, 169 in ASEAN, 9, 168, 234 and authoritarianism, 170 in Belgium, 162 and consociational democracy, 161 and constitutionalism, 365, 367 contrasted with adversarial processes, 233 contrasted with Westminster model, 274 as culturally authentic in Pacific Isands, 237 in democracies, 368 and elite hegemony, 368 as elite politics, 167 in EU, 11–14, 161, 170, 368 in Fiji, 166 in Luxembourg, 162 in Melanesia, 240 in Netherlands, 162 in Pacific Islands Forum, 230 and Pacific Way, 287 in Polynesia, 161 in South Pacific Forum, 211, 214 in Tonga, 163 in Western democracies, 170 in Westminister system, 162 constitutionalism, democratic, 162 Cook, Captain James, 37, 59, 64–5 Hawai’ian nationalist critique of, 65 Cook Islands annexation of, 73 House of Ariki, 238 independence and SPC, 123 links to money laundering, 271 membership of SIS group, 226 political status of, 87 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 corporate actors and regionalization, 8 Council for the Pacific Zone, 89 Council of Pacific Island Traditional Leaders, 193 Council of Regional Oragnizations in the Pacific (CROP), 211, 272 COVID-19 pandemic, 8 and 2021 New Caledonian referendum, 220 and Chinese growth, 339

and Forum politics, 228, 229 impact in Pacific Islands, 345 and PIDF, 316 Crocombe, Ron, 155–9 Cui Tiankai, 346 cultural contexts construction of, 4 cultural revivalism, 22 culture concept of, 232–3 politics of, 3 Culture and Imperialism, 29 cyber (in)security, 8 Czechoslovakia 1968 Soviet invasion of, 339 Dahomey, 108 de Gaulle, Charles, 216 decolonial theory, 367 decolonization, 103–4 and democratic principles, 159 ideology of, 176, 267 of regionalism, 126 of regionalism, Australian initiatives, 126–7, 130–1 of regionalism, British initiatives, 126–7 of regionalism, New Zealand initiatives, 130 of regionalism, US attitudes to, 129 UN pressures for, 115 decolonization movement principles of, 110 democracy in Pacific islands, 159–61 plurality of forms, 236 record in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa, 53 democratic stability in Melanesia and Polynesia, 53–5 Deng Xiaoping, 338 Diderot, Denis, 68 digital democracy, 8 divine right, 178 Dobell, Graeme, 281 domination/resistance binary, 28 domination/subordination binary, 2 Douglas, Roger, 302 Douglas-Home, Sir Alec, 147 Downer, Alexander, 264, 274, 276 Dumont D’Urville, Jules-Sébastien-César, 38, 43, 47, 62 Dutch exploration, 61 loss of Indonesia. See colonialism, Dutch Dutch New Guinea. See Netherlands New Guinea

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Index 425 East Timor 1999 referendum in, 264 2006 crisis in, 283 Australian intervention in, 278 concerns about among Melanesians, 182 independence from Indonesia, 261, 337 Indonesia’s claims over, 263 international peacekeeping operation in, 263 intervention in, 265, 290 membership of PIDF, 316 as Portuguese colony, 92, 94 Easter Island. See Rapa Nui East-West Centre (Hawai’i), 83 Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE), 95 Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), 309 economic rationalism, 301 Ecuador annexation of Galapagos Islands, 92 elites, 13, 156 business, 301 chiefly, in Fiji, 246 hereditary, 53 Indigenous, 29, 49, 70, 112, 115, 142, 154, 157, 169, 170, 197, 237, 244, 301, 303, 376 Indigenous, agency of, 32 Indigenous, and hegemonic practices, 24, 30 and neoliberal agenda, 302 non-traditional, 259 political, in ASEAN, 168 political, in Micronesia, 194 political, Micronesian, 196 political, in Vanuatu, 241 state, 8, 18, 311 Eminent Persons Group (EPG), 307, 308 and 2006 Fiji coup, 285 report, 311 end of history, 295 English School of IR theory. See regional society, and English School theory Enlightenment French, 68 Espiritu Santo naming of, 60 Ethiopia resistance to colonization, 67 ethnicity and identity politics, 4 ethnocentricity, 27 ethnology German, 46

Eurocentrism, 26–8 definition of, 26 reproduction of, 26 in theoretical approaches, 7 Europe historical empires in, 58 populist nationalism in, 5 European Economic Community (EEC), 5 European integration neofunctionalist approaches to, 7 new intergovernmentalist approaches to, 7 European thought overhomogenization of, 26 European Union (EU) as benchmark for regionalist projects, 5 and consensus politics, 10 as regional society, 18 rules based approach, 9 European Union (EU) president condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 Evatt, H.V., 92, 95 exclusive economic zones (EEZs), 1 exoticism, 23 fa’aSamoa, 162 Falcam, Leo, 191 fatal impact thesis, 64 Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) chiefly leadership in, 243 female political representation in, 255 membership of APIL, 190 membership of Forum, 226 membership of Forum-Fiji Working Group, 286 membership of MPS, 191 membership of PIDF, 316 membership of PNA, 207 membership of SIS group, 226 membership of UN, 201 and Micronesian identity, 195 political status of, 87, 224 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 Festival of Pacific Arts, 36, 180 Guam 2016, 41 Fiji, 87 1987 coups in, 248–9, 251 1987 elections, 248 2000 coup, 250, 273 2006 coup, 270 and Bainimarama regime’s relations with China, 349 and Biketawa Declaration, 290 chiefly representation in, 238 chiefly system in, 146, 148, 152, 154, 166 classification as Melanesian, 49 colonization of, 71, 73

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426 Index Fiji (cont.) communal electoral system in, 246 conflict in, 18 constitutional change in, 249 cost of natural disasters, 314 coups in, 53, 232 effect of coups in regional politics, 365 Great Council of Chiefs (GCC), 246, 250 independence, 104 independence and SPC, 123 Indigenous nationalism in, 247–8, 250, 255 Legislative Council of, 96 ‘look North’ policy, 254 and Melanesia/Polynesia divide, 13 membership of Commonwealth, 202 membership of MSG, 184 membership of UN, 201 and MSG, 184 paramount chiefs in, 66 and PLG, 190 Polynesian/Melanesian admixture in, 149 relations with Australia and New Zealand under Bainimarama regime, 372 relations with Indonesia, 330 relations with Taiwan, 345 in Solomon Islands Crisis, 278 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 Fiji Airways, 204 Fiji Solidarity Movement for West Papua’s Freedom, 334 Fiji–China relations, 345 Fiji–Samoa–Tonga triangle, 85 Findlay, Alexander George, 38 fisheries. See also Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) economic importance of, 206 Flosse, Gaston, 189 fono (Samoa), 165 fono (Tonga), 164 Ford Foundation, 83 Forsyth, W.D., 88, 99 Fortune, Graham, 212 Forum Committee on Regional Institutional Arrangements (CRIA), 211 Forum Economic Ministers’ Meetings (FEMM), 304 Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), 206, 211 Forum Official’s Committee, 312 Forum Vision Statement (1995), 268, 304 Forum-Fiji Working Group (2008), 286 Foster, Johann Reinhold, 44 Foster, Sir Robert, 146 Framework for Pacific Regionalism, 292 and climate change, 321 and neoliberal agenda, 320

and Pacific Way, 319 and post-hegemonic regionalism, 320 and role of civil society, 320 France approach to decolonization, 217–18 attitude to decolonization, 117 behaviour in SPC, 114 and decolonization, 28, 103, 369 and identity in international politics, 363 as Indo-Pacific power, 355 membership of Pacific Community, 1 nuclear legacy, 364 and Rainbow Warrior affair, 218 response to 1987 Fiji coups, 253 role in regional politics, 198 and SPC politics, 120, 122 and strategic rivalry, 62 Franco-British rivalry, 78 Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) concept, 326, 354 Freeport (US mining company), 108 French Empire, 29 French Polynesia, 77 admission to Pacific Islands Forum, 221–3 devolution of power in, 221 as issue in regional politics, 218, 219 and loi-cadre, 117 reinscription of non-self-governing status, 189, 220–1 French Polynesian Council of Government, 117 French territories female representation in, 257 Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS), 183, 222, 321 membership of MSG, 184 support for West Papua, 331 Galapagos Islands annexation of, 92 Gambier Islands annexation of, 62 Ganilau, Ratu Sir Penaia, 146, 253 Garvey, Sir Ronald, 152 gender and Boe Declaration, 323 and culture, 259 and identity politics, 4 (in)equality, 8, 256, 306 and male power, 233 and political representation, 255–8 violence, 258 violence, in Melanesia, 54 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 304 geography

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Index 427 and concept of region, 4 economic, 297 physical, and regional boundaries, 16 political, xiv political, and relational turn, 4 German New Guinea, 63 Australian takeover of, 77 Germany imperial ambitions, 62 and Indo-Pacific strategy, 355 loss of Pacific possessions, 87 Gilbert and Ellice Islands, 87, See also Kiribati; Tuvalu Gilbert Islands labour trade in, 76 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), 313 globalization as defining feature of post-Cold War era, 5 and neoliberalism, 292 origins of, 294 political, social and cultural dimensions, 293 in post-Cold War era, 292 Gonschor, Lorenz, 66 good governance agenda, 291, 296, 306, 375 Gordon, Lady, 148 Gordon, Sir Arthur, 75–6, 148 Gorton, John, 130 Group of 77. See Non-Aligned bloc Guam, 86 Chamorro identity in, 195 gender representation in, 257 independence movement in, 225 membership of APIL, 190 membership of MCES, 191 observer status in Forum, 226 political status of, 87, 225 rentention by US of, 79 and Pacific Islands Forum, 223, 228 Spanish colonization of, 60 strategic importance of, 358 US takeover of, 60 Guamanian identity, 195 Habibie, B.J., 263 Hailey, Lord, 89 Harare Declaration, 254 Hattori, Anne Perez, 195 Hau’ofa, Epeli critique of Pacific Way, 157–8, 310 critique of Sahlins, 51–2 reflections on Pacific Way, 157 and Sea of Islands, 39 Hawai’i

annexation of, 60 connections with Japan, 79 and eastern boundary of Oceania, 40 exclusion from SPC, 94 and historic population decline, 64 and idea of Polynesian confederation, 66–7 Indigenous monarchy, 65, 66, 68 membership of APIL, 190 membership of PLG, 190 position in Oceania, 41 role in nineteenth-century Oceania, 66 US annexation of, 68, 86 Hawai’ian nationalism, 65 Hayden, Bill, 253 hegemonic governance, 293 hegemonic regionalism, 312, See also regionalism, hegemonic; posthegemonic regionalism Australia, 318 framing of, 376 and Islander agency, 369 hegemonic transition possibility of, 375 hegemony and different levels of operation, 369 Indigenous, 170 and postcolonial approaches, 2 Henry, Albert, 144, 199, 203, 211 role in establishing South Pacific Form, 132–3 Herder, Johann, 46, 68 hierarchies gender, 256 Indigenous, 148 Indigenous, hegemonic aspects of, 29 Polynesian, 36, 52, 53, 66, 160, 240 racial, 46 High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, 75 Hill, Robert, 282 Hinduism and suprastate governance, 7 Hiri Declaration on Strengthening Connections to Enhance Pacific Regionalism (2015), 322 historiography and colonial discourse theory, 25 contextualist, 25 Japanese, 21 Pacific, 29 Holocaust, Jewish, 80 Holyoake, Keith, 133, 139 Honiara, 272 2021 riots in, 343 Honiara Declaration on Law Enforcement Cooperation (1992), 268, 271, 308

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428 Index Honiara Peace Accord (1999), 274 House of Lords, 238 Howard, John, 264, 278, 307, 340 Hu Yaobang, 340 Huffer, Elise, 310, 311 Hughes, Billy, 77 Hughes, Helen, 305, 307 human security UN definition of, 296 identity alignment of with Melanesia/Micronesia/ Polynesia divide, 55 assumed immutability of, 14 Australia and New Zealand, and alignment with West, 362 Australian, 352 Blue Pacific, 323 Bougainvillean, 262 construction of, 10 and contextual dynamics, 13 cultural, 303 cultural, and male chiefly authority, 311 cultural, and postcolonialism, 28 cultural, as foundation of regionalism, 310 dichotomization of, 40, 374 diversity of in Oceania, 40, 41, 235 as instrumental, 13 of international actors, 15 as layered, 14, 174 layering of, in wantokism, 181 Melanesian, 55, 142, 176, 182, 185, 196, 226 Melanesian, in Indonesia, 332 Melanesian, in New Caledonia, 174 Melanesian, and wantok concept, 180 Micronesian, xiv, 49, 173, 190–6, 226, 227 Micronesian, assertion of in Forum politics, 197 Micronesian, politics of, 226–9 national and subnational, in regional politics, 12 Papuan, 338 political, in Vanuatu, 178 politicization of in Solomon Islands, 273 Polynesian, 98, 189, 226 racial/ethnic in Fiji, 289 regional, 3, 100, 118, 142 as relational, 11 in regional politics, 333 and relational processes, 12 self/other dimension, 11 as situational, 13 subregional, 173, 197, 364, 367 of West Papuans, 40 identity construction

concepts used in, 15 identity formation, 11–14, 31, 50, 176 on basis of culture area, 196 identity politics, xi, 2, 4, 11, 14–15, 31, 326, 361, 364, 376 China/Taiwan and Austronesian heritage, 362 and ‘clash of civilizations’, 295 and descent groups, 37 and empowerment, 14 in Fiji, 247 and Indonesia/West Papua issue, 326 manifestations of, xii and naming practices, 14–16 as negative epithet, 14 in regional affairs, xiv, 232 and stereotyping, 10 strategic, 41 identity production, 14 im Thurn, Sir Everard, 75 imerialism French, 363 imperialism, 26, 57, 59, See also colonialism Belgian, 59 British, 59, 71, 147 Chinese, 59 concept of, 57–9 cultural, 63 Danish, 59 Dutch, 59, 107 Dutch, in East Indies, 363 Dutch, in West Papua, 363 European, 46, 85 formal retreat of, 85 French, 59 German, 59, 363 Indonesian, 361 Indonesian, and racism, 254 Japanese, 30, 57, 59, 80, 85, 361, 363 Japanese, and racism, 254 legacies of, 85 legacies of, British, 85 in Micronesia, 194, 196 Mughal, 59 as one-dimensional process, 28 Ottoman, 59 Portuguese, 59 and relationship with humanitarianism, 76 Soviet, 339 Spanish, 59, 363 US, 21, 85 Western, 375 Western, and racism, 254 Western, legacies of, 32 India

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Index 429 membership of APEC, 6 and postcolonialism, 26 Indigenous collaboration in colonial projects, 29 Indigenous rights movement, global, 14 Indigenous voices authenticity of, 27 Indo-Fijians, 41 and Fiji politics, 150–1, 246, 249 support for independence, 154 Indonesia aid diplomacy in Pacific Islands, 335 annexation of West Papua, 30 and anti-colonial internationalism, 108 associate membership of MSG, 332 and claims to Melanesian identity, 13 as a colonizing power, 338 declaration of independence, 105 Dutch colonial control, 61 as Dutch colony, 86 exclusion from defintion of Oceania, 41 identity as international actor, 337 independence, 104 Japanese occupation of, 87 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 336 ‘Pacific elevation’, 335 Pacific studies in, 84 relations with Papua New Guinea, 204, 329 Indonesia–Australia bilateral relations and West Papua issue, 336 Indonesia/West Papua internationalization of, xii Indonesia/West Papua issue, xiv, 1, 223, 359 internationalization of, 362 and ‘Melanesian brotherhood’, 12 and neocolonialism, 327 Indo-Pacific concept of, 360 as geostrategic approach, 351 in geopolitical discourse, xii and shift from ‘Asia-Pacific’, 17 in US strategic thinking, 354 information communication technologies (ICTs), 8 Inos, Eloy, 193 insider/outsider dichotomy, 27, 40, 374 Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), 82–3, 89 Intercolonial Conference (1881), 75 International Labor Organization (ILO), 98 International Lawyers for West Papua (ILWP), 328 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 295, 302, 320 International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP), 328

International Relations (IR), xiv constructivist approaches, 15 intervention and legitimacy, 290 Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM), 273 Jakeway, Sir Derek, 114 Japan aggression in World War Two, 90 and aid to Pacific Island countries, 297 claims to ‘liberating Asia’, 107 condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 connections with Hawai’i, 79 exclusion from definition of Oceania, 36, 41 and idea of ‘Pacific World’, 83, 86 League of Nations South Pacific Mandate, 79, 87 loss of Pacific possessions, 87 membership of APEC, 6 resistance to colonization, 67 and Trilateral Partnership, 357 withdrawal from League of Nations, 80 Japanese imperialism. See imperialism, Japanese Kabutaulaka, Tarcisius, 55 Kalibobo Roadmap, 309 Kanak identity, 242 Kanaky as Indigenous name for New Caledonia, 42 kastom and Christianity, 178 in Solomon Islands conflict, 275 kastom discourses, 172, 176–80 Keesing, Roger, 176 Kemakeza, Sir Allan, 279 Kenilorea, Sir Peter, 241, 277 Kiki, Sir Albert Maori, 203 Kilman, Sato, 288, 329, 332 Kiribati British nuclear testing in, 219 chiefly leaders in, 244 constitution of, 244 female political representation in, 255 fishing agreement with Soviet Union, 223 in Forum politics, 223 links with northern Micronesian states, 226 as member of Micronesian culture area, 223 membership of APIL, 190 membership of Commonwealth, 202 membership of MPS, 192 membership of PIDF, 316 membership of PNA, 207

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430 Index Kiribati (cont.) membership of SIS group, 226 membership of UN, 201 and Micronesian identity, 195 nuclear testing in, 117 orientation in regional politics, 173, 197 recognition of China, 341 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 and SPNFZ, 219 Kirk, Norman, 213 proposal for new regional body, 129 knowledge decolonization of, 30 Kosrae membership of MCES, 191 kotahitaga, 353 Kotobalavu, Jioji, 137 l’Océanie. See Océanique labour trade, 76 Lang, John Dunmore, 72 Lange, David, 253 Laperouse Jean-François de, 62 Lapita ceramics, 35 Lapli, Fr Sir John Ini, 277 Latin America neostructural approach to aid, 307 and resistance to neoliberalism, 320 Lau province (Fiji), 166 Law of the Sea, 297 Law of the Sea Convention, 206 liberal international thought and English school theory, 17 Lindstrom, Lamont, 178 Lini, Walter, 183 Lombrum Naval Base, 358 Lomé Convention, 298 London Missionary Society, 63 Lord Howe Island, 71 Loughman, Bob, 334 Macmillan, Harold ‘wind of change’ speech, 102 MacQueen, Norman, 185 Magellan, Ferdinand, 37 Malaita kastom in, 177 Malaita Eagle Force (MEF), 272 Malay archipelago, 39 Malik, Adam, 204 Maltè-Brun, Conrad, 38 Malvatumauri, 239–40 Mamaloni, Solomon, 212 Manchuria Japanese aggression in, 80

Manila galleon trade, 294 Manila galleons, 60 Manjirō, Inagaki, 78 Manus Island, 34 Maori Iwi and membership of PLG, 188 Mara, Colonel Tevita, 288 Mara, Ratu Sir Kamisese, 102 and 1987 Fiji coup, 245 antipathy to democracy, 145 attitude to democracy, 137 attitude to Papua New Guinea, 136 chiefly identity of, 137 criticism of UN Decolonization Committee, 152 friendship with Michael Somare, 184 in Fiji politics, 246–7 in Forum politics, 370 opposition to Fiji independence, 151 and Pacific Way, 367 Pacific Way speech at UN, 143–5 perceptions of in regional politics, 128 Polynesian chiefly identity, 150, 182, 184, 190 and race politics in Fiji, 150–1 in regional politics, 112, 365 views on decolonization, 116 Marauta Report (2013), 371 Mariana Islands. See also Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); Northern Mariana Islands human settlement in, 35 Spanish Catholic proselytizing in, 60 Marquesas Islands annexation of, 62 Marshall Islands. See also Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) annexation of, 63 US nuclear testing in, 125 Marshall Plan, 294 Martel, François, 315 Marx, Karl, 32 Mata‘afa, Afioga Fiamē Naomi, 366 Matignon Accord, 220 McMahon, Billy, 130, 202 Meganesia, 34 Mekreos Communiqué (2020), 227 Melanesia, 1 anti-colonialism in, 252 as culture area, 50 egalitarianism in, 52, 54 gender issues in, 257 kastom in, 177, 179 leadership in, 239–40 as term of empowerment, 55

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Index 431 Melanesia/Micronesia/Polynesia divide, xii, xiii, 12, 33, 38, 62, 180, 240, 325, 361, 364, 372, See also Oceania, tripartite division of Melanesia/Polynesia divide, xiv, 12, 13, 33, 48, 50, 52–5, 111, 136, 185, 186, 211, 364 in Pacific Islands Forum, 203, 211–12 Melanesian Arts Festival, 180 Melanesian Big Men, 51 Melanesian brotherhood, 12, 50 Melanesian identity and West Papua, 364 Melanesian socialism, 178–80 Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), xii, 49, 50, 55, 172 2013 New Caledonia summit, 331 2015 Honiara Summit, 329, 332 anti-colonial agenda of, 186 and Indonesia/West Papua issue, 11, 365 membership, 184 origins of, 183 secretariat, 184 Melanesian Spearhead Group Trade Agreement (MSGTA), 305 Melanesian Way, 55, 171, 365 anti-colonial character of, 175 Melanesianism, 171 discourse of, 172 Melanesians prejudice against, 101 Micronesia, 1 as culture area, 49 independence in, 243 Japanese in, 79 and South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (SPNFZ), 219 US security interests in, 363 US ‘strategic trusteeship’ claim, 104 Micronesian Chief Executives’ Summit (MCES), xii, 11, 172, 191–3 Micronesian Compact partners strategic importance of, 359 Micronesian identity, 364 Micronesian Presidents’ Summit (MPS), xii, 11, 172, 191–3 Intergovernmental Agreement and Rules of Procedure, 191 Micronesian Traditional Leaders Conference, 193 Micronesian Way, 49, 192, 194 Micronesianism, 12 Middle East and regional society, 18 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 306

missionaries, 63–4, 78, 176 Mitterand, François, 218 moana. See te moana nui a Kiwa modernization paradigm, 2, 31 modernization theory and Cold War ideology, 21 and positivism, 21 and tradition vs modernity debate, 21–3 and US hegemony, 20 Moluccas Spanish voyages to, 60 monarchy constitutional, 53 Morauta, Sir Mekere, 317 Morrison, Scott and Australian Way, 372 Mote, Octo, 333 Muruoa Atoll, 125 Nakamura, Kuniwo, 271 Nakayama, Tosiwo, 225 names/naming artificiality of, 39 Napoleonic Wars, 62 Narokobi, Bernard, 173–6, 179 Nasonini Declaration on Regional Security (2002), 271 Natapei, Edward, 288, 329, 331 National Centre for Development Studies (NCDS), 299 National University of Samoa Confucius Institute in, 341 Natuman, Joe, 180, 182, 183, 329 view of Ratu Mara, 184 natural disasters economic impact of, 314 impact of in Pacific Islands. See also climate change Nauru annexation of, 63 assylum seeker detention facility, 284 as Australian territory, 87 Australian takeover of, 77 authoritarianism in, 284 diplomatic relations with Taiwan, 341 female political representation in, 255 financial mismanagement, 284 in Forum politics, 223 independence, 104 independence and SPC, 123 intervention in, 290 links to money laundering, 271 links with northern Micronesian states, 226 as member of Micronesian culture area, 223

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432 Index Nauru (cont.) membership of APIL, 190 membership of Commonwealth, 202 membership of MPS, 192 membership of PIDF, 316 membership of PNA, 207 membership of SIS group, 226 membership of UN, 201 and Micronesian identity, 195 national airline in, 205 orientation in regional politics, 173, 197 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 and SPNFZ, 219 support for West Papua at UN, 328 Near Orient as focus of Edward Said, 25 négritude, 173 neocolonial narratives, 281 neocolonialism, xii, 29, 39, 223, 229, 286, 290 Australian, 282, 300, 373 Australian concerns about, 277, 278 Chinese, 30, 347, 360 New Zealand, 373 non-Western, 24 US, 224 Western, 360 neoliberalism, 295, 305, 324 and good governance, 304 as successor to modernization theory, 22 support for in Pacific Islands, 301 Netherlands New Guinea, 86, 104, See also West Papua administration of by Indonesia, 104 annexation of by Indonesia, 88 exclusion from region, 94 New Caledonia, 77, 87 admission to Pacific Islands Forum, 223 annexation of, 62, 72 armed conflict in, 220 devolution of power in, 221 female representation in, 257 French colonialism in, 337 and independence issue in Melanesian politics, 183 as issue in regional politics, 218, 219 and loi-cadre, 117 and ‘Melanesian brotherhood’, 12 and MSG, 183, 186, 189 reinscription of non-self-governing status, 220 New Caledonian Customary Council, 242 New Guinea island of, 63 New Guinea, German, 63 New Guinea Council (West Papua), 106

New Hebrides. See also Vanuatu condominium, 62, 87 labour trade in, 76 and South Pacific Forum, 203 New Hebrides Cultural Association, 178 New South Wales colony of, 59, 71 New York Agreement, 107 New Zealand as colonial power, 74 colonization of, 59, 71, 72 condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 and decolonization, 28, 103 in Forum politics, 370 and hegemonic regionalism, 371 and identity in region, 12, 13, 36, 353 intervention in East Timor, 263 membership of APEC, 6 membership of PLG, 190 migration to, 36 opposition to nuclear testing, 117, 121 people of Chinese descent in, 342 perceptions of in Forum, 213 as proxy colonial power, 86 response to May 1987 Fiji coup, 253 role in establishing South Pacific Commission (SPC), 90–2 role in establishing South Pacific Forum, 133, 141 role in region, xiii in Solomon Islands crisis, 278 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 support for decolonization, 116 support for Indonesian annexation of West Papua, 109 support for Japanese control in Micronesia, 79 Niue annexation by New Zealand, 73 concerns about independence, 116 cost of Cyclone Heta, 314 links to money laundering, 271 membership of SIS group, 226 political status of, 87 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 Nixon, Richard, 338 Noble Savage, 70 allegory of, 68 Non-Aligned bloc in UN, 103 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), 108, 189 non-government organizations (NGOs), 19 non-state actors, 8 non-state entities and regionalization, 8

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Index 433 Norfolk Island annexation of, 71 identity in Oceania, 41 North Africa relocation of nuclear testing from, 216 North/South divide, xii, 2, 12, 27, 347, 361, 374, 376 Northern Mariana Islands sold to Germany, 60 Norway condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 Noumea as site for SPC secretariat, 99–100 Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP), 219 Nuclear Free Pacific Conference (1975), 219 nuclear legacy in Oceania, 219 nuclear testing British, 125 French, 122, 123, 125, 131, 132, 198, 202, 215–19, 229, 291, 369 in Marshall Islands, 225 in Oceania, 121, 134, 185 O’Callaghan, Mary-Louise, 283 O’Neill, Peter, 330, 333 Oala-Rarua, Oala, 136 Obama, Barak and rebalance to Pacific, 349, 351, 354 Oceania British, 86 as coherent entity, 13 as defined by external actors, 16 definition of, xi, 39, 40 first European presence in, 60 formation of, 362 geographic construction of, 1 identity as a region, 33 modified conceptions of in post-colonial context, 16 more expansive regionalization in, 8 naming of, 33 and naming practices, 40 Near, 33, 34, 36, 48 population decline in, 64 regional society in, 18 Remote, 33, 35, 36, 48 subregions of, 1 tripartite division of, 33, 50, 55 Oceanic diasporas, 8 Océanique, 38 Oceanism as homogenizing project, 25 Office of Hawaiian Affairs, CEO and PLG, 189

Olela, Henry, 173 Operation Helpem Fren, 272 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 302, 307 Orientalism, 148 in Australian aid discourses, 300 extension of to Oceania, 25 phenomenon of, 25 Said’s notion of, 25 Ornamentalism, 148 PACER Plus, 304, 311, 312 Pacific Affairs, 82 Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER), 309, 311, See also PACER Plus Pacific Aviation Safety Office (PASO), 211 Pacific Community, 6, 191, 192, 211, 226, See also South Pacific Commission apolitical status of, 229 colonial powers in, 369 and Festival of Pacific Arts, 36 human development program, 297 renaming of, 38 Pacific Council of Churches, 311 Pacific Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Management Framework for Action, 322 Pacific Forum Line, 206 Pacific Island countries, 266 characterization of, 12 and ‘club diplomacy’, 359 and geoplitical alignments, 12 Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA), 304 Pacific Islands Association of NonGovernment Organizations (PIANGO) membership of PIDF, 316 Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF), 292, 314, 324, 372 and climate change, 315 membership, 316 as platform for South–South dialogue, 315 prospects for, 317 and Suva Declaration on Climate Change, 322 Pacific Islands Development Program (PIDP), 83 Pacific Islands Forum, 11, 192, See also South Pacific Forum admission of French territories, 11, 221–3 as chair of CROP, 211 colonial powers in, 369

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434 Index Pacific Islands Forum (cont.) in comparative context, 9 funding model, 201 and Micronesian issues, 193 negligible role in Bougainville crisis, 263 and subregional politics, 173 and threat of withdrawal by Micronesian members, 11, 196 and West Papua issue, 321 Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Declaration on Climate Change Action, 322 Pacific Islands Framework for Action on Climate Change, 322 Pacific Islands Monthly, 86, 90 founding of, 81 Pacific Islands Private Sector Organization (PIPSO) membership of PIDF, 316 Pacific Islands Producers’ Association (PIPA), 118, 132, 199 demise of, 201 membership, 132 and regional shipping, 205 Pacific Judicial Council, 193 Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), 304 Pacific Ocean as ‘blue continent’, 1 conceptualization as geographic area, 15 Indigenous naming of, 42 ‘invention’ of, 37 naming of, 37 as ‘Spanish Lake’, 60 Pacific Oceania, 40 Pacific Plan for Strengthening Regional Cooperation and Integration, 292, 309, 317–19, 324 Pacific Power Association (PPA), 211 Pacific Regional Assistance to Nauru (PRAN), 284 Pacific Small Islands Developing States (PSIDS) group, 201, 315, 372 Pacific Studies, 31, 83–4 see also China, Pacific Studies in. Pacific War impact in Pacific Islands, 83–4 impact on security thinking, 90 Indigenous perspectives on, 80 Pacific Way, 49 akin to Polynesian Way, 172 associations with Polynesian chiefly elite, 156 and Christianity, 178 as clichéd term, 368 and consensus politics, 9

in context of decolonization, 142 evolution of, 291, 308 in Forum politics, 214–15 homogenizing imagery of, 12 as less inclusive of Melanesians, 182 as pan-Pacific discourse, 361, 367 as pan-Pacific identity, xiii, 143 Polynesian elements in, 143, 368 and postcolonial theorizing, 367 practical manifestations of, 365 values of, 310 Pacific World idea of, 60 Pago Pago 1962 SPC meeting in, 119 Palau, 60 chiefly councils in, 243 diplomatic relations with Taiwan, 341 membership of APIL, 190 membership of MCES, 191 membership of MPS, 191 membership of Pacific Islands Forum, 226 membership of PIDF, 316 membership of PNA, 207 membership of SIS group, 226 membership of UN, 201 and Micronesian identity, 195 political status of, 87, 224 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 pan-Africanism and suprastate governance, 7 pan-Americanism and suprastate governance, 7 Pan-Pacific Union, 82 Panuelo, David W., 227 Papua protectorate of, 77 Papua and New Guinea as Australian territories, 87 Papua New Guinea condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 conflict in, 18, 53 democratic record in, 54 in early years of Forum, 203 female political representation in, 255 and Forum politics, 128, 136 and title of Grand Chief, 179 independence, 87, 173, 182 membership of APEC, 6 membership of Commonwealth, 202 membership of MSG, 184 membership of PNA, 207 membership of UN, 201 orientation to Pacific Islands, 137 origins of Melanesian Way in, 174

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Index 435 in Solomon Islands crisis, 278, 279 and Soviet interest, 129 Papua New Guinea Union for a Free West Papua, 334 Papua New Guinea University of Technology Confucius Institute in, 341 Paris climate conference (COP21), 322 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, 307 Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), 207, 372 patron–client relations, 28–9 Pax Britannica, 59 Pax Romana, 59 Pax Sinica, 59 Peter the Great, 61 Peters, Winston, 352 Philippines Spanish voyages to, 60 US takeover of, 60 Phillip, Captain Arthur, 71 Pitcairn Islands, 77, 87, 256 and eastern boundary of Oceania, 40 Pleistocene, 33 Pohiva, Akilisi, 284 Pohnpei membership of MCES, 191 political conditionalities, 295 political economy, xiv neglect of in postcolonialism, 28 political studies, xiv political theory, xiv Polynesia, 1 relative homogeneity of, 50 as subregion of Oceania, 1 Polynesian Leader’s Group (PLG), 11, 186–90 and climate change, 189 external relations, 188 membership, 188, 190 observers at, 189 Pompeo, Mike, 358 populist nationalism in Europe, 5 Port Moresby Declaration on Climate Change, 322 Portugal as colonizing power in East Timor, 92 postcolonialism, 2, 23–31, 367, 374, 376 as counter-hegemonic discourse, 24, 30 critical approach to, xiii field of meaning, 24 genesis of, 24 and neo-colonialism, 24 and privileging of Indigenous voices, 156 and West/non-West divide, 32

post-hegemonic regionalism, 324 in Oceania, 24, 293 post-Washington Consensus, 306 power naturalization of, 256 patriarchal, 256 press freedom under Bainimarama regime, 266 in Pacific Island countries, 266 Puna, Henry, 228, 229 Qarase, Laisenia, 250–1 Queen Victoria government of, and Hawai’i, 66 Queensland colony of, and labour trade, 76 colony of, annexation of east New Guinea, 77 Rabuka, Sitiveni, 184 and 1987 Fiji coup, 245, 248 and 2022 Fiji elections, 289 and aftermath of 1987 coup(s), 249 as peace envoy in Solomon Islands, 274 and post-1987 Fiji politics, 249 race and racism, 46, 48 racial ‘science’, European, 45 racial discrimination in Australian policy, 135 racial divisions in Indonesia, 105 racial hierarchy of humankind, 68 racial ideas of West Papuans, 46 racial types in Europe, 47 in Oceania, 43 racialism Mara’s views on, 150 racialist ideas, 52 European, 33 racism and Indigenous Fijian nationalism, 251 Rainbow Warrior, 218 Rapa Nui (Easter Island), 61 annexation of, 92 and eastern boundary of Oceania, 40 Indigenous population of, 76 and membership of PLG, 188, 190 Reagan, Ronald, 295 Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), 272, 279–80 regional society, 376 and ASEAN, 168 and English School theory, 17

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436 Index regional society (cont.) idea of, 2, 31 and identity politics, 361 in non-Western settings, 18 and Pacific Way, 12, 366 regionalism, 31 and Area Studies, 31 colonial, 76, 85, 88, 93, 95, 110, 112 definition of, 10 hegemonic, xii, xiii, 367 as ideology, 11 ‘new’, 7 as set of discourses, 31 theorization of in Asia, 7 regionalization post-war, 6 principal waves of, 5 as process, 8, 11, 31 and world order, 5 regionalization and regionalism distinctions between, 8 regionness, 2, 9 definition of, 3 regions and concept of place, 4 as constituted by discourse, 4 constitution through scholarship, 20 construction of, 3 within UN system, 6 as culture areas, 3 definitions of and geography, 3 as discursive/ideological formulations, 4 as geopolitical constructs, 3 management of, 3 material factors in construction of, 16 and mental maps, 16 rationalist/functional approaches to, 4 role of non-state actors in, 18 theorization as statist affairs, 18 theorization of, 5, 7 Reilly, Ben, 53, 265 Remengesau Jr, Thomas (Tommy), 191, 192, 227 Renouf, Alan, 210 repression/resistance binary, 2 Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) chiefly councils in, 243 diplomatic relations with Taiwan, 341 link to money laundering, 271 membership of APIL, 190 membership of MPS, 191 membership of Pacific Islands Forum, 226 membership of PIDF, 316 membership of PNA, 207 membership of UN, 201 and Micronesian identity, 195

political status of, 87, 224 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 US nuclear testing in, 219 Research School of Pacific Studies (RSPacS) (ANU), 84 Review of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (2012), 312–13 Rini, Snyder, 280 Robson, R.W., 81, 100, 130 arch-colonialist views, 82 racist attititudes, 97 and White Australia Policy, 98 Rocard, Michel, 220 Rodgers, W.B., 147 Rogernomics, 302 Roggeveen, Jacob, 61 Rohingya people, 168 Ruecho, Robert, 191 Russia membership of APEC, 6 in the Pacific, 61 return to authoritarianism, 296 Sahara Desert nuclear testing in, 117 Sahlins, Marshall, 50, 52 Sahu Khan, Dr A.H., 118 Sahul, 34 Said, Edward, 24 Salato, Dr Maca, 210 Samoa, 61, See also Western Samoa chiefly (matai) status in, 54 cost of natural disasters, 314 female political representation in, 255 gender issues in, 257 matai system in, 238 membership of Commonwealth, 202 membership of UN, 201 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 Samson, Jane, 76 Sandwich Islands. See Hawai’i School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 82, 83 Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program (SPREP), 211 security studies, xiv self-determination principle of, 234 self-representation Indigenous, 175 settlers Australian, attitudes to Pacific Islands, 73 British, behaviour of in Pacific Islands, 76 British, in New Zealand, 72 European, in Oceania, 63, 70

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Index 437 German, in Oceania, 63 Sevele, Feleti, 286, 288 Seven Years War, 62 similitude strategy of, 67 Singapore condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 Single Regional Organization (SRO) debate, 140, 198, 211 idea of, 123 Slade, Tuiloma Neromi, 288 Small Island Developing States (SIDS), 299 Small Island States (SIS) Program Unit in Pacific Islands Forum, 226 Smaller Island States (SIS) group, 172, 226, 321, 322 and Framework for Pacific Regionalism, 319 social constructivism and role of norms and identities, 15 Society Islands annexation of, 62 Sogavare, Manasseh, 275, 280, 343 Sokomanu, Ati George, 137 Solf, Wilhelm, 63 Solomon Islands 2000 putsch in, 261 conflict in, 18, 53 crisis in, 365, 370 District Houses of Chiefs, 241 female political representation in, 255 independence, 182 intervention in, 290 labour trade in, 76 legitimacy of intervention in, 277–9 membership of Commonwealth, 202 membership of PIDF, 316 membership of PNA, 207 membership of UN, 201 recognition of China, 341 Spanish contact with, 60 Solomon Islands, northern annexation of, 63 Solomon Islands for West Papua, 334 Solomon Islands Police Force, 273 Somare, Sir Michael, 137, 179, 183, 203, 211, 212, 242 Sope, Barak, 181, 182 views on Australia and New Zealand, 218 South Africa ‘decolonization of knowledge’ in, 30 South China Sea militarization of, 347, 360 South Pacific (musical), 38 South Pacific Bureau for Economic Cooperation (SPEC), 200

South Pacific Commission (SPC). See also Pacific Community advantages of, 124 and aid coordination, 294 change of name to Pacific Community, 226 end of West Papuan participation, 109 establishment of, 88, 369 exclusion of political matters, 96 expansion into northern Oceania, 94 French politics in, 125 reform of, 113–19, 123 South Pacific Conference, 110, 113 1950 Suva meeting, 100 1965 meeting, 113 South Pacific Forum. See also Pacific Islands Forum 1971 Wellington meeting, 133, 139–40, 199 and aviation issues, 204–5 Australian perspectives on establishment of, 137–9 change of name to Pacific Islands Forum, 226 early membership issues, 202–4 early proposals for, 130 establishment of, 369 expansion of membership, 215 as political forum, 112, 122–5 Polynesian dominance of, 187, 203 and regional coordination, 211 response to March 1987 Fiji coup, 251–2 South Pacific Games, 118 South Pacific Games Council, 118 South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (SPNFZ), 219 South Pacific Organizations Coordinating Committee (SPOCC), 211 South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement (SPARTECA), 297 South Pacific Tourism Organization (SPTO), 211 South Pentecost, 177 South Seas, 37 South Seas Commission, 88 South Seas Commission Conference, 92, 94 South Seas Regional Commission, 91 South–South cooperation, xii, 293 South–South motif, 2 in identity politics, 347 sovereign state model and world order, 6 sovereignty, 6 Spanish colonization in Micronesia, 60 in the Americas, 60

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438 Index Spanish–American war, 60 Spate, Oscar, 48 Specialist Sub-Committee on Regionalism (SSCR), 320 Speight, George, 250 St Julian, Charles, 67 state capacity importance of, 267 and ‘stateness’, 18 state sovereignty doctrine of, 234 state-building problems of, 18 status ascribed, 53 Stiglitz, Joseph, 306 subregionalism and climate change, 197 contemporary trends in, 371 drivers of, 197 early US version of, 129 and fisheries, 197 implications for principal regional organizations, 173 Melanesian, 182–6, 196 Micronesian, 190–6 Polynesian, 186–90 varieties of in Oceania, 172 Suharto, President, 108 Sukarno, President, 105–6 anti-colonial stance, 108 Trikora speech, 107 Sukuna, Ratu Sir Lala, 149 opposition to independence, 152 relationship with British colonial government, 153 Suva Declaration on Sustainable Human Development in the Pacific, 296 Tahiti romantic images of, 68 Taiwan, 35 and 2016 Festival of Pacific Arts, 41 Aboriginal People in, 41 and Austronesian diplomacy, 41 Austronesian Forum, 341 diplomatic relations with Pacific Island countries, 341 New Southbound Policy, 341 and Pacific identity, 341 position in Oceania, 41 Taiwanese nationalism, 41 Talagi, Toke, 288 talanoa, 353 Taputapuatea Declaration on Climate Change, 189

Tasman, Abel Janszoon, 61 Tate, Merze, 67 Taylor, Dame Meg, 227, 320, 323, 348 te moana nui a Kiwa, 42 Temaru, Oscar, 189 Teo, Feleti, 315 terrorism regional anxieties about, 271 Thailand resistance to colonization, 67 Thatcher, Margaret, 295 the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), 6 Thomas, Nicholas, 48, 52, 70 Tiananmen Square 1989 protests in, 296 Timor Leste. See East Timor Timor, island of, 46 Tjibaou, Jean-Marie, 173–6 assassination of, 220 Tokelau membership of PIDF, 316 political status of, 87 Tong, Anote, 342 Tonga, 87, 88 1862 Emancipation Edict, 239 and attitude to 1987 Fiji coup, 252 autocracy in, 54 as British Protected State, 67, 74 constitutional reform in, 239 female political representation in, 255 gender issues in, 257 independence and SPC, 123 intervention in, 290 membership of Commonwealth, 202 membership of PIDF, 316 membership of UN, 201 monarchy in, 66 national airline in, 205 political unrest in, 283–4 pro-democracy movement, 239 self-governing status, 88 shift to full sovereignty, 104 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 Tongan empire, 57, 85 Tonkinson, Robert, 176–7 Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), 350, 354 Treaty of Rarotonga. See South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (SPNFZ) Trump administration and ‘China threat’, 354 and Indo-Pacific concept, 354 and TPP/CPTPP, 350 and trade with China, 350

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Index 439 and US rebalance to Asia-Pacific, 351 Trump, Donald ‘America first’ rhetoric, 351 defeat in 2020 elections, 235 and events of 2020/21, 368 and Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 358 Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI), 87, 125 self-determination in, 223 trusteeship system (UN), 89 Tsar Alexander II, 61 Tuamotu Islands, 61 annexation of, 62 Tuila’epa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, 187, 269, 287, 288, 366 Tukuitonga, Colin, 226 Tupouto’a, Crown Prince, 203 Tupua Tamasese Lealofi IV, 131, 140, 199 Turkey resistance to colonization, 67 Turnbull, Malcolm, 351 Tutugoro, Victor, 331 Tuvalu constitutional reform in, 238 diplomatic relations with Taiwan, 341 membership of Commonwealth, 202 membership of PIDF, 316 membership of PNA, 207 membership of SIS group, 226 membership of UN, 201 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 support for West Papua at UN, 328 Ukraine/Russia conflict, 360 Ulufa’alu, Bartholomew, 272, 274 UN decolonization principles, 221 UN Charter, 89 UN Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, 103, 220 UN Development Program (UNDP), 296 UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia (ESCAP), 95 UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), 6, 95 UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE), 95 UN Economic Commissions, 6 UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 99 UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), 98 UN Security Council and China, 338

condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 and intervention in East Timor, 264 and RAMSI, 279 UN Special Committee on Decolonization, 338 UN Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) in West Papua, 107 UNICEF (UN Children’s Fund), 321 United Kingdom (UK). See also Britain/ British and Commonwealth system of preferences, 5 and decolonization, 28, 103, 125 and Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’, 355 role in establishing South Pacific Forum, 141 United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), 184, 321, 332–4 United Nations (UN) and Fijian peacekeepers, 286 United Nations Human Development Report(1994), 296 United States (US) Capitol, January 6 2021 attack on, 368 Congress, refusal to ratify Versailles Treaty, 79 and decolonization, 125 denial of imperial status, 104 domination in Micronesia, 86 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report, 357 membership of APEC, 6 membership of Pacific Community, 1 migration to, 36 origins in British imperialism, 59 and Pacific identity, 326, 357, 358 relationship with China, 355 strategic denial policy, 340 takeover of former Japanese territories, 80 and Trilateral Partnership, 357 universals hostility to, 4 universities decolonization in, 31 universities and colleges knowledge production in, 20 University of French Polynesia Confucius Institute in, 341 University of Papua New Guinea, 173, 181 University of the South Pacific (USP), 38, 120–1, 181, 211, 311 Confucius Institute in, 341 founding of, 120

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440 Index Urwin, Greg, 280 uti possidetis juris, doctrine of, 105 Vaka Tahi model, 353 vakaturaga as common elite culture, 148 as mode of diplomacy, 147 vakavanua, 162, 165–6 vakaviti. See vakavanua Vanuatu. See also New Hebrides chiefs in, 179 and Cold War dynamics, 218 condemnation of 2006 Fiji coup, 285 conflict in, 53 cost of natural disasters, 314 female political representation in, 255 gender issues in, 258 independence, 182 kastom chiefs in (custom chiefs), 241 kastom in, 177, 180 legacies of French colonialism, 218 Malvatumauri (National Council of Chiefs), 241 membership of Commonwealth, 202 membership of MSG, 184 membership of PIDF, 316 membership of UN, 201 renamed, 87 in Solomon Islands Crisis, 278 and Solomon Islands intervention, 279 support for West Papua at UN, 328 Versailles settlement, 77 Vesikula, Ratu Timoci, 184 von Bismark, Otto, 62 Wallace line, 46 ‘human’, 46 Wallace, Alfred Russel, 45 Wallis and Futuna, 77, 87 membership of PLG, 190 wantok, concept of, 180 wantokism, 180–1 Waqa, Baron, 284 Washington consensus, 295, 302 Washington model, 233 Wendt, Albert and new Oceania, 39 critique of Pacific Way, 310 West/non-West, 2 West/non-West dichotomy, 232 West/non-West divide, xii, xiii, 9, 12, 24, 27, 30, 40, 161, 169, 235, 338, 347, 361, 374, 376 West Indian Conference, 93 West Irian. See West Papua West Papua

Act of Free Choice, 107, 108 conflict in, 18 effective transfer to Southeast Asia, 11 genocide in, 327 Indonesian annexation of, 363 Morning Star flag, 338 and Pacific Islands Forum, 328 and politics of race, 46 self-determination, 8 and UN Decolonization Committee, 334 Vanuatu’s support for, 328–9 and wantok concept, 329 West Papua National Council for Liberation (WPNCL), 331 Western Micronesia Chief Executives’ Summit, 191 Western Pacific High Commission (WPHC), 60, 86, 137 Western Samoa. See also Samoa annexation of, 63, 73 and attitude to 1987 Fiji coup, 252 independence, 104 independence, and SPC, 113 national airline in, 205 Westminster model, 146, 162, 233, 237, 238 and consensus politics, 274 critiques of, 146, 233 in Fiji, 246 imposition of, 237, 274 in Papua New Guinea, 242 in Solomon Islands, 242 traditions, 238 White Australia Policy, 98 White, Geoff, 54 Whitlam, Gough, 339 and 1973 Forum meeting, 202 Williams, John, 69 Wolfensohn, James D., 306 women in Samoa, 366 status of, 255–9 subordination of, 311 women and girls violence against, 283 Won Pat, Judith, 192, 194 World Bank, 295, 302, 306, 320 World Council of Churches (WCC) 2019 delegation to West Papua, 335 World Development Report 1997, 306 World Health Organization (WHO), 98 World Trade Organization (WTO), 302, 304, 345

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Index 441 Xi Jinping, 341, 357, 360 Xin Jiang Uyghur people in, 360 Yap membership of MCES, 191

Yap empire, 57, 85 Yeiwéné Yeiwéné assassination of, 220 Yosaburō, Takekoshi, 78 Zackios, Gerald, 227

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