Redefining the Pacific?

Regionalism Past, Present and Future

Ian Frazer, Jenny Bryant-Tokalau, Jenny Bryant-Tokalau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351906012
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This comprehensive volume examines the future effectiveness of regional institutions as well as key questions concerning the attempts to overcome ongoing serious problems of security, governance and poor economic performance in the Pacific. What is obvious from this collection is that a new and stronger commitment to overcoming national problems is required through regional cooperation. The volume is highly suited to courses on international political economy, security and regional cooperation.

Chapter 1
Introduction: The Uncertain Future of Pacific Regionalism

Ian Frazer and Jenny Bryant-Tokalau

The island countries of the Pacific vary greatly in land area, size of their populations and their resources. They include some of the smallest and most vulnerable microstates in the world as well as larger and more resource-rich island groups like Fiji and Papua New Guinea. These archaeopelagic countries have had 30 to 40 years of political independence and during that time they have also been actively cooperating with each other and with countries further afield. Regional cooperation began among the colonial powers immediately after World War II when the region was almost wholly made up of dependent territories; it then gathered pace in the 1960s and 1970s as those territories gained their independence and formed new organisations among themselves as sovereign states. By 1992 there were seven major intergovernmental organisations in the region and they were connected by the South Pacific Organisations Coordinating Committee. Since then this has become the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP) and there are ten organisations associated with it.¹ At the same time, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), operating nationally and regionally, have also grown in size and in number, it being estimated that there are now well over 1000 NGOs throughout the region.²

Pacific regionalism is generally taken to mean regional cooperation among the independent island states and self-governing territories of what used to be known as the Southwest Pacific (or the South Pacific), the area stretching from Cook Islands in the east to Papua New Guinea in the West and from new Zealand in the south to the Northern Marianas islands in the north.³ Cooperation first began in this part of the Pacific but as it grew to encompass independent and self-governing Micronesian states north of the equator, it embraced a much larger expanse, hence the preference for Pacific regionalism or Oceanic regionalism. The oldest, largest and most inclusive intergovernmental organisation, the Pacific Community (formerly known as the South Pacific Commission), is made up of dependent territories as well as independent and self-governing states; it also includes the two metropolitan states located in the region, Astralia and New Zealand, as well as three other metropolitan states from outside the region, United States, France and Britain, who claim membership through their role as former and current colonial powers. The preeminent intergovernmental organisation in the Pacific is the Pacific Islands Forum (formerly known as the South Pacific Forum). This is made up of the heads of government of independent and self-governing Pacific island states, and the two metropolitan states in the region, australia and new Zealand, who were invited to join soon after the forum was formed in 1971.⁴

The close involvement of Australia and new Zealand in the region’s two leading intergovernmental organisations, gives Pacific regionalism one of its most distinctive features. It is also the basis for deep-seated tension over the shape and direction of cooperation, and the interests that it serves. What we have is best described as ‘metropolitan/islands regionalism’ in which ‘over 50 years later, the metropolitan powers and the independent island nations both belong to the (same) organisations, both provide staff, and the metropolitan partners provide most of the money.’⁵ By providing the necessary financial support the metropolitan powers put themselves in the best position to shape regionalism, and use it as a means for securing their strategic interests.⁶ Originally this meant making sure that Pacific countries, as they became independent, continued to support the Western alliance. When the cold War ended, this policy continued except that the United States reduced its presence in the South Pacific, and Australia gradually took up the role of regional superpower. The main reason why Pacific island countries supported regional cooperation was in pursuit of social and economic development. Being small island states, with limited resources, narrowly based economies, poor government facilities and weak infrastructure, they were looking for ways to boost economic growth and improve national development. One attraction of working more closely together was being able to achieve economies of scale in the provision of basic services. there was also the obvious advantage of taking a collective approach to trade negotiations and trying to improve international market access.

In the pursuit of these and other objectives regional organisations have played a key role in mediating foreign policy for Pacific island countries. They offered a more economical and potentially more effective means of pursuing issues, regionally and internationally that might otherwise have been difficult if not impossible through bilateral diplomacy.⁷

For inter-governmental organisations in particular, the funding and involvement of Australia and new Zealand, has meant a striking asymmetry of power in the running of those organisations and in the setting of regional policy.⁸ Island states have had a lot of success in turning regionalism to their advantage, meeting their aspirations as developing independent states. Some of their initiatives have been pursued with metropolitan partners, some without. Where they have had their greatest success has been in the pursuit of what Greg Fry calls ‘collective diplomacy’.⁹ Early examples of this included the Law of the Sea negotiations, when they fought for, and won, 200-mile exclusive economic zones; and the preferential trade agreements negotiated in the 1970s with Australia, new Zealand and the European Union. there have been numerous other examples of successful international diplomacy, commonly in pursuit of environmental, economic and political ends. This has given Pacific states a much stronger collective presence internationally and secured real material benefits.

These and other achievements notwithstanding, they have not always been able to set the agenda to their liking; they have also had to contend with metropolitan powers. One of the founders of the South Pacific Forum and former Prime Minister and president of Fiji, the late Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, warned Forum leaders at their annual meeting held in Nauru in 2001, on the occasion of the Forum’s 30th anniversary: ‘too often, aid had strings attached, and projects were devised that were more in line with the thinking of the donors.’¹⁰ The outgoing Secretary General of the Pacific Island Forum Secretariat, Noel Levi, also had cautionary comments about the influence being exercised by Australia and New Zealand, just before his departure in 2003.¹¹

Writing at the end of the cold War, when security concerns were still premised on a bipolar world order, Sandra Tarte commended the achievements of island states in turning regionalism to their advantage. She gave many instances in which island countries were able to use regionalism to exercise their aspirations for self-determination and pursue their development goals. At the same time, she pointed out, metropolitan powers were also using regionalism ‘in order to further their global strategic and economic goals; that is, to use regionalism as a vehicle for neocolonialism.’¹² It seemed to her then that regionalism could either 'be used to achieve genuine development in the island states, or merely serve the global and economic goals of metropolitan powers and deepen neocolonial relations in the South Pacific.’¹³

We would argue that this depiction of regionalism’s future is just as relevant now as it was then; that in the period since 1989 there has been a resurgence of metropolitan interest in the Pacific with the same overall objective of using regionalism as a means of furthering their strategic and economic goals. This will be covered in the brief history of Pacific regionalism that follows, where we will concentrate primarily on the history of intergovernmental cooperation and focus mainly on the Pacific Islands Forum. In this arena there has been an ongoing struggle over the regional agenda, with a constantly shifting balance between metropolitan and island interests. We will look at the impact this has had on metropolitan-island relations. In the 1990s, Australia in particular, became increasingly interventionist in pursuit of its economic and strategic goals. It laid down a new regional strategy driven by strong commitment to neoliberal policies. The main planks of the new strategy were structural adjustment programmes, sustainable development and better governance.¹⁴ The strategy was given force by threats of reduction in Australian aid and more stringent forms of aid delivery. Australia, by that time, was the region’s largest aid donor.

As well as pushing a new development orthodoxy,¹⁵ metropolitan states have been strongly encouraging closer economic and political integration among forum island countries, moving from what has essentially been intergovernmental cooperation up until now, towards supranationalism. One of the implications of this will be some loss of sovereignty.¹⁶ This represents a major new direction for the regional movement. Before the 1990s, there was little support for integration, most goals were pursued through collective diplomacy; then, in the early 1990s, the balance shifted, and negotiations began for the setting up of a regional trade area. Other proposals followed after free trade agreements were agreed, and closer integration moved to the top of the agenda. It is by no means certain that all Pacific states – which up until now have been fiercely protective of their national sovereignty – are fully prepared for this, or fully committed to such a path. Whatever the outcome it is quite apparent that regionalism is going through one of the most testing periods in its history.

The early years of intergovernmental cooperation

In the mid-1940s, the six colonial powers with territories in the Pacific – Australia, Britain, France, Netherlands, New Zealand and United States of America – agreed to set up a regional organisation, the South Pacific Commission (SPC), to assist in postwar recovery and promote social and economic development.¹⁷ This was principally a strategic move, intended to help lay the foundation for a region that would continue to stay within the alliance formed around the United States and Britain.¹⁸ They would also meet their obligations under the Atlantic Charter without offering immediate support for self-determination. Political activity was not allowed in the SPC or in the advisory body – South Pacific Conference – set up soon afterwards and made up of delegates from island territories.¹⁹ The South Pacific Conference and the South Pacific Commission merged in 1983. The organisation continued to expand, being open to all states and territories in the Pacific region. The SPC became The Pacific Community in 1998 and now has 26 members.

In the 1950s and 1960s. Pacific island members of the SPC felt constrained by the restriction put on political debate in meetings of the organisation, and the associated South Pacific Conference. As Pacific island countries became independent, from 1962 onwards, they started looking for some way round this. In 1965, a small number of Pacific leaders formed the Pacific Islands Producers Association (PIPA) with the aim of improving trade between the islands and New Zealand.²⁰ It only lasted eight years before it folded and there were few successes during that time, but it showed the need for an alternative regional organisation. With Fiji's Prime Minister. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara taking the lead, and encouragement from New Zealand, island leaders formed the South Pacific Forum (SPF. later Pacific Islands Forum. PIF) in 1971. This was deliberately set up as a political body and quickly grew to become the leading organisation for political and economic cooperation in the region. Originally made up of seven members (Australia. Cook Islands. Fiji, Nauru. New Zealand, Tonga and Western Samoa), it steadily grew to its present size, comprising 16 independent and self-governing states throughout the wider Pacific region. The Forum did not have a formal treaty to give it legal personality.²¹ The only really distinctive feature (and point of contrast with the SPC) is that membership is restricted to independent and self-governing states located in the region. Soon after it was established the Forum also set up a secretaria...