The exercise, conducted in international waters by a cruiser, frigate and replenishment ship, involved what is said to have been poor notice given to Australian authorities on February 21. But the matter has rapidly burgeoned into something else: that what the Chinese task fleet did was mischievously remarkable, exceptional and snooty to convention and protocols. It is on that score that incontinent demagogy has taken hold.

Media outlets have done little to soften the barbs. A report by ABC News, for instance, notes that Airservices Australia was “only aware of the exercises 40 minutes after China’s navy opened a ‘window’ for live-fire exercises from 9.30am.” The first pickup of the exercises came from a Virgin Australia pilot, who had flown within 250 nautical miles of the operation zone and warned of the drills. Airservices Australia was immediately contacted, with the deputy CEO of the agency, Peter Curran, bemused about whether “it was a potential hoax or real.”

Defence Chief Admiral David Johnston told Senate estimates that he would have preferred more notice for the exercises – 24-48 hours was desirable – but it was clear that Coalition Senator and shadow home affairs minister James Paterson wanted more. Paterson had thought it “remarkable that Australia was relying on civilian aircraft for early warning about military exercises by a formidable foreign task group in our region.” To a certain extent, the needlessly irate minister got what he wanted, with the badgered Admiral conceding that the Chinese navy’s conduct had been “irresponsible” and “disruptive”.

Wu Qian, spokesperson for the China National Ministry for Defence, offered a different reading: “During the period, China organised live-fire training of naval guns toward the sea on the basis of repeatedly issuing prior safety notices”. Its actions were “in full compliance with international law and international practice, with no impact on aviation flight safety”. That said, 49 flights were diverted on February 21.

Much was also made about what were the constituent elements of the fleet. As if it mattered one jot, the Defence Force chief was pressed on whether a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine had made up the task force. “I don’t know whether there is a submarine with them, it is possible, task groups occasionally do deploy with submarines but not always,” came the reply. “I can’t be definitive whether that’s the case.”

The carnival of fear was very much in town, with opposition politicians keen to blow air into the balloon of the China threat across the press circuit. The shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie warned listeners on Sydney radio station 2GB of “the biggest peacetime military buildup since 1945”, Beijing’s projection of power with its blue-water navy, the conduct of two live-fire exercises and the Chinese taskforce operating within Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone off Tasmania. Apparently, all of this showed the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to be “weak” for daring to accept that the conduct complained of was legal under international law. “Now that may be technically right, but that misses the deeper subtext, and that is China is now in our backyard, and they’ve demonstrated that we don’t have the will to insist on our national interest and mutual respect.”

There are few voices of sensible restraint in Australia’s arid landscape of strategic thinking, but one could be found. Former principal warfare officer of the Royal Australian Navy, Jennifer Parker, commendably remarked that this hardly warranted the title of “a crisis”. To regard it as such “with over-the-top indignation diminishes our capacity to tackle real crises as the region deteriorates.” Australia might, at the very least, consider modernising a surface fleet that was “the smallest and oldest we’ve had since 1950.”

Allegations that Beijing should not be operating in Australia’s exclusive economic zone, let alone conduct live-fire exercises in international waters, served to give it “a propaganda win to challenge our necessary deployments to North-East Asia and the South China Sea – routes that carry two-thirds of our maritime trade.”

The cockeyed priorities of the Australian defence establishment lie elsewhere: fantasy, second hand US nuclear-powered submarines that may, or may never make their way to Australia; mushy hopes of a jointly designed nuclear powered submarine specific to the AUKUS pact that risks sinking off the design sheet; and the subordination of Australian land, naval and spatial assets to the United States imperium.

Such is the standard of political debate that something as unremarkable as this latest sea incident has become a throbbing issue that supposedly shows the Albanese government as insufficiently belligerent. Yet there was no issue arising, other than a statement of presence by China’s growing navy, something it was perfectly entitled to do.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Four researchers and authors from the Asia-Pacific region have provided diverse perspectives on the media in a new global book on intercultural communication.

The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Communication published this week offers a global, interdisciplinary, and contextual approach to understanding the complexities of intercultural communication in our diverse and interconnected world.

It features University of Queensland academic Dr Mairead MacKinnon; founding director of the Pacific Media Centre professor David Robie; University of Ottawa’s Dr Marie M’Balla-Ndi Oelgemoeller; and University of the South Pacific journalism coordinator associate professor Shailendra Singh.

• READ MORE: Daily use of Indigenous languages in intercultural communication boosts social justice
• Other intercultural communication reports

Featuring contributions from 56 leading and emerging scholars across multiple disciplines, including communication studies, psychology, applied linguistics, sociology, education, and business, the handbook covers research spanning geographical locations across Europe, Africa, Oceania, North America, South America, and the Asia Pacific.

It focuses on specific contexts such as the workplace, education, family, media, crisis, and intergroup interactions. Each chapter takes a contextual approach to examine theories and applications, providing insights into the dynamic interplay between culture, communication, and society.

One of the co-editors, University of Queensland’s associate professor Levi Obijiofor, says the book provides an overview of scholarship, outlining significant theories and research paradigms, and highlighting major debates and areas for further research in intercultural communication.

“Each chapter stands on its own and could be used as a teaching or research resource. Overall, the book fills a gap in the field by exploring new ideas, critical perspectives, and innovative methods,” he says.

Refugees to sustaining journalism
Dr MacKinnon writes about media’s impact on refugee perspectives of belonging in Australia; Dr Robie on how intercultural communication influences Pacific media models; Dr M’Balla-Ndi Oelgemoeller examines accounting for race in journalism education; and Dr Singh unpacks sustaining journalism in “uncertain times” in Pacific island states.

Dr Singh says that in research terms the book is important for contributing to global understandings about the nature of Pacific media.

“The Pacific papers address a major gap in international scholarship on Pacific media. In terms of professional practice, the papers address structural problems in the regional media sector, thereby providing a clearer idea of long term solutions, as opposed to big measures and knee-jerk reactions, such as harsher legislation.”

Dr Robie, who is also editor of Asia Pacific Report and pioneered some new ways of examining Pacific media and intercultural inclusiveness in the Asia-Pacific region, says it is an important and comprehensive collection of essays and ought to be in every communication school library.

He refers to his “talanoa journalism” model, saying it “outlines a more culturally appropriate benchmark than monocultural media templates.

“Hopefully, this cross-cultural model would encourage more Pacific-based approaches in revisiting the role of the media to fit local contexts.”

Comprehensive exploration
The handbook brings together established theories, methodologies, and practices and provides a comprehensive exploration of intercultural communication in response to the challenges and opportunities presented by the global society.

From managing cultural diversity in the workplace to creating culturally inclusive learning environments in educational settings, from navigating intercultural relationships within families to understanding the role of media in shaping cultural perceptions, this handbook delves into diverse topics with depth and breadth.

It addresses contemporary issues such as hate speech, environmental communication, and communication strategies in times of crisis.

It also offers theoretical insights and practical recommendations for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, educators, and students.

The handbook is structured into seven parts, beginning with the theoretical and methodological development of the field before delving into specific contexts of intercultural communication.

Each part provides a rich exploration of key themes, supported by cutting-edge research and innovative approaches.

With its state-of-the-art content and forward-looking perspectives, this Sage Handbook of Intercultural Communication serves as an indispensable resource for understanding and navigating the complexities of intercultural communication in our increasingly interconnected world.

• More information about the Sage Handbook of Intercultural Communication

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

David Swanson asked me to write about Kiribati after I wrote to him to point out Costa Rica is not the only “full-fledged and totally independent country to be entirely demilitarised.” Kiribati, and other small countries I suspect, have no military. In Kiribati’s case this was a deliberate decision taken by the first President and Government of Kiribati as it was becoming Independent in 1979. Like Costa Rica it has almost certainly benefitted from that foundational decision. Many other newly independent ex British colonies suffered from coups and military rule as a result of the British policy of promoting nationhood on the British model: Westminster type parliament, independent judiciary, and a military force. It was interesting interviewing Sir Ieremia Tabai, the first President and a leading campaigner at the time when it was an issue, stating that the motivation was heavily economic – we are a small country with very little money so we can’t go wasting it on buying guns. If only more leaders would adhere to such basic commonsense!

But first of all a bit of an introduction to Kiribati, as most people have never heard of us and even fewer know much about us. Kiribati sits right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean but tending to the Western side. It is the only country in the world with a claim to be in all four hemispheres, north, south, east and west, spanning as it does the Equator and the 180 meridian, the International Date Line. There are 33 islands spread over 3000kms from west to east along the Equator. The population is currently 130,000 and rising fast, with more than half living in the capital Tarawa. The population is over 90% ethnically homogenous Micronesian, I-Kiribati, with its own language and unique culture. Kiribati dance is a unique cultural form and is central in the culture, an integral part of every occasion from the opening of Parliament to weddings, birthdays, and public holidays. It is one of the main ways in which the culture preserves itself, the Kiribati diaspora using it as an excuse to come together wherever they are and teach it to the children.

Current revenue is predominantly from fishing licences for the right to fish in Kiribati’s vast Exclusive Economic Zone, mainly tuna. The country is very democratic with 45 MPs elected from all the islands who then choose Presidential candidates from amongst their number and these then go up for election by the whole country. The President, who sits for 4 years, barring a vote of no confidence, then chooses a Cabinet from amongst their supporters. The country is now on its fifth President in 45 years. Presidents can have a maximum of three terms. Despite being classified by the UN as a Least Developed State Kiribati has free universal education and health provision, a form of Universal Basic Income, state provision for disabled people, and a non-contributary pension scheme for all those over 60. While some of these benefits are well below the standards provided in more wealthy countries they all represeent advances on previous times. Kiribati has a sovereign wealth fund of $1.5 billion and receives foreign aid from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Korea, the USA, Cuba, the UN, and the EU. The logistics of Kiribati ensure that it is never likely to become a developed state: the isolation and distances involved, and the consequent difficulties of providing services to tiny communities of only a few hundred people separated by thousands of kilometres ensuring that it continues to be underdeveloped, by world standards.

Isolation has not prevented Kiribati from suffering the depradations of colonialism, militarism, and capitalism. The islands were initially settled by various waves of settlement over the past few thousand years resulting in a homogenous culture and language developed over that timescale. Western Europeans started to arrive in the 19th century, particularly whalers operating out of America and elsewhere which started the first great exploitation, decimating the whale population which has not recovered to this day. This was followed at the turn of the 20th century by the beginning of phosphate mining on Banaba, or Ocean Island as it was called by the British. Banaba was mined to such an extent that its inhabitants were forced to resettle on another island which had been bought for them with their own money. It has been suggested that Banaba’s phosphate was used to subsidise the exponential growth of agriculture in Australia and New Zealand, Britain’s partners in exploiting Kiribati, to the tune of $800 million until the phosphate ran out in 1979, the year of Kiribati independence from Britain. Banaban phosphate royalties also covered the cost of Britain’s colonial administration of the Kiribati.

During WWII, the Japanese invaded Kiribati and fortified one island heavily which then became the site of one of the first major battles of the Pacific war when it was retaken by the Americans at the Battle of Tarawa. In the post WWII decades the British used Kiribati as a nuclear testing ground, doing atmospheric tests on Kiritimati Island in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The U.S. tested its bombs on Bikini and Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands immediately north of Kiribati, while the French tested theirs in Muroroa to the south, inflicting on Kiribati and its Pacific island neighbours what Western nations’ own populations refused to accept.

Whilst fishing revenues are now the basis of the Kiribati economy, it is also true that this is the main way in which the country is exploited as its fishing licence revenues are only a small percentage of the profits gained by foreign fishing companies fishing in its EEZ. Kiribati has had to work hard, along with other Pacific countries, Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNU), to get even the comparatively small amount it gets in licences, gradually building on its success in forcing American fishing fleets to pay in the mid-1980s. Faced by the complete refusal of U.S. fishing companies to pay for fishing in Kiribati waters Kiribati sold the fishing rights to the Russians, exploiting their superpower rivalry so effectively that the following year the U.S. started to pay as prescribed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS) – a great example of a microstate manipulating two superpowers to achieve its own ends!

Although to date Kiribati has suffered little from climate change it is quite possible that this could provide an existential threat in the future if ocean acidification and temperature increases, sea level rise and weather pattern change combine to make life impossible and cause dispersal of Kiribati’s people, despite Kiribati having made minuscule contributions to the causes.

Kiribati has hosted visits from foreign warships from the U.S., China, Taiwan, Australia, France and others but these are courtesy visits often bringing medical and other teams to share their expertise. Kiribati benefits from the assistance of an Australian patrol boat to police its EEZ and has occasionally held fishing boats illegally fishing in Kiribati waters. It also benefits from New Zealand Air Force search and rescue teams assisting searches for missing fishermen.

Pacific countries generally, and Kiribati particularly, are seen by the United States and its allies as being stategically important in their geo-political rivalry with China – or their need to have an enemy in order to justify their military spending and safeguard the profits of the military industrial complex. Whenever Kiribati is mentioned in articles and programmes in the Western media it is usually accompanied by references to its strategic significance and the threat of it being taken over by China, particularly over recent years since 2019 when Kiribati returned its diplomatic recognition to China following recognition of Taiwan in 2003. The fear seems to be that Kiribati will allow China to build ports and airbases from which China would be able to attack the United States and disrupt trade, although neither Kiribati nor China has shown any inclination to do this, a case it seems of the pot calling the kettle black. The United States has multiple military bases in the Pacific, and indeed throughout the world, and seems to think that everyone else wants to waste money and resources in the same way. Following the switch from Taiwan to China in 2019 the U.S. has been keen to make connections in Kiribati but has been thwarted by the lack of a military it can entice with hardware and a shortage of land in the capital Tarawa where it could build an Embassy. Kiribati sees itself as a Christian country and is naturally culturally connected to the U.S. – its first missionaries were American. U.S. churches have a strong presence in the country. It was liberated by U.S. forces defeating the Japanese in World War II. It has benefitted in the past from Peace Corps volunteers. And its official language is English which makes it part of the Anglophone world. There is a Kiribati diaspora including communities in the U.S. At the same time, the people of Kiribati have no wish to be controlled by any foreign power, and resent any country that interferes with Kiribati’s independence. Experience has also taught Kiribati that it can exploit rivalry for its own benefit. The dangers for Kiribati in this are that should the rivalry escalate to war it is likely that rival powers would prefer to fight in somewhere like Kiribati rather than in their own countries.

Whilst thinking about writing this article it occurred to me that a major benefit of Kiribati’s lack of a military is the lack of guns in the country. I can’t remember anyone ever having been shot, and on asking around I found that no one else could either – hardly surprising as there are no guns to shoot with! This was not always the case. Early contact with Europeans, mainly whalers and traders, was characterised by a trade in tobacco, alcohol, guns, and metal — knives, pots and pans, nails etc. Various chiefs and factions acquired guns to gain an advantage over local rivals, which led to a number of conflicts on and between different islands in the latter half of the 19^th century. This came to an end however with the declaration of a Protectorate by the British in 1892 when HMS Royalist raised the Union Jack on all the different islands and rounded up all the guns at the same time.

It feels to me that Kiribati has much to teach the world. Its culture is very communal with an expectation that we should help each other, most strongly within the extended family but also on a wider level. Strangers and visitors are welcomed and treated very well. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of maneabas, communal meeting houses where everybody is welcome, often offering accomodation to anyone who needs it. The expectation is that decisions should be reached by consensus. Most houses are not locked and many are indeed open sided without walls. Kiribati clearly demonstrates the benefits of any people having their own space over which they have control and which they can call their own, without being dominated or subjugated by other ethnicities — a principle which if applied worldwide would lead to the break up of bullying superpowers and other countries that have usually been created through conquest. We could see hundreds, or indeed thousands, of states offering all peoples their own autonomy within a cooperative world framework. Many conflicts in the world are caused by the domination of one group by another within the confines of a larger state, whether that be the Palestinians in Israel, the indigenous peoples of the Americas within their colonised lands, the Rohingya in Myanmar/Bangladesh, the Uyghers in China, the Basques and Catalans in Spain, the Kurds within Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, the West Papuans in Indonesia, or innumerable ethnicities within the colonial imposed boundaries of Africa.

In conclusion, it is worth reiterating the main benefits of Kiribati’s lack of a military. Ieremia insisted that the rationale was wholly economic – we cannot afford to spend money financing a military as that will deprive far more essential services such as education and health of much needed resources. And who is going to attack us anyway out here in the middle of the ocean? The other benefits, which are difficult to be so sure about, include the political stability that has allowed peaceful development and the unchallenged primacy of the democratic electoral system without interference from unelected military officers enforced by soldiers. Then there is the lack of a gun culture leading to completely unnecessary deaths. It is difficult to imagine any advantages that would be gained by having a military!

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Richard Westra.

Since May, a powerful struggle has rocked Kanaky (New Caledonia), an archipelago located in the Pacific, roughly 1,500 kilometres east of Australia. The island, one of five overseas territories in the Asia-Pacific ruled by France, has been under French colonial rule since 1853. The indigenous Kanak people initiated this cycle of protests after the French government of Emmanuel Macron extended voting rights in provincial elections to thousands of French settlers in the islands. The unrest led Macron to suspend the new rules while subjecting islanders to severe repression. In recent months, the French government has imposed a state of emergency and curfew on the islands and deployed thousands of French troops, which Macron says will remain in New Caledonia for ‘as long as necessary’. Over a thousand protesters have been arrested by French authorities, including Kanak independence activists such as Christian Tein, the leader of the Coordination Cell for Field Actions (Cellule de coordination des actions de terrain, or CCAT), some of them sent to France to face trial. The charges against Tein and others, such as for organised crime, would be laughable if the consequences were not so serious.

The reason France has cracked down so severely on the protests in New Caledonia is that the old imperial country uses its colonies not only to exploit its resources (New Caledonia holds the world’s fifth largest nickel reserves), but also to extend its political reach across the world – in this case, to have a military footprint in China’s vicinity. This story is far from new: between 1966 and 1996, for instance, France used islands in the southern Pacific for nuclear tests. One of these tests, Operation Centaure (July 1974), impacted all 110,000 residents on the Mururoa atoll of French Polynesia. The struggle of the indigenous Kanak peoples of New Caledonia is not only about freedom from colonialism, but also about the terrible military violence inflicted upon these lands and waters by the Global North. The violence that ran from 1966 to 1996 mirrors the disregard that the French still feel for the islanders, treating them as nothing more than detritus, as if they had been shipwrecked on these lands.

In the backdrop of the current unrest in New Caledonia is the Global North’s growing militarisation of the Pacific, led by the United States. Currently, 25,000 military personnel from 29 countries are conducting Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), a military exercise that runs from Hawai’i to the edge of the Asian mainland. Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research worked with an array of organisations – a number of them from the Pacific and Indian Oceans – to draft red alert no. 18 on this dangerous development. Their names are listed below.

They Are Making the Waters of the Pacific Dangerous

What is RIMPAC?

The US and its allies have held Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises since 1971. The initial partners of this military project were Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, which are also the original members of the Five Eyes (now Fourteen Eyes) intelligence network built to share information and conduct joint surveillance exercises. They are also the major Anglophone countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO, set up in 1949) and are the members of the Australia-New Zealand-US strategy treaty ANZUS, signed in 1951. RIMPAC has grown to be a major biennial military exercise that has drawn in a number of countries with various forms of allegiance to the Global North (Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Tonga).

RIMPAC 2024 began on 28 June and runs through 2 August. It is being held in Hawai’i, which is an illegally occupied territory of the United States. The Hawai’ian independence movement has a history of resisting RIMPAC, which is understood to be part of the US occupation of sovereign Hawai’ian land. The exercise includes over 150 aircraft, 40 surface ships, three submarines, 14 national land forces, and other military equipment from 29 countries, though the bulk of the fleet is from the United States. The goal of the exercise is ‘interoperability’, which effectively means integrating the military (largely naval) forces of other countries with that of the United States. The main command and control for the exercise is managed by the US, which is the heart and soul of RIMPAC.

Fatu Feu’u (Samoa), Mata Sogia, 2009.

Why is RIMPAC so dangerous?

RIMPAC-related documents and official statements indicate that the exercises allow these navies to train ‘for a wide range of potential operations across the globe’. However, it is clear from both US strategic documents and the behaviour of the US officials who run RIMPAC that the centre of focus is China. Strategic documents also make it clear that the US sees China as a major threat, even as the main threat, to US domination and believes that it must be contained.

This containment has come through the trade war against China, but more pointedly through a web of military manoeuvres by the United States. This includes establishing more US military bases in territories and countries surrounding China; using US and allied military vessels to provoke China through freedom of navigation exercises; threatening to position US short-range nuclear missiles in countries and territories allied with the US, including Taiwan; extending the airfield in Darwin, Australia, to position US aircraft with nuclear missiles; enhancing military cooperation with US allies in East Asia with language that shows precisely that the target is to intimidate China; and holding RIMPAC exercises, particularly over the past few years. Though China was invited to participate in RIMPAC 2014 and RIMPAC 2016, when the tension levels were not so high, it has been disinvited since RIMPAC 2018.

Though RIMPAC documents suggest that the military exercise is being conducted for humanitarian purposes, this is a Trojan Horse. This was exemplified, for instance, at RIMPAC 2000, when the militaries conducted the Strong Angel international humanitarian response training exercise. In 2013, the United States and the Philippines cooperated in providing humanitarian assistance after the devastating Typhoon Haiyan. Shortly after that cooperation, the US and the Philippines signed the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (2014), which allows the US to access bases of the Philippine military to maintain its weapons depots and troops. In other words, the humanitarian operations opened the door to deeper military cooperation.

RIMPAC is a live-fire military exercise. The most spectacular part of the exercise is called Sinking Exercise (SINKEX), a drill that sinks decommissioned warships off the coast of Hawai’i. RIMPAC 2024’s target ship will be the decommissioned USS Tarawa, a 40,000-tonne amphibious assault vessel that was one of the largest during its service period. There is no environmental impact survey of the regular sinking of these ships into waters close to island nations, nor is there any understanding of the environmental impact of hosting these vast military exercises not only in the Pacific but elsewhere in the world.

RIMPAC is part of the New Cold War against China that the US imposes on the region. It is designed to provoke conflict. This makes RIMPAC a very dangerous exercise.

Kelcy Taratoa (Aotearoa), Episode 0010 from the series Who Am I? Episodes, 2004.

What is Israel’s role in RIMPAC?

Israel, which is not a country with a shoreline on the Pacific Ocean, first participated in RIMPAC 2018, and then again in RIMPAC 2022 and RIMPAC 2024. Although Israel does not have aircraft or ships in the military exercise, it is nonetheless participating in its ‘interoperability’ component, which includes establishing integrated command and control as well as collaborating in the intelligence and logistical part of the exercise. Israel is participating in RIMPAC 2024 at the same time that it is waging a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Though several of the observer states in RIMPAC 2024 (such as Chile and Colombia) have been forthright in their condemnation of the genocide, they continue to participate alongside Israel’s military in RIMPAC 2024. There has been no public indication of their hesitation about Israel’s involvement in these dangerous joint military exercises.

Israel is a settler-colonial country that continues its murderous apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people. Across the Pacific, indigenous communities from Aotearoa (New Zealand) to Hawai’i have led the protests against RIMPAC over the course of the past 50 years, saying that these exercises are held on stolen ground and waters, that they disregard the negative impact on native communities upon whose land and waters live-fire exercises are held (including areas where atmospheric nuclear testing was previously conducted), and that they contribute to the climate disaster that lifts the waters and threatens the existence of the island communities. Though Israel’s participation is unsurprising, the problem is not merely its involvement in RIMPAC, but the existence of RIMPAC itself. Israel is an apartheid state that is conducting a genocide, and RIMPAC is a colonial project that threatens an annihilationist war against the peoples of the Pacific and China.

Ralph Ako (Solomon Islands), Toto Isu, 2015.

Te Kuaka (Aotearoa)
Red Ant (Australia)
Workers Party of Bangladesh (Bangladesh)
Coordinadora por Palestina (Chile)
Judíxs Antisionistas contra la Ocupación y el Apartheid (Chile)
Partido Comunes (Colombia)
Congreso de los Pueblos (Colombia)
Coordinación Política y Social, Marcha Patriótica (Colombia)
Partido Socialista de Timor (Timor Leste)
Hui Aloha ʻĀina (Hawai’i)
Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation (India)
Federasi Serikat Buruh Demokratik Kerakyatan (Indonesia)
Federasi Serikat Buruh Militan (Indonesia)
Federasi Serikat Buruh Perkebunan Patriotik (Indonesia)
Pusat Perjuangan Mahasiswa untuk Pembebasan Nasional (Indonesia)
Solidaritas.net (Indonesia)
Gegar Amerika (Malaysia)
Parti Sosialis Malaysia (Malaysia)
No Cold War
Awami Workers Party (Pakistan)
Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (Pakistan)
Mazdoor Kissan Party (Pakistan)
Partido Manggagawa (Philippines)
Partido Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (Philippines)
The International Strategy Center (Republic of Korea)
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (Sri Lanka)
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Socialist)
CODEPINK: Women for Peace (United States)
Nodutdol (United States)
Party for Socialism and Liberation (United States)

When the political protests began in New Caledonia in May, I hastened to find a book of poems by Kanak independence leader Déwé Gorodé (1949–2022) called Under the Ashes of the Conch Shells (Sous les cendres des conques, 1974). In this book, written the same year that Gorodé joined the Marxist political group Red Scarves (Foulards rouges), she wrote the poem ‘Forbidden Zone’ (Zone interdite), which concludes:

Reao Vahitahi Nukutavake
Pinaki Tematangi Vanavana
Tureia Maria Marutea
Mangareva MORUROA FANGATAUFA
Forbidden zone
somewhere in
so-called ‘French’ Polynesia.

These are the names of islands that had already been impacted by the French nuclear bomb tests. There are no punctuation marks between the names, which indicates two things: first, that the end of an island or a country does not mark the end of nuclear contamination, and second, that the waters that lap against the islands do not divide the people who live across vast stretches of ocean, but unite them against imperialism. This impulse drove Gorodé to found Group 1878 (named for the Kanak rebellion of that year) and then the Kanak Liberation Party (Parti de libération kanak, or PALIKA) in 1976, which evolved out of Group 1878. The authorities imprisoned Gorodé repeatedly from 1974 to 1977 for her leadership in PALIKA’s struggle for independence from France.

During her time in prison, Gorodé built the Group of Exploited Kanak Women in Struggle (Groupe de femmes Kanak exploitées en lutte) with Susanna Ounei. When these two women left prison, they helped found the Kanak National Liberation and Socialist Front (Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste) in 1984. Through concerted struggle, Gorodé was elected the vice president of New Caledonia in 2001.

Stéphane Foucaud (New Caledonia), MAOW! (2023).

In 1985, thirteen countries of the south Pacific signed the Treaty of Rarotonga, which established a nuclear-free zone from the east coast of Australia to the west coast of South America. As French colonies, neither New Caledonia nor French Polynesia signed it, but others did, including the Solomon Islands and Kūki ‘Airani (Cook Islands). Gorodé is now dead, and US nuclear weapons are poised to enter northern Australia in violation of the treaty. But the struggle does not die away.

Roads are still blocked. Hearts are still opened.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

“One body, one people, one ocean, one Pacific” was Samoa’s powerful statement during the parade of nations at the official opening of the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC).

It was a sentiment echoed loudly and proudly by all other parading nations.

Rapa Nui’s delegation exclaimed, “we are all brothers and sisters, we are a family!”

• READ MORE: Other FestPAC 2024 reports

This strong spirit of unity connected the Pacific delegates who had all travelled across vast oceans to attend the 10-day festival hosted in Honolulu, Hawai’i.

“Ho’oulu Lahui, Regenerating Oceania” is the underlying theme of the event.

Festival director Dr Aaron Sala said the phrase is an ancient Hawai’ian motto from the reigning Monarch of Hawai’i in the 1870s, instructing the community to rekindle their cultural practices and rebuild the nation.

He saw how the theme could be embraced by the entire Pacific region for the festival.

‘Power of that phrase’
“The power of that phrase speaks to every level of who we are.”

He saw the phrase come to life at the official opening ceremony over the weekend.

Almost 30 Pacific Island nations paraded at the Stan Sheriff Center, flags waving high, and hearts full of pride for their indigenous heritage.

Indigenous people of all ages filled the arena with song and dance, previewing what festival goers could expect over the next two weeks.

Dr Sala was impressed by the mix of elders and young ones in the delegations.

“The goal of the festival in its inception was to create connections between elders and youth and to ensure that youth are connected in their culture.

“The festival has affected generations of youth who are now speaking their native languages, who are carving again and weaving again.”

‘It’s so surreal’
Speaking as she watched the opening ceremony, the festival’s operations director Makanani Sala said: “it’s so surreal, looking around you see all these beautiful cultures from around the world, it’s so humbling to have them here and an honor for Hawai’i to be the hosts this year.”

The doors to the festival village at the Hawai’i Convention Centre opened the following day.

Inside, dozens of “fale” allocated to each nation were filled with the traditional arts and crafts of the Pacific.

It is a space for delegates and event attendees to explore and learn about the unique cultural practices preserved by each nation.

The main stage is filled with contemporary and traditional performances, fashion shows, oratory and visual showcases, and much more.

The FestPAC village space invites the community to journey through the entire Pacific, and participate in an exchange of traditional knowledge, thus doing their part in “Ho’oulu Lahui – Regenerating Oceania.”

The Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture runs until June 16.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Pacific civil society and solidarity groups today stepped up their pressure on the French government, accusing it of a “heavy-handed” crackdown on indigenous Kanak protest in New Caledonia, comparing it to Indonesian security forces crushing West Papuan dissent.

A state of emergency was declared last week, at least people have been killed — four of them indigenous Kanaks — and more than 200 people have been arrested after rioting in the capital Nouméa followed independence protests over controversial electoral changes

In Sydney, the Australia West Papua Association declared it was standing in solidarity with the Kanak people in their self-determination struggle against colonialism.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia unrest: Uneasy calm sets in as ‘massive’ reinforcements arrive
• Kanaky in flames: Five takeaways from the New Caledonia independence riots – David Robie
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia crisis reports

“New Caledonia is a colony of France. It’s on the UN list of non-self-governing territories,” said Joe Collins of AWPA in a statement.

“Like all colonial powers anywhere in the world, the first response to what started as peaceful protests is to send in more troops, declare a state of emergency and of course accuse a foreign power of fermenting unrest,” Collins said.

He was referring to the south Caucasus republic of Azerbaijan, which Paris has accused of distributing “anti-France propaganda” on social media about the riots, a claim denied by the Azeri government.

“In fact, the unrest is being caused by France itself,” Collins added.

France ‘should listen’
He said France should listen to the Kanak people.

In Port Vila, the international office of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) issued a statement saying that West Papuans supported the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) in “opposing the French colonial project”.

“Your tireless pursuit of self-determination for Kanaky people sets a profound example for West Papua,” said the statement signed by executive secretary Markus Haluk.

In Suva, the Pacific Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (PRNGOs) called for “calm and peace” blaming the unrest on the French government’s insistence on proceeding with proposed constitutional changes “expressly rejected by pro-independence groups”.

The alliance also reaffirmed its solidarity with the people of Kanaky New Caledonia in their ongoing peaceful quest for self-determination and condemned President Emmanuel Macron’ government for its “poorly hidden agenda of prolonging colonial control” over the Pacific territory.

“Growing frustration, especially among Kanak youth, at what is seen locally as yet another French betrayal of the Kanaky people and other local communities seeking peaceful transition, has since erupted in riots and violence in Noumea and other regions,” the PRNGOs statement said.

The alliance called on the United Nations and Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders to send a neutral mission to oversee and mediate dialogue over the Nouméa Accords of 1998 and political process.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, Kia Mua declared it was “watching with grave concern” the Macron government’s attempts to “derail the process for decolonisation and usurp the Nouméa Accords”.

It also called for the “de-escalation of the militarised French response to Kanak dissent and an end to the state of emergency”.

‘Devastating nuclearism, militarism’
For more than 300 years, “Te Moananui a Kiwa [Pacific Ocean] has been subjected to European colonialism, the criminality of which is obscured and hidden by Western presumptions of righteousness and legitimacy.”

The devastating effects of “nuclearism, militarism, extraction and economic globalisation on Indigenous culture and fragile ecosystems in the Pacific are an extension of that colonialism and must be halted”.

The Oceanian Independence Movement (OIM) demanded an immediate investigation “to provide full transparency into the deaths linked to the uprising in recent days”.

It called on indigenous people to be “extra vigilant” in the face of the state of emergency and and to record examples of “behaviour that harm your physical and moral integrity”.

The MOI said it supported the pro-independence CCAT (activist field groups) and blamed the upheaval on the “racist, colonialist, provocative and humiliating remarks” towards Kanaks by rightwing French politicians such as Southern provincial president Sonia Backés and Générations NC deputy in the National Assembly Nicolas Metzdorf.

Constitutional rules
The French National Assembly last week passed a bill changing the constutional rules for local provincial elections in New Caledonia, allowing French residents who have lived there for 10 years to vote.

This change to the electoral reform is against the terms of the 1998 Noumea Accord. That pact had agreed that only the indigenous Kanak people and long-term residents prior to 1998 would be eligible to vote in provincial ballots and local referendums.

The bill has yet to be ratified by Congress, a combined sitting of the Senate and National Assembly. The change would add an additional 25,000 non-indigenous voters to take part in local elections, dramatically changing the electoral demographics in New Caledonia to the disadvantage of indigenous Kanaks who make up 42 percent of the 270,000 population.

Yesterday, in the far north of Kanaky New Caledonia’s main island of Grande Terre, a group gathered to honour 10 Kanaks who were executed by guillotine on 18 May 1868. They had resisted the harsh colonial regime of Governor Guillan.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics.

The peaceful demonstration was held on Nouméa’s Place des Cocotiers to protest against violent messages posted by critics against Waia on social networks — and also against public comments made by local politicians, mostly pro-France.

Political leaders and social networks have criticised Waia for her coverage of the pro-independence protests on April 13 in the capital.

• READ MORE: NZ slumps to 19th as RSF says press freedom threatened by global decline
• RSF 2024 World Press Freedom Index
• Pro-independence activist issues dire warning to France over Kanaky New Caledonia

“We are here to sound the alarm bell and to remind our leaders not to cross the line regarding freedom of expression and freedom to exercise the profession of journalism in New Caledonia,” president Sonia Togna New Caledonia’s Union of Francophone Women in Oceania (UFFO-NC).

“We’re going to go through very difficult months [about the political future of New Caledonia] and we hope this kind of incident will not happen again, whatever the political party,” she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Paris-based World Press Freedom Index
Pacific Media Watch reports that yesterday was World Press Freedom Day worldwide and France rose three places to 21st in the Paris-based RSF’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index rankings made public yesterday.

This is higher than any other other country in the region except New Zealand (which dropped six places to 19th, but still two places higher than France).

New Zealand is closely followed in the Index by one of the world’s newer nations, Timor-Leste (20th) — among the top 10 last year — and Samoa (22nd).

Fiji was 44th, one place above Tonga, and Papua New Guinea had dropped 32 places to 91st. Other Pacific countries were not listed in the survey which is based on media freedom performance through 2023.

New Zealand is 20 places above Australia, which dropped 12 places and is ranked 39th.

Rivals in the Indo-Pacific geopolitical struggle for influence are the United States (dropped 15 places to 55th) and China (rose seven places to 172nd).

Pacific Media Watch

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

By Aisha Azeemah in Suva

With the lights on one of his sneakers blinking as he ran through the gallery, a little boy looked up at several works of art. One of them was a sculpture of his grandfather: the man who changed how we see the Pacific — Epeli Hau’ofa, a name renowned across the Pacific as writer, as artist, as mentor, as friend.

The great Hau’ofa certainly wore many hats and made his mark on many lives, and his influence did not end the day his breath did in 2009.

The Tongan-Fijian writer and anthropologist was, among other things, the founder of the University of the South Pacific’s Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies.

• READ MORE:  Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies

A man who recognised the need for a place where fellow creatives could create, he can be credited with nurturing several generations of Pacific writers and artists.

His own work, particularly his side-splitting short stories and his 1993 paper titled “Our Sea of Islands” which sought to destroy the notion that Pacific Islands were small and insignificant in the larger world around us, will live on forever in the hands of academics.

But now, those who knew and loved the man have gone the extra step to ensure his name lives on. On March 7, 2024, a book titled “Remembering Epeli Hau’ofa: His Life and Legacy” was launched at the University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus in Fiji.

The book, a compilation of the memories of and odes to Hau’ofa, was compiled and edited by Eric Waddell, Professor Vijay Naidu and Dr Claire Slatter.

Poetry opening
Current director of the Oceania Centre for Arts and a renowned artist himself, Larry Thomas, called the book launch to order. Professor Sudesh Mishra read out a poem he wrote about Hau’ofa that can be found in the opening of the book itself.

The book was officially launched by USP Deputy Vice-Chancellor Dr Giulio Masasso Tu’ikolongahau Paunga, sharing the tale of a younger Hau’ofa amused at Dr Paunga’s very formal tie to an otherwise informal event years ago, a look he recreated for the launch event.

“Remembering Epeli Hau’ofa is a book about a visionary,” the book’s foreword by Archbishop Emeritus of the Anglican Church, New Zealand and Polynesia, Winston Halapua says.

“Epeli was a leader who opened our eyes to the pulsing reality around us, the reality which sustains and connects us.

“This book, written in his memory, draws a portrait of a man with great mana who will continue to have wide influence on thinking and action throughout the region.”

Hau’ofa’s love for the Pacific and our oceans is legendary. As such, the book would have been incomplete without an excerpt of his own words expressing the feeling of belonging shared by all Pacific Islanders. Hau’ofa wrote:

“Wherever I am at any given moment, there is comfort in the knowledge stored at the back of my mind that somewhere in Oceania is a piece of earth to which I belong.

“In the turbulence of life, it is my anchor. No one can take it away from me. I may never return to it, not even as mortal remains, but it will always be homeland.

“We all have or should have homelands: family, community, national homelands. And to deny human beings the sense of homeland is to deny them a deep spot on earth to anchor their roots.”

Enlivened by humour
The book launch, a highly emotional event for some attendees but enlivened by humour in every speech and conversation in a very Hau’ofa style was an apt way to celebrate the comedic genius’ life.

His own family, community, and fellow nationals, it seems, will never forget him.

Several notable art pieces were displayed at the Oceania Centre for the book launch, including the piece by Lingikoni E. Vaka’uta that serves as the cover art for the book, an oil on canvas piece titled “The Legend of Maui slowing the sun”.

Another is “Boso”, a 1998 welded scrap metal sculpture of Epeli Hau’ofa himself, by artist Ben Fong.

The event was attended by noted academics, artists, friends, fans of the late Epeli Hau’ofa, and several members of the Hau’ofa family, including his son and aforementioned grandson.

Epeli Hau’ofa’s stories are sure to knock the wind out of you.

• The book “Remembering Epeli Hau’ofa: His Life And Legacy” is free to download here.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Macron said tensions in the Indo-Pacific zone were a matter for concern because France was an integral part of the Indo-Pacific — both in the Indian and the Pacific oceans.

He recalled the French version of the Indo-Pacific had been masterminded in 2018 and had since been developed in partnership with such key allies as India, Australia, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.

• READ MORE: Other France in Pacific reports

“But we have also consolidated it and, may I say entrenched it, in our own (overseas) territories,” he said, citing New Caledonia as an example of French army presence to defend France’s sovereignty and “the capacity for our air force to deploy (from mainland France) to Oceania within 48 hours”.

He also praised the recent South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting held in Nouméa last month when “France was the inviting power”.

He said Paris was able to strike “strategic partnerships” with neighbouring armed forces.

“The year 2024 will see us maintain without fail the protection of our overseas territories,” he told the troops.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The University of Auckland is to bestow a posthumous honorary doctorate on the late Tongan academic, author and sociologist Professor ‘Epeli Hau’ofa.

Hau’ofa was described at the time of his death by The Sydney Morning Herald as an “inspirational writer, satirist and scholar  . . . . truly a man of the Pacific, one of the region’s leading writers who promoted a positive vision of Oceanian culture and history”.

Tongan academic Dr Melanaite Taumoefolau said the university would honour Professor Hau’ofa at a graduation ceremony at the Fale Pasifika on Saturday, October 14.

• READ MORE:  ‘Epeli Hau’ofa – We mourn your passing
• Other ‘Epeli Hau’ofa reports

The ceremony will be held from 10am to midday followed by lunch.

Dr Taumoefolau said there would be a small kava circle with Dr Malakai Koloamatangi and Professor ‘Okusi Māhina and a few others.

It is expected there will be about 100-150 guests, mostly Tongan academics and family from the community.

The ceremony will begin with a prayer, followed by speakers who are expected to include  Tongan poet and academic Konai Thaman and Sione Tu’itahi.

This will be followed by foaki e mata’itohí, then entertainment from the TAUA Tongan students Association. Sione Tu’itahi will be MC.

‘Extraordinary vision’
Hauʻofa was born in Papua New Guinea to Tongan missionary parents. He went to school in PNG, Tonga and Fiji and then attended the University of New England and the Australian National University (ANU) in Australia and McGill University in Canada.

He graduated from the ANU with a PhD in social anthropology.

He taught at the University of Papua New Guinea and was a research fellow at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. From 1978 to 1981 he was keeper of the palace records in his role as Deputy Private Secretary to King Tupou IV.

While in Tonga, he and his wife Barbara edited the literary magazine Faikava. He became the first director of USP’s Rural Development Centre, based in Tonga, in 1981.

He taught sociology at USP in Suva, eventually becoming head of the Department of Sociology.

In 1997, Hauʻofa founded the university’s Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture. Through the centre he was mentor to a new generation of artists, sculptors, dancers and musicians at the USP in Suva.

Hau’ofa was a noted writer. His books included Mekeo: Inequality and Ambivalence in a Village Society, based on his PhD thesis, a novel, Kisses in the Nederends and probably his best known work, Tales of the Tikongs, a lively satire of contemporary South Pacific life, featuring multinational experts, religious fanatics, con men, villagers and corrupt politicians.

Hauʻofa died in Suva on 11 January 2009. At the time of his death, an academic colleague said: “His vision and person were extraordinary.”

Dr Philip Cass writes for Kaniva Tonga and is editor of Pacific Journalism Review. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Kaniva News.

The 22nd Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Leaders’ Summit was declared open at the National Convention Centre in Port Vila yesterday with host Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau hailing opportunities to “galvanise our efforts as a United Melanesia”.

Prime Minister Kalsakau welcomed all the delegations and said how happy and privileged the people of Vanuatu were to have the MSG leaders visit Port Vila after the recent successful Melanesian Arts and Cultural Festival.

“It gives me enormous pleasure, to welcome you all to Port Vila on the occasion of the official opening of the 22nd MSG Leaders’ Summit,” he said.

• READ MORE: Benny Wenda says dream of MSG full membership ‘will happen’ in Port Vila
• Other MSG reports

“Fifteen years since Vanuatu last hosted in 2008, this gathering of all leaders of our distinctive and noble organization is for history to behold.

“Let me at the outset take this opportunity on behalf of the government and people of Vanuatu to convey our sincere appreciation for your commitment and respect.

“This is not only for honouring the call to attend the Leaders’ Summit and related meetings here in Port Vila but more importantly for your leadership and wisdom to collectively harness opportunities to revitalise and galvanise our efforts as a United Melanesia.”

Prime Minister Kalsakau said a united Melanesia was not just for the developmental goals, dreams, and aspirations of the Melanesian area, which stretches from West Papua in the Southwest Pacific to Fiji to the East.

Duty of care
He said Melanesian countries had a duty of care and obligation to the remainder of Oceania, particularly the Pacific Small Island Developing States, as custodians of 90 percent of the landmass, population, and natural resources.

“As Prime Minister, chair, and host, I take this opportunity once again on behalf of the Vanuatu government and people, to reiterate Vanuatu’s privilege to take on the mantle and challenge of leadership of the MSG, and in furthering our sub-regional organisation’s common agendas and aspirations, for the betterment of the group and our peoples,” Kalsakau said.

“Many political observers derided our subregional efforts in cooperation, as divisive and destructive to regional cooperation.

“Also in the yesteryear, foreign sceptics with zero understanding of Melanesia and its nucleus referred to us as the ‘Arc of Instability’. They drove this agenda for us to fail as nation states.

“Today I stand proud, to say that we have proven these critics wrong on more than one account. We have proven to be resilient collectively building on the fundamentals that bound us together as One People, that inheritance bestowed on us by our Creator, God Almighty.”

Kalsakau said the MSG today remained more vibrant and viable than ever, as the countries forged ahead in their collective pursuit of common social, political, economic, and security interests, underscoring the resoluteness, tenacity, and resilience of Melanesia.

“MSG, Being Relevant and Influential” as the theme of the 22nd MSG Leaders’ Summit, is therefore a fitting and timely reminder,” he said.

‘Conquered the colonial past’
“For the independent states we have conquered that colonial past and now as a collective have transformed the ‘Arc’ into one of Responsibility and Prosperity. This indispensable Arc of Melanesia is moving forward,” said the Prime Minister.

“And we are reminded that among our peoples are those who continue to be deprived of taking up their rightful place among the global union of nations. The MSG platform, therefore, provides unique opportunities in solidifying expressions of hope for all of Melanesia.”

MSG was the largest grouping in the Pacific Islands Forum family, Prime Minister Kalsakau said. MSG must continue to assert a leadership role, and in spearheading initiatives, as the name denoted.

He said that MSG was the only subregional grouping that had a permanent secretariat, and perhaps had the only active and functioning free trade agreement in Oceania.

“This is a marked feat, as we commemorate 35 years of MSG’s existence as our august organisation, an achievement we all should be proud of,” Kalsakau said.

“Our subregionalism is no longer frowned upon but is regarded as the building block for stronger regional cooperation in the wider regional architecture, as we provide added cooperation impetus for the Blue Pacific Continent, of which we are an integral part.”

The MSG subregionalism had therefore been vindicated and would continue to grow in prominence and relevance going forward.

Fundamental principles
“As chair, I would like to assert that as a group, we must not lose sight of fundamental principles espoused by the MSG,” Kalsakau said. This included:

• encouraging sub-regional diplomacy and friendly relations,
• maintaining peace and harmony,
• encouraging free and open trade, boosting economic and technical cooperation, and
• promoting our unique Melanesian traditions and cultures.

However, during his tenure as chair, Prime Minister Kalsakau wants the secretariat to assist the members in bringing to closure many of the outstanding issues leaders had agreed to.

Under the tutelage of the high-performing Director-General, he expected the committed secretariat to implement the main recommendations of the Implementation Strategy for the 2038 Prosperity for All Plan.

“The third-revised MSG Free Trade Agreement 2017 must be brought into operation quickly so we can all benefit from its provisions on trade in services and investments,” he said.

“On that note, I wish to assure you all of my government’s commitment to signing and ratifying the MFTA by November of this year. The Skills Movement Scheme must be promoted widely so our people can fully take advantage of it.”

The Prime Minister announced that, through representatives, the governments of Australia and China were also participating in the Leaders’ Summit as special guests.

He commended the secretariat for its facilitation and revitalisation of the first edition of the MSG PM’s Cup last year.

Doddy Morris is a Vanuatu Daily Post reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

World football’s top dog has completed his tour of the Pacific while in the region for the FIFA Women’s World Cup co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino travelled in his private jet to New Caledonia on Tuesday, the final nation or territory of the 11-member Oceania Football Confederation.

In Noumea he inaugurated a new headquarters for the New Caledonian Football Association, built with support from the FIFA Forward development programme, and said the proposed Oceania Professional League would give players the chance to follow in the footsteps of Kanak Christian Karembeu who helped France win the 1998 World Cup.

• READ MORE: FIFA Women’s Football World Cup a ‘massive celebration’ in New Zealand
• Other FIFA Women’s World Cup reports

As well as the strongest nations in the region — New Zealand, New Caledonia, Tahiti, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Fiji — Infantino has travelled to Tonga, Cook Islands, Samoa and American Samoa, becoming the first-ever FIFA boss to visit those countries.

In Honiara on Monday, Infantino described Solomon Islands as “the Brazil of Oceania” because of its passion for football.

“This is a football crazy country and together with the government and those at the Solomon Islands Football Federation . . . we want to provide an opportunity through football for young girls and boys of this country to fulfil their dreams,” he said.

Before flying to Honiara, Infantino was in Port Moresby where he opened the new headquarters of the Papua New Guinea Football Association and met Prime Minister James Marape.

Exhibition matches
As in Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and elsewhere, Infantino was involved in an exhibition match between a FIFA Legends’ Select and the local legends’ XI.

During his tour of the Pacific, he has opened and named new facilities and met with political and football leaders.

He has highlighted the love of football in the region and praised the new facilities and local officials.

There were no new announcements of money from FIFA but Infantino’s visit has somewhat reinforced the importance of Oceania to FIFA, its smallest confederation.

Infantino stressed the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 was being celebrated in the whole of Oceania.

“The ongoing FIFA Women’s World Cup is the most inclusive and greatest ever because it belongs to the entire Pacific region, and it is inspiring people all over the world,” he said.

During the World Cup, FIFA high performance specialist April Heinrichs told a workshop held in Wellington, New Zealand, that there was potential in the Pacific.

“I think we can have an OFC country, including New Zealand, that qualifies for the FIFA U-17 World Cup more consistently,” the former United States international said.

• The World Cup final is on Sunday evening in Sydney with Spain playing the winner of tonight’s Australia and England semifinal.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad has called on the Fiji Football Association to address the problem of the decline of the Fiji’s men’s global football ranking.

He made the request to the national governing body while welcoming FIFA president Gianni Infantino to Fiji at the weekend.

Infantino was in the country as part of his visit to Oceania member countries.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji sport reports

The Fiji men’s football team, known as the “Bula Boys”, is ranked 168 — seventh out of the 11 teams in the Oceania Football Confederation.

Fiji is ranked below New Zealand (103), Solomon Islands (133), Papua New Guinea (159), New Caledonia (161), Tahiti (162) and Vanuatu (165).

Professor Prasad said that while FIFA’s financial support had been invaluable, it was vital to reflect and determine why Fiji’s performance was not on par with its glorious past.

‘All-time low’
“We all are wondering why our men’s football ranking has plummeted to an all-time low despite an abundance of talent and football in our country,” he said.

“We were ranked in the 1990s before the turn of the century. We used to defeat every nation in our region. We chalked up two wins over Australia in 1977 and 1988. We either beat or were on par with New Zealand.

“And that was in an era when football wasn’t even semi-professional. We are now professional according to our standings of player fees and transfers. But we aren’t improving despite what we are told are three football academies, primarily funded by FIFA.”

Professor Prasad raised questions about the effectiveness of the football academies established with FIFA’s funding and asked whether the talent was being nurtured adequately, and if the infrastructure and guidance provided were enough to support the aspirations of young players.

The Deputy Prime Minister also brought up concerns about the governance within Fiji FA, and stressed the importance of transparent and accountable leadership.

He said decisions should always be made in the best interest of football and the athletes.

‘It is the reality’
“What I said isn’t about recrimination. It is the reality where football descended to in the last 16 years. But it will change. And change for the better. Our conscience must be clear when dealing with governance issues.”

Responding to Professor Prasad’s criticism on Fiji’s poor ranking, Fiji FA president Rajesh Patel said they were not worried about the rankings as it was something that had declined when the side played more international matches.

He said in Fiji’s bid to compete at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, they had been playing quality opposition during FIFA international windows.

Patel said the under-20s participation at the under-20 World Cup in Argentina was proof of progress in the development of the sport in Fiji.

Rodney Duthie is a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The list of recipients is depressingly long, and suggests that Australia has ceased to have any pretensions of sovereignty in defence matters. Take, for instance, the appointment of US Vice Admiral William Hilarides to the post of reviewing the future of the Royal Australian Navy’s surface fleet, for which he is pocketing US$4,000 a day. Since 2016, he has received US$1.3 million in contracts from the Australian government.

Hilarides featured in a story by the Washington Post last year, which revealed that two retired US admirals and three former US Navy civilian leaders were “playing critical but secretive roles as paid advisers to the government of Australia during its negotiations to acquire top-secret nuclear submarine technology from the United States and Britain.”

It gets worse. Six retired US admirals are identified as having offered their services to the Commonwealth since 2015. Hilarides was particularly keen, having retired a mere two months before seeking permission to advise the Australians on how best to extend the life of its Collins Class submarine fleet.

US Navy officials had few problems with the application, approving it within five days and forwarding it to the US State Department, which treated it as a mere formality. Hilarides, in his application, stated that he would be receiving money from a contract between the Australian Commonwealth and the consulting firm Burdenshaw Associates, based in Fairfax City, Virginia. The same firm has received US$6.8 million from the Australian taxpayer since 2015.

In a statement provided to the paper, the Australian Department of Defence revealed that Hilarides, another admiral Thomas Eccles, and a number of those on the Commonwealth’s Naval Shipbuilding Expert Advisory Panel, were furnishing Canberra with “expert advice on the performance of the naval shipbuilding exercise. This includes the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines and other issues relevant to naval acquisition and sustainment.”

What is also unsettling is that Stephen Johnson, one of the US admiral advisory set, unbeknownst to the Australian public, also served as a deputy secretary of defence for Canberra for two years. With such a level of involvement, it is only a matter of time before the entire complement of the ADF is signed over to Washington, if it already hasn’t been done so over a game of golf.

In documents supplied to Congress by the Pentagon in March, the outsourcing picture comes increasingly clotted. Retired Admiral John Richardson makes an appearance, having received US$5,000 a day as a contracted part-time consultant with the Australian Defence Department.

Another figure who has made an appearance in this busy outsourcing circuit is former US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. (What is Australia becoming: a retirement village for servants of the US defence-security-intelligence complex?) The Australian National University has made a habit of hosting Clapper at the ANU National Security College to discuss, among other things, “key global and national security issues including the future of Australia’s alliance with the United States.”

Clapper’s academic waltz through the corridors of power has involved discussions “with policy makers and security practitioners, as well as academics, students and private sector partners in the College’s work on issues such as cyber security and analysing future strategic challenges.”

The Pentagon documents also reveal that Clapper received, in 2018, an undisclosed sum for services performed for the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) in Canberra. Only the previous year, the decision by the Turnbull government to create the ONI as “a single point of intelligence coordination” was praised by Clapper as bringing Australia more into line with the other Five Eyes partners.

We can only hope that Clapper has not imparted too much knowledge upon the unwary. His record as DNI was filled with a number of injudicious howlers. In March 2013, he falsely testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the government does “not wittingly” collect the telephone records of millions of Americans. “There are cases where they could, inadvertently perhaps, collect – but not wittingly,” he stated in response to a question posed by Senator Ron Wyden.

Within a matter of months, it became clear that such a statement was false, notably in light of the revelations from former defence contractor Edward Snowden. The New York Times was emphatic: Clapper had “lied to Congress”. In his withering critique of Clapper, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul suggested that the intelligence community had engaged in “great abuses”. Perhaps, he proposed, both Snowden and Clapper might serve time “in a prison cell together” to further enlighten the country “over what we should and shouldn’t do.”

In 2019, Clapper did his Pontius Pilate act on CNN, claiming that he did not lie so much as make “a big mistake”. He “just simply didn’t understand” what he was being asked. “I thought of another surveillance program, section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, when I was asked about Section 215 of the Patriot Act at the time”.

His credibility suitably shot, Clapper is still given to making rich offerings of tainted advice. He is manic about Moscow’s electoral interference, going so far as to tell NBC’s Chuck Todd in May 2017 that the Russians were “typically … almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favour, whatever”. With such xenophobic opinions, he must be a fabulous guest in Australia’s isolated capital.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

In reading (and hearing) Wong’s speech, one must always assume the opposite, or something close to it. Whatever is said about strategic balance, don’t believe a word of it; such views are always uttered in the shadow of US power. From that vantage point, Occam’s Razor becomes a delicious blessing: nothing said by any Australian official in foreign policy should ever be taken as independently relevant. Best gaze across the Pacific for confirmation.

In Wong’s address, the ill-dressed cliché waltzes with the scantily clad platitude. “When Australians look out to the world, we see ourselves reflected in it – just as the world can see itself reflected in us.” (World, whatever you are, do tell.)

The basis for this strained nonsense is, at least, promising. Variety can, paradoxically, generate common ground. “This is a powerful natural asset for building alignment, for articulating our determination to see the interests of all the world’s peoples upheld, alongside our own.” Mightily aspirational, is Wong here, though such language seems pinched from the Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War, one that Australia, US policing deputy of the Asia-Pacific, was never a part off. No informed listener would assume otherwise.

Like a lecture losing steam early, she finally gets to the point of her address: “how we avert war and maintain peace – and more than that, how we shape a region that reflects our national interests and our shared regional interests.” It does not take long to realise what this entails: talk about “rules, standards and norms – where a larger country does not determine the fate of the smaller country, where each country can pursue its own aspirations, its own prosperity.”

That the United States has determined the fate of Australia since the Second World War, manipulating, interfering and guiding its politics and its policies, makes this statement risible, but no less significant. We are on bullying terrain, and Wong is trying to pick the most preferable bully.

She can’t quite put it in those terms, so speaks about “the regional balance of power” instead, with Australia performing the role of handmaiden. She dons the sage’s hat, consumes the shaman’s herbal potion, insisting that commentators and strategists have gotten it wrong to talk about “great powers competing for primacy. They love a binary. And the appeal of a binary is obvious. Simple, clear choices. Black and white.”

It takes one, obviously, to know another, and Senator Wong, along with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, have shown little resistance to the very binary concept they supposedly repudiate. Far from opposing it, we might even go so far as to see their seduction by US power as a move towards the unitary: there is only one choice for the Canberra cocktail set.

Much of the speech seems trapped in this register. It rejects the “prism of great power.” It abhors the nature of great powers scrapping and squawking over territories. And yet, Wong is keen to point the finger to one great power’s behaviour: unstainable lending, political interference, disinformation, reshaping international rules and standards.

Finally, the dastardly feline is out of the bag – and it is not the United States. “China continues to modernise its military at a pace and scale not seen in the world for nearly a century with little transparency or assurance about its strategic intent.”

Oh, Penny, if only you could understand the actual premise of AUKUS and the US modernising strategy, given that Washington’s defence budget exceeds those of the next nine powers combined. Yes, you do say that a conflict over Taiwan “would be catastrophic for all”, but there is nothing to say what will restrain you, or your colleagues, from committing Australia to such a conflict. Given that the Albanese government has turned up its nose at war powers reform that would have given Parliament a greater say in committing national suicide, confidence can hardly be brimming.

The assessment of Australia’s own role in international relations is not just off the mark but off the reservation. “We deploy our own statecraft toward shaping a region that is open, stable and prosperous. A predictable region, operated by agreed rules, standards and laws. Where no country dominates, and no country is dominated. A region where sovereignty is respected, and all countries benefit from a strategic equilibrium.”

To this, one is reminded of the remarks of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating, who describes Wong’s alms-for-the-poor routine as, “Running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around your neck handing out money”. This could hardly count as foreign policy. “It’s a consular task. Foreign policy is what you do with the great powers: what you do with China, what you do with the United States.”

Much of the speech inhabits the realm of the speculative. Wong is delusionary in assuming that regional states will accept Australia’s observance of the Treaty of Rarotonga, whatever the stance taken by the AUKUS pact members. Otherwise known as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, Wong has revealed Australia’s ambivalence in observing its provisions. For one, she is on record as accepting the position that the US need not confirm whether nuclear-capable assets visiting Australia have nuclear weapons. She merely says that Washington “confirmed that the nuclear-powered submarines visiting Australia on rotation will be conventionally-armed.”

This hardly squares with the assessments of her own minions in the Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs, who have confirmed that Australia will accept the deployment of nuclear weapons on its soil as long as they are not stationed.

The last word should be left to that great critic of the Albanese tilt towards Washington’s military-industrial pathology. “Wong,” observed Keating, “went on to eschew ‘black and white’ binary choices but then proceeded to make a choice herself – extolling the virtues of the United States, of it remaining ‘the central power’ – of ‘balancing the region’, while disparaging China as ‘intent on being China’, going on to say ‘countries don’t want to live in closed, hierarchical region, where rules are dictated by a single major power to suit its own interests’. Nothing too subtle about that.” The Washington establishment will be delighted.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

This month, Albanese, who has been held to the bosom of great powers of late, found himself at the mercy of cricket diplomacy at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad. He had been placed upon an improvised golf car with Modi prior to the start of the fourth cricket test between Australia and India. But Albanese was not merely Modi’s guest; he was also appearing in a stadium named after the prime minister he was keeping company with. Modesty had been exorcised; pomp and narcissism had taken its place.

The cricketers of the national sides were not spared florid manipulation and flowery exploitation. In India, cricket makes the god fearing, beer swilling followers of soccer look like mild agnostics of some reserve and domestic sensibility. In the Indian cricket canon, players are sanctified from across the globe, added to a sanctuary of permanent adoration in something reminiscent of ancient tradition. Much like the deities of the Roman Empire, all great cricket players, from Antigua to Sydney, find their spiritual holy ground on Indian soil, forever assimilated.

For Modi, this all meant opportunity and glory. He is the classically dangerous politician for those of the broadly described West who think they understand him. Supple, gentle, oleaginous, Modi is both unscrupulous and prone to wooing. And Albanese was there to keep him company. The teams of two great cricket nations were effectively shoehorned into the show, with Modi and Albanese giving the captains of their respective countries their caps before the game’s commencement.

The nexus of power in world cricket – and its link Modi – was also affirmed by the presence of officials from the enormously powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). They were on hand to give Modi that most vulgar of gifts: a gaudily framed photo of himself.

The scenes should have made Albanese feel uncomfortable. While Australian officials, business types and opportunists dream of market opportunities in India, it is also worth appreciating what Modi is. This is only relevant given the mighty, moral bent Canberra takes on such matters: the Chinese and Russians are seen as barbarians hammering away at the rules-based order and shredding human rights – or some such – and there lies India, promising, vast and nominally democratic.

Things, however, are not well in the world’s largest democracy. Only in February, the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai were paid a less than friendly visit from tax officials intent on conducting a “survey”. This came just weeks after the organisation’s release of a documentary that shone a light less than rosy upon the dear leader.

For all this, Australian governments can hardly complain: the Australian Federal Police engaged in similar acts against the national broadcaster in June 2019, and even went so far as to suggest that two journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation might be prosecuted for national security violations.

Modi also had a superb distraction to be used against the Australian PM. He could chide his guest and prod him about what was happening regarding recent acts of vandalism against Hindu temples in Melbourne. “It is a matter of regret that attacks on temples have been regularly reported in Australia over the last few weeks.”

These have primarily featured slogans of support for the pro-Khalistan Sikh separatist movement. The wall of the ISKCON temple located in the suburb of Albert Park, for instance, featured the words “Khalistan Zindabad (Long Live the Sikh Homeland)”, “Hindustan Murdabad (Down with India)”, and “Sant Bhindranwale is martyred”. Another incident at Carrum Downs featured, according to Victorian Police, damage that “included graffiti slogans of what appear to be [of] a political nature.”

Albanese, caught up in the role of being the good guest, could only say that such acts had “no place in Australia. And we will take every action through our police and also our security agencies to make sure that anyone responsible for this faces the full force of the law. We’re a tolerant multicultural nation, and there is no place in Australia for this activity.”

In India, on the other hand, there is more than enough space for intolerance when PM Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) authorities egg it on. The rights of Muslims, for instance, have been curtailed by the Citizenship Amendment Act, an instrument that enables non-Muslim communities originally from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan to apply for Indian citizenship if they had arrived in India prior to December 31, 2014.

Violence against Muslims and Islamophobic statements from officials has also become more common, with India’s Supreme Court warning that mob attacks risked being normalised in the current environment.

None of this came up in the Modi-Albanese discussions. Nor did the conduct of India’s premier port-to-power conglomerate, the Adani Group, which has extensive mining, rail and port interests in Australia. To add to its inglorious environmental report card, Adani was found by the activist short-seller Hindenburg Research earlier this year to be allegedly responsible for accountancy fraud and stock manipulation. To keep that off the agenda was yet another mighty coup for the Indian leader.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

This month, Albanese, who has been held to the bosom of great powers of late, found himself at the mercy of cricket diplomacy at the Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad. He had been placed upon an improvised golf car with Modi prior to the start of the fourth cricket test between Australia and India. But Albanese was not merely Modi’s guest; he was also appearing in a stadium named after the prime minister he was keeping company with. Modesty had been exorcised; pomp and narcissism had taken its place.

The cricketers of the national sides were not spared florid manipulation and flowery exploitation. In India, cricket makes the god fearing, beer swilling followers of soccer look like mild agnostics of some reserve and domestic sensibility. In the Indian cricket canon, players are sanctified from across the globe, added to a sanctuary of permanent adoration in something reminiscent of ancient tradition. Much like the deities of the Roman Empire, all great cricket players, from Antigua to Sydney, find their spiritual holy ground on Indian soil, forever assimilated.

For Modi, this all meant opportunity and glory. He is the classically dangerous politician for those of the broadly described West who think they understand him. Supple, gentle, oleaginous, Modi is both unscrupulous and prone to wooing. And Albanese was there to keep him company. The teams of two great cricket nations were effectively shoehorned into the show, with Modi and Albanese giving the captains of their respective countries their caps before the game’s commencement.

The nexus of power in world cricket – and its link Modi – was also affirmed by the presence of officials from the enormously powerful Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). They were on hand to give Modi that most vulgar of gifts: a gaudily framed photo of himself.

The scenes should have made Albanese feel uncomfortable. While Australian officials, business types and opportunists dream of market opportunities in India, it is also worth appreciating what Modi is. This is only relevant given the mighty, moral bent Canberra takes on such matters: the Chinese and Russians are seen as barbarians hammering away at the rules-based order and shredding human rights – or some such – and there lies India, promising, vast and nominally democratic.

Things, however, are not well in the world’s largest democracy. Only in February, the BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai were paid a less than friendly visit from tax officials intent on conducting a “survey”. This came just weeks after the organisation’s release of a documentary that shone a light less than rosy upon the dear leader.

For all this, Australian governments can hardly complain: the Australian Federal Police engaged in similar acts against the national broadcaster in June 2019, and even went so far as to suggest that two journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation might be prosecuted for national security violations.

Modi also had a superb distraction to be used against the Australian PM. He could chide his guest and prod him about what was happening regarding recent acts of vandalism against Hindu temples in Melbourne. “It is a matter of regret that attacks on temples have been regularly reported in Australia over the last few weeks.”

These have primarily featured slogans of support for the pro-Khalistan Sikh separatist movement. The wall of the ISKCON temple located in the suburb of Albert Park, for instance, featured the words “Khalistan Zindabad (Long Live the Sikh Homeland)”, “Hindustan Murdabad (Down with India)”, and “Sant Bhindranwale is martyred”. Another incident at Carrum Downs featured, according to Victorian Police, damage that “included graffiti slogans of what appear to be [of] a political nature.”

Albanese, caught up in the role of being the good guest, could only say that such acts had “no place in Australia. And we will take every action through our police and also our security agencies to make sure that anyone responsible for this faces the full force of the law. We’re a tolerant multicultural nation, and there is no place in Australia for this activity.”

In India, on the other hand, there is more than enough space for intolerance when PM Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) authorities egg it on. The rights of Muslims, for instance, have been curtailed by the Citizenship Amendment Act, an instrument that enables non-Muslim communities originally from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan to apply for Indian citizenship if they had arrived in India prior to December 31, 2014.

Violence against Muslims and Islamophobic statements from officials has also become more common, with India’s Supreme Court warning that mob attacks risked being normalised in the current environment.

None of this came up in the Modi-Albanese discussions. Nor did the conduct of India’s premier port-to-power conglomerate, the Adani Group, which has extensive mining, rail and port interests in Australia. To add to its inglorious environmental report card, Adani was found by the activist short-seller Hindenburg Research earlier this year to be allegedly responsible for accountancy fraud and stock manipulation. To keep that off the agenda was yet another mighty coup for the Indian leader.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

A number of officials are keen to push the line that Washington’s policy towards the Pacific is clearly back where it should be. It’s all part of the warming strategy adopted by the Biden administration, typified by the US-Pacific Island Country summit held last September. In remarks made during the summit, President Joe Biden stated that “the security of America, quite frankly, and the world, depends on your security and the security of the Pacific Islands. And I really mean that.”

Not once was China mentioned, but its ghostly presence stalked Biden’s words. A new Pacific Partnership Strategy was announced, “the first national US strategy for [the] Pacific Islands”. Then came the promised cash: some $810 million in expanded US programs including more than $130 million in new investments to support, among other things, climate resilience, buffer the states against the impact of climate change and improve food security.

The Pacific Islands have also seen a flurry of recent visits. In January this year, US Indo-Pacific military commander Admiral John Aquilino popped into Papua New Guinea to remind the good citizens of Port Moresby that the eyes of the US were gazing benignly upon them. It was his first visit to the country, and the public affairs unit of the US Indo-Pacific Command stated that it underscored “the importance of the US-Papua New Guinea relationship” and showed US resolve “toward building a more peaceful, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.”

In February, a rather obvious strategic point was made in the reopening of the US embassy in the Solomon Islands. Little interest had been shown towards the island state for some three decades (the embassy had been closed in 1993). But then came Beijing doing, at least from Washington’s perspective, the unpardonable thing of poking around and seeking influence.

Now, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare finds himself at the centre of much interest, at least till he falls out of favour in the airconditioned corridors of Washington. His policy – “friends to all, enemy to none” – has become a mantra. That much was clear in a May 2022 statement. “My government welcomes all high-level visits from our key development partners. We will always stand true to our policy of ‘Friends to All and Enemies to None’ as we look forward to continuing productive relations with all our development partners.”

For the moment, the US interim representative, Russell Corneau, was satisfied in noting that the embassy would “serve as a key platform” between Washington and the Solomon Islands. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in fairly torturous language, declared that the reopening “builds on our efforts to place more diplomatic personnel throughout the region and engage further with our Pacific neighbours, connect United States programs and resources with needs on the ground, and build people-to-people ties.” Sogavare, adopting his hard-to-get pose, absented himself from the ceremony.

This month, the Deputy Assistant to the US President and Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific National Security Council Kurt Campbell has been particularly busy doing his rounds. The Solomon Islands has been of particular interest, given its security pact with Beijing. No sooner had Sogavare had time to compose himself after two high profile visits from Japan and China, there was Campbell and his eight-member delegation.

“We realise that we have to overcome in certain areas some amounts of distrust and uncertainty about follow through,” Campbell explained in his usual middle-management speak to reporters in Wellington. “We’re seeking to gain that trust and confidence as we go forward. Much of what we are doing has been initiated by the president, but I want to underscore that it’s quite bipartisan.”

In Honiara, Campbell was forward in admitting that the US had not done “enough before” and had to be “big enough to admit that we need to do more, and we need to do better.” Doing more and doing better clearly entailed dragging out from Sogavare a promise that his country would not create a military facility “that would support power projection capabilities” for Beijing.

Earlier in the month, Qian Bo, China’s Pacific Island envoy, was also doing his bit to win support for the cause. His Vanuatu sojourn was a wooing effort directed at the Melanesian Spearhead Group, comprising Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the Kanak independence movement in New Caledonia. But as with any muscle-bound hegemon seeking to impress, the crumbs left were treated with some circumspection.

A leaked letter from Micronesia’s President David Panuelo took a more dim view of China’s offerings. In the March 9 document, the cogs and wheels of calculation were busy, taking into account the US proposal of US$50 million into Micronesia’s national trust fund and annual financial assistance of US$15 million. “All of this assistance, of course, would be on top of the greatly added layers of security and protection that come from our country distancing itself from the PRC.” Micronesian officials, he charged, had been the targets of bribes and offers of bribes from the Chinese embassy.

Not all his colleagues in the Pacific are in accord with Panuelo, though the view suggests that both Beijing and Washington are finding, in these small countries, political figures more than willing to exploit the rivalry. To that end lie riches.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

In his recently published article “Sea of many flags”, the head of the ANU National Security College Rory Medcalf makes the case for why Pacific Island states should regard the deep regional involvement of a Western coalition of powers, “quietly” led by Australia, as an effective and attractive “Pacific way to dilute China’s influence”.

Although presented as a new proposal, the increased regional engagement of this Western coalition is already well advanced, in the form of proposed new military bases and joint-use facilities, new security treaties, increased aid programmes, new embassies, as well as a new regional institution, Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP).

Medcalf’s main task is not to persuade Canberra of the merits of this approach, but rather to demonstrate to a sceptical Pacific audience that this Western coalition’s Indo-Pacific strategy is compatible with the Blue Pacific strategy of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).

• READ MORE: Other China in the Pacific reports

Medcalf argues that an Indo-Pacific strategy of containing China supports the broad concept of human security embraced by Pacific Island leaders in their 2018 Boe Declaration, which includes the key demand for climate change action.

He also argues that the strategy would support the Blue Pacific emphasis on Pacific Island sovereignty by countering Chinese attempts to dominate the region. Thus he moves beyond the argument (made for example by Sandra Tarte) that there are some meeting points between these two world views and posits their complete compatibility.

His purpose is to counter the position of Pacific insiders, like former Secretary-General of PIF Dame Meg Taylor, and Professor Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, who argue that these security narratives are antithetical.

Medcalf proposes a model of security governance dominated by a Western coalition of interests operating through institutions like the Quad, AUKUS and PBP, where Pacific Islander influence is marginal or non-existent. Australia is seen as the “hub” for Western alliance management of the Pacific, acting as a “guide and informal coordinator”, ensuring that investments are organised efficiently and “in line with what Pacific communities want”.

PBP aid projects deployed
PBP aid projects would be deployed in support of the objectives outlined in the Boe Declaration as well as PIF’s 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.

The problem here is that, at best, this security model operates on behalf of Pacific interests, but not under the control of Pacific governments or regional institutions created for that purpose.

The argument for compatibility between the Indo-Pacific and Blue Pacific strategies does not consider key aspects of the Pacific vision for the future, such as urgent climate action, where there are clear discrepancies, especially regarding limiting emissions. Asking Island leaders to curtail China’s regional role requires them to compromise their long-standing foreign policy ethos of “friends to all and enemies to none”.

Nor is it clear that Medcalf’s approach would support Island sovereignty, when the major threats seem to come from Western actors, including increased military activity in Micronesia, the undermining of regional institutions by external initiatives such as PBP, continuing colonial rule in French Polynesia and New Caledonia, and ongoing American control (and deepening militarisation) of Guam.

[Pacific Media Watch adds that this includes continuing colonial rule by Indonesia in the expanded five provinces that make up the West Papua region].

Australian military plans to allow US stationing and storage of nuclear weapons in north Australia appear to violate the terms of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, and Japan’s proposal to release into the ocean nuclear waste from the Fukushima power plant meltdown is causing considerable consternation in the region.

Medcalf’s argument that adoption of the Indo-Pacific mental map could bring together Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean islands to discuss common challenges misses the 30-year history of such collaboration within the Alliance of Small Island States.

Unhelpful characterisation of China
Another problem with this analysis is its frankly unhelpful characterisation of China’s Pacific engagement. According to Medcalf, China “has a rightful place in the Pacific, just not a right to dominate”.

However, he provides no evidence that China does in fact seek regional hegemony, and cites no examples where its behaviour in the Pacific Islands might be regarded as “bullying” or “coercive”.

The 10 island countries that recognise Beijing have signed up to participate in the much-maligned Belt and Road Initiative without any apparent coercion.

Nor does Medcalf provide Pacific examples of the debt-for-equity argument often levelled at China’s lending practices in the Global South. When Tonga had difficulty servicing Chinese loans, Beijing agreed to extend their terms. Even the claim that China seeks to establish a military base in the region, a central plank in Western narratives, remains unsubstantiated.

Recent studies by the RAND Corporation (funded by the US military) provide some useful perspective by ranking Fiji and Papua New Guinea of “medium desirability” but “low feasibility” for Chinese military initiatives. Other Pacific locations, including Solomon Islands and Kiribati, are not seen as feasible.

To describe Beijing’s engagement as “neocolonial” is to invite comparisons with the activities of the Western coalition, key members of which retain actual colonies in the region. Nor is Australia in a strong position to accuse others of manipulative behaviour.

For example, Canberra’s efforts to protect its coal industry by working to weaken PIF statements about climate change mitigation are well documented, date back to the beginning of the COP negotiations, and continue today.

Self-determination issue at heart
Ultimately Medcalf’s central argument falls because it does not consider the issue of self-determination which is at the heart of the Blue Pacific strategy. Although Medcalf calls for “a premium on self-awareness, inclusion, and genuine diplomacy”, his proposal effectively devalues Pacific agency and marginalises Pacific decision makers.

“Sea of many flags” claims to promote strategic equilibrium in the Pacific, yet it really aims to create the conditions for continuing Western hegemony. It claims to counter geopolitical competition and militarisation while shoring up and expanding Western military domination.

It claims to act in the interests of Pacific peoples, yet seems designed to moderate opposition to recent anti-China initiatives established under the auspices of the Indo-Pacific strategy and without meaningful consultation.

By allowing some role for China, albeit a limited one, Medcalf is advocating a softer form of strategic denial than that imposed by Western powers during the Cold War. But his warnings to island states about the dangers of economic engagement with Beijing seem hollow indeed, given Australia’s massive trade dependence on China.

In advocating “a Pacific kind of leadership”, the author (perhaps inadvertently) evokes the principles guiding Pacific leaders in the early days of independence. But it is worth remembering that the essence of the Pacific Way advanced by Ratu Mara and others was Pacific control and regional self-determination.

In contrast, what Rory Medcalf is advocating would subsume all of this under the control of the Western alliance, led quietly (or not so quietly) by Australia.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Edson Arantes do Nascimento passed away at the age of 82 after a brave battle with colon cancer in Brazil on 20 December 2022. Known as “O Rei”, “The Black Pearl”, and “Pelé”, he was an ambassador, businessperson, community worker to the world, cultural force, leader, soccer player, and politician.

In this article, I write about why I admired Pelé as a child.

Writing as an adult and activist, I also pay tribute to Pelé and articulate why “O Rei” remains an important teacher of decoloniality and decolonisation in contemporary Oceania.

• READ MORE: Brazilian sports legend Pele laid to rest in Santos cemetery
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• Pelé in Africa: The man, the myth, the legend

Pelé in my childhood in the 1970s
I caught brief glimpses of Pelé’s soccer genius in sports highlights on Aotearoa television news as a child in the 1970s.

I did not grasp the tactical, technical, or strategic intricacies of professional soccer when watching Pelé play for the New York Cosmos as a child. But I did see Pelé’s genius with a soccer ball on television. I remember seeing him play with creativity, joy, and imagination.

Pelé brought joy into my difficult childhood.

Like other Pacific Islanders of his generation, my father was a born-again rugby supporter who did not rate football as a sport. But even he would marvel at O Rei’s exploits on Aotearoa television when Pelé appeared.

Pacific people recognised Pelé’s genius — just as they recognised the extraordinary gifts of Muhammad Ali in the boxing ring.

Years before the formation of the English Premier League, I grew to love watching the great British players representing the mighty first division English clubs. Aotearoa television would play a weekly English first division match, and we always received televised, free- to-air coverage of FA Cup Finals in the 1970s and 1980s.

I came to love Division One English club football in the 1970s and 1980s.

An Al Jazeera tribute to Pelé.

Historically, Aotearoa has always had a strong affinity with British football. Despite loving the English game, I saw that Pelé played soccer in a radically unique way.

In later years, I would understand that Pelé played an Afro-Brazilian style of football known as “jogo bonito”, or, the beautiful game — characterised by creativity and improvisation by individual players; off the ball movement; one touch passing; samba like team rhythm and tempo, and superlative dribbling, passing, and attacking movements on the ground and in the air by the entire team.

I watched documentaries about Pelé as a child and a teen when they appeared on Aotearoa television. But I was too young to see the televised, in-colour spectacle of “jogo bonito” performed by Alberto, Gerson, Jairzinho, Pele, or Rivellino at Mexico City when Brazil beat Italy 4-1 to win the 1970 World Cup. I would only watch these mighty players in the 1970 World Cup after Sky TV played classic matches.

Pelé, Brazil, and ‘jogo bonito’ in 1982
But I did witness the “jogo bonito” performed by the 1982 Brazilian side that featured Eder, Falcao, Junior, Socrates, and Zico. Although this side did not win the 1982 World Cup, they remain the greatest sporting team I have ever witnessed — they performed art and played soccer simultaneously.

Aotearoa’s mighty All Whites played this Brazilian side in the group stages of the 1982 tournament. The team also got to meet Pelé in person when O Rei visited the Aotearoa team changing room before the match.

I was too young to understand that the 1982 side played a style of Afro-Brazilian soccer that continued the legacy of the beautiful game begun by Didi, Garrincha, Pelé, and Jairzinho long years before. Pelé was one of the innovators of this style of play in Brazil.

Engaging with Pelé as an adult
As an adult, I developed a fuller understanding of Pelé, his life, and his historical context.

1. Pelé was born only 53 years after the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888 into an Afro-Brazilian family who often struggled to put food on the table. (Pelé writes about his childhood and the hardships he endured in his 2007 autobiography.)
2. The Black Pearl’s Afro-Brazilian people occupied the lowest socio-economic positions in Brazilian society.
3. Even today, Afro-Brazilians face discrimination in employment, the justice system, and day-to-day life in Brazil. The Brazilian police still target Afro-Brazilian male youth for violence even today.
4. Opposing team’s fans made monkey noises — whether Pelé played in Brazil or around the world with his club, Santos. Despite his popularity, Pelé was a target of racism.
5. Pelé’s Brazilian government prevented him from playing soccer in Europe by making him a “national treasure”. In consequence, Pelé could not sell his labour to European clubs. Critics have stated that this would never have happened to a white Brazilian.
6. Brazilians accused Pelé of getting too close to figures in the Brazilian dictatorship of 1964-1985 — such as General Medici.
7. Pelé’s former national teammate, Paulo Cesar Lima, said in the 2021 documentary Pelé that he loved Edson, but Lima also said he felt Pelé functioned as a “submissive Black man” during the height of the dictatorship repressions in 1969. Lima felt a statement by Pelé against the dictatorship in the late 1960s would have “gone a long way”.
8. Brazilian journalist Juca Kfouri stated that Pelé did not have a guarantee that the Brazilian regime would not torture him if he did speak out.
9. In Africa, ordinary people treated Pelé as a son when O Rei playing there in the late 1960s. Pelé remains a figure of Trans-Atlantic Black unity in Africa, the US, and in other parts of the Black Diaspora.
10. Apartheid security forces prevented Pelé from leaving an airport when he visited South Africa in the 1960s. Pelé swore he would never return until South Africa was free from Apartheid. He did return in the 1990s — to spend time with Nelson Mandela.
11. Pelé was a Goodwill Ambassador for the Rio De Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992.
12. He was a Minister for Sport in Brazil.
13. He was an ambassador for the UN, UNICEF, and UNESCO during his lifetime — always seeking to forge relationships with children.
14. He endured business failures.
15. He refused to recognise a daughter born out of wedlock.
16. Pelé was a significant cultural force in Brazil — for good and for bad.
17. He was a football genius. Football journalists such as Tim Vickery have spoken of Pelé’s soccer skills — Edson’s ability with both feet; acceleration; skills in the air; passing talents; unselfishness; football intelligence, and his psychological strength.

Pelé’s passing in the media
Since his untimely passing, television news networks such as Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Television New Zealand have all honoured Pelé’s cultural, historical, political, and sporting legacy.

Similarly, print media in Aotearoa, Australia, Brazil, Britain, France, and South Africa have represented Pelé as a “cultural icon”, “hero”, “innovator”, “giant of sport”, an “artist”, a “genius”, and a “fine, humble, and warm human being”.

Print media sources in France and the US have also expressed criticism of Pelé for not doing more against the Brazilian dictatorship.

Sources in Brazil have criticised Pelé for not taking more of a public stand against racism in Brazil and the world.

Pelé’s aesthetics
Brazilian star Neymar wrote a moving tribute for O Rei after the great man died. In one part of his tribute, Neymar stated that Pelé transformed soccer into art. I agree with Neymar’s insight.

If one watches Pelé on film today, one sees a kinetic aesthetics of balance, gesture, grace, intelligence, power, speed, rhythm, and style — whether Pelé was in the air, in space, or in a crowd of players. One observes Pelé performing an aesthetics of creativity, joy, and improvisation. I have no doubt Pelé’s parents, coaches, friends, and teammates in Brazil all nurtured his aesthetics.

Simultaneously, I am in no doubt that Pelé’s aesthetic genius was a gift given him by his ancestors and by his historical experience of being Afro-Brazilian.

I am not Afro-Brazilian and do not pretend to understand the language of decoloniality and decolonisation Pelé performed in living motion on a soccer field. But I am convinced Pelé performed an aesthetics of Afro-Brazilian being, decolonisation, decoloniality, living, and expressing in his every movement on the soccer field.

Pelé performed the history of his ancestors on the soccer stage.

Pelé’s lessons for Oceania
In conclusion, Pelé taught me five things as a Pacific person in Aotearoa.

1. struggle to embrace joy and freedom in your life,
2. always extend solidarity to those engaged in the Black struggle,
3. remember the struggle for justice in Aotearoa, the Moana, Palestine, or West Papua are one with the struggle Black people face around the world,
4. always look for the talents and potential in your own Moana peoples, and
5. never be ashamed of your Oceanian ancestors, your genealogy, or your history.

Despite his handful of personal failings, Pelé remains one of my great teachers in decolonial Oceania.

The author, Tony Fala, acknowledges the lives of Brazilian football greats Garrincha, Pelé, and Socrates as the inspiration for this article. He also pays tribute to Pacific peoples across Oceania who believe in soccer as a sport that embraces emancipation, participation, struggle, and unity.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

On the 61st anniversary of the first raising of West Papua’s symbol of independence — 1 December 1961 — the Morning Star flag:

We, the Indigenous caucus of the movement for self-determination, decolonisation, nuclear justice, and demilitarisation of the Pacific, call for coordinated action for key campaigns that impact the human rights, sovereignty, wellbeing and prosperity of Pacific peoples across our region.

As guardians of our Wansolwara (Tok Pisin term meaning “One Salt Water,” or “One Ocean, One People”), we are united in seeking the protection, genuine security and vitality for the spiritual, cultural and economic base for our lives, and we will defend it at all costs. We affirm the kōrero of the late Father Walter Lini, “No one is free, until everyone is free!”

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Activists, academics fight plans to put nuclear waste in Pacific Ocean

We thank the mana whenua of Ōtepoti, Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, the National Centre for Peace and Conflict and Kā Rakahau o Te Ao Tūroa Centre for Sustainability at the University of Otago for their hospitality in welcoming us as their Pacific whānau to their unceded and sovereign lands of Aotearoa.

We acknowledge the genealogy of resistance we share with community activists who laid the mat in our shared struggles in the 1970s and 1980s. Our gathering comes 40 years after the first Te Hui Oranga o Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, hosted by the Pacific Peoples Anti Nuclear Action Committee (PPANAC) at Tātai Hono in Tamaki Makaurau.

Self-determination and decolonisation
We remain steadfast in our continuing solidarity with our sisters and brothers in West Papua, who are surviving from and resisting against the Indonesian genocidal regime, injustice and oppression. We bear witness for millions of West Papuans murdered by this brutal occupation. We will not be silent until the right to self-determination of West Papua is fully achieved.

We urge our Forum leaders to follow through with Indonesia to finalise the visit from the UN Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua, as agreed in the Leaders Communiqué 2019 resolution.

We are united in reaffirming the inalienable right of all Indigenous peoples to self-determination and demand the sovereignty of West Papua, Kanaky, Mā’ohi Nui, Bougainville, Hawai’i, Guåhan, the Northern Mariana Islands, Rapa Nui, Aotearoa, and First Nations of the lands now called Australia.

Of priority, we call on the French government to implement the United Nations self-governing protocols in Mā’ohi Nui and Kanaky. We urge France to comply with the resolution set forth on May 17th, 2013 which declared French Polynesia to be a non-self-governing territory, and the successive resolutions from 2013 to 2022. The “empty seat policy” that the administering power has been practising since 2013 and attempts to remove Mā’ohi Nui from the list of countries to be decolonised have to stop. We call on France to immediately resume its participation in the work of the C-24 and the 4th Commission of the United Nations.

Nuclear justice
We grieve for the survivors and victims who lost their lives to the nuclear violence caused by over 315 nuclear weapons detonated in Marshall Islands, Australia, Kiribati, Johnston Atoll and Mā’ohi Nui by the United States, United Kingdom/Australia and France. The legacy and ongoing nuclear violence in our region is unfinished business and calls for recognition, reconciliation and reparations to be made by nuclear colonisers are long overdue.

We call for the United States, United Kingdom/Australia and France to deliver fair and just
compensation to Indigenous civilians, workers and servicemen for the health and environmental harms, including intergenerational trauma caused by nuclear testing programs (and subsequent illegal medical experiments in the Marshall Islands). The compensation schemes currently in place in all states constitute a grave political failure of these aforementioned nuclear testing states and serve to deceive the world that they are recognising their responsibility to address the nuclear legacy. We call for the United States, United Kingdom/Australia, and France to establish or otherwise significantly improve
accessible healthcare systems and develop and fund cancer facilities within the Marshall Islands, Kiribati/Australia and Mā’ohi Nui respectively, where alarming rates of cancers, birth defects and other related diseases continue to claim lives and cause socio-economic distress to those affected. The descendants of the thousands of dead and the thousands of sick are still waiting for real justice to be put in place with the supervision of the international community.

We demand that the French government take full responsibility for the racist genocidal health effects of nuclear testing on generations of Mā’ohi and provide full transparency, rapid assessment and urgent action for nuclear contamination risks. While the President of France boasts on the international stage of his major environmental and ecological transition projects, in the territory of Mā’ohi Nui, the French government’s instructions are to definitively “turn the page of nuclear history.” This is a white-washing and colonial gas-lighting attitude towards the citizens and now the mokopuna of Mā’ohi Nui. It is
imperative for France to produce the long-awaited report on the environmental, economic and sanitary consequences of its 193 nuclear tests conducted between 1966 and 1996.

We proclaim our commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons and call all states of the Pacific region who have not done so to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), namely Australia, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. We urge Pacific nations along with the world’s governments to contribute to the international trust fund for victims of nuclear weapons implemented by the TPNW. We urge Aotearoa/New Zealand and other states who have ratified the TPNW to follow through on their commitment to nuclear survivors, and to create a world free from the threat and harm of nuclear weapons through the universalisation of the TPNW. There can be no peace without justice.

We oppose the despicable proposal of Japan and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to dump 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive wastewater next year in 2023, and support in solidarity with the citizens of Japan, East Asian states and Micronesian states who sit on the frontlines of this crisis. This is an act of trans-boundary harm upon the Pacific. We call on the New Zealand government and others to stay true to its commitment to a Nuclear Free Pacific and bring a case under the international tribunal for the Law of the Sea against the proposed radioactive release from TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi planned from 2023 to 2053.

Demilitarisation
We condemn the geopolitical order forced upon our nations by imperial powers, who claim to be our friends, yet treat our islands as collateral damage and use financial blackmail to bully us into submission. We demand that the United States remove and remediate all military bases, infrastructure, debris and nuclear and chemical waste from the Pacific. Of priority is the US-owned nuclear waste storage site of Runit Dome on Enewetak Atoll which threatens nuclear contamination of the ocean and marine-life, on which our lives depend. Furthermore, we call for all remaining American UXOs (unexploded ordnances) from World War II in the Solomon Islands, which cause the preventable deaths of more than 20 people every year to be removed immediately!

We support in solidarity with Kānaka Maoli and demand the immediate end to the biennial RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) exercises hosted in Honolulu, Hawai’i. We urge all the present participating militaries of RIMPAC to withdraw their participation in the desecration and plunder of Indigenous lands and seas. We support in solidarity with the Marianas and demand an end to munitions testing in the Northern Marianas and the development of new military bases. We rebuke the AUKUS trilateral military pact and the militarisation of unceded Aboriginal lands of the northern arc of Australia and are outraged at Australia’s plans to permit further military bases, six nuclear-capable B52s and eight nuclear-powered submarines to use our Pacific Ocean as a military playground and nuclear highway.

We call on all those committed to ending militarism in the Pacific to gather and organise in Hawai’i between 6-16 June 2024, during the Festival of the Pacific and bring these issues to the forefront to renew our regional solidarity and form a new coalition to build power to oppose all forms of military exercises (RIMPAC also returns in July -August 2024) and instead promote the genuine security of clean water, safe housing, healthcare and generative economies, rather than those of extraction and perpetual readiness for war.

We view colonial powers and their militaries to be the biggest contributors to the climate crisis, the continued extractive mining of our lands and seabeds and the exploitation of our resources. These exacerbate and are exacerbated by unjust structures of colonialism, militarism and geopolitical abuse. This environmental destruction shifts the costs to Pacific and Indigenous communities who are responsible for less than 1 percent of global climate emissions.

As Pacific peoples deeply familiar with the destruction of nuclear imperialism, we strongly disapprove of the new propaganda of nuclear industry lobbyists, attempting to sell nuclear power as the best solution for climate change. Similarly, we oppose the Deep Sea Mining (DSM) industry lobbyists that promote DSM as necessary for green technologies. We call for a Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty to be implemented by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and for safe and equitable transition to better energy solutions. We reject any military solution for the climate crisis!

We recognise the urgent need for a regional coordinator to be instituted to strategise collective grassroots movements for self-determination, decolonisation, nuclear justice and demilitarisation.

Our existence is our resistance.

We, the guardians of our Wansolwara, are determined to carry on the legacy and vision for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific.

• More information

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Governor Lukas Enembe of Indonesia’s Melanesian province of Papua has expressed support for a call from the Papuan Student Association Oceania (PSAO) for a New Zealand-Papuan scholarship.

The statement has been made after a relentless campaign by the Papuan advocacy group, which is made up of the PSAO and other NGOs in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The group has been advocating in response to the loss of Papuan students’ scholarships since January.

• READ MORE: Papuan advocacy group calls for New Zealand scholarship to aid students
• Other Papuan student reports

Governor Enembe expressed his appreciation to the New Zealand government for the opportunity given to Papuan students to pursue their education at New Zealand education providers after Indonesian scholarships were curtailed for about 40 students.

He also thanked the guardian parents in New Zealand who generously hosted the students in their homes, churches, and communities.

The Papuan students are sent to study in New Zealand at different levels — from high school to tertiary level studies. The students are spread across the country.

The warm message expressed by Governor Enembe through his spokesperson Rifai Darus is a follow-up to a recent official visit made by the New Zealand Embassy in Jakarta to the Papuan provincial government in Jakarta.

The delegation was led by the embassy’s Second Secretary (political affairs) Patrick Fitzgibbon.

Pemerintah Selandia Baru berencana meningkatkan pemberian beasiswa bagi Putra-Putri Papua yang menjalani studi di negara penghasil kiwi tersebut. https://t.co/yBng7pALhH

— Pemerintah Provinsi Papua (@PemprovPapua) August 21, 2022

NZ, Papuan cooperation
Antara news agency reports that the visit was to discuss cooperation between New Zealand and the Papuan government, including education.

They also talked about potential cooperation in the future.

The governor, through spokesperson Darus, said he had expressed his gratitude to the New Zealand government.

“Governor Enembe positively welcomes an increase in the New Zealand Government Scholarship,” said Darus.

Governor Enembe hopes that the offer from the New Zealand government would help about two dozen existing students who are currently still studying in New Zealand.

The governor said that the New Zealand scholarship would also help the Papuan government in addressing the funding cut issue.

“With the intention and plan of the New Zealand government to also assist in the granting of scholarships to Papuan students, it becomes good news for Papuan students. Now they can continue their education and pursue their dreams,” Enembe said through spokersperson Darus.

Meeting the ambassador
Darus said Governor Lukas was due to meet the New Zealand Ambassador to Indonesia in Jakarta soon. The meeting would discuss education and scholarships for Papuan students in New Zealand.

Meanwhile, Governor Enembe offered a message to all Papuan students to focus on their studies.

He also said he was proud of the students who were studying hard, and studying in a foreign country was not easy.

“The governor also expressed his pride in all Papuan students scattered in many countries, and hopes that later on all the knowledge and skills obtained can be applied to realising the vision of Papua Rising, independent and prosperous with justice,” said Darus.

In May, out of the affected students whose scholarships had been terminated, the Human Resource Department of Papua Province (HRD) said there were 59 students currently studying in New Zealand, ranging from vocational studies to bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees.

The 59 students are still sponsored by the Papuan provincial government.

On 17 December 2021, the Papuan HRD issued a termination letter of scholarship for 40 students in Aotearoa New Zealand. The order to pack up and return home was given without any initial notification.

The government claimed that this action was taken due to poor academic performance.

Papuan advocacy group calls for New Zealand scholarship to aid students

Underlying reason
However, the PSAO has demonstrated that the claim had no foundation. A source from the HRD of Papua province said the underling reason for the termination of the scholarship was the revocation by the central Jakarta government of the governor’s authority to manage the education funds.

Asia Pacific Report says that out of 40 affected students, 12 students had returned to Indonesia and Papua for various reasons. The remaining 28 students are still in New Zealand and have been receiving support from New Zealanders and groups across the country.

Stuff reports that 8 of 28 affected students are now working for V-Pro Construction in Manawatū. The fate of the remaining affected students has been taken up by the students’ association.

The PSAO, the Oceania branch of the International Alliance of Papuan Students Associations Overseas, expressed thanks to every university, NGO, church and stakeholders who have extended support.

The PSAO also thanked the New Zealand government, particularly Immigration New Zealand, for granting visas to affected students.

Laurens Ikinia is communications spokesperson of the Papuan Students Association Oceania (PSAO).

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A Papuan student advocacy group has called for the establishment of a future Aotearoa New Zealand scholarship for West Papuans to replace a controversial Indonesian-funded programme that left many students stranded this year with incomplete studies.

The call has been made by the Papuan Students Association Oceania (PSAO) as a cohort of students celebrated the graduation of two commercial pilots this month.

They also marked the success of fundraising and pastoral support for students who remained in New Zealand to complete their studies in spite of the hardships created by a sudden loss of Papuan provincial scholarships at the end of last year.

• READ MORE: West Papuan students secure future in New Zealand with new jobs
• Other Papuan student scholarship crisis reports

Community, faith-based, social justice and student groups have raised more than $70,000 in relief programmes aimed at assisting with accommodation, student fees and living costs.

Speaking on behalf of PSAO, student advocate Laurens ikinia, a postgraduate communications student at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), praised the help of many New Zealand groups which have in recent months filled the gap left by the “unjust cancellation” of Papuan provincial scholarships for about 40 students.

He said in a message to support groups and political parties which have assisted that the International Alliance of Papuan Student Associations Overseas (IAPSAO) and the parents and whanau of the affected students had expressed “thank you for your kind support and solidarity, generous donation, faithful prayers and moral support during our difficult times.”

Ikinia said that out of the 41 affected students, 12 had been forced to return to West Papua for several reasons.

Generous support
“The remaining 28 students who are currently studying at different tertiary institutions and one student at a high school have benefited from [New Zealanders’] generous support. All of them have gratefully expressed their gratitude and aroha,” he said.

“We sincerely thank you for being part of our life’s journey through the unprecedented struggle that we have faced. We will remember and cherish them for our lifetime.”

The message was conveyed to New Zealand while students were marking the success of Papuans Stevi Yikwa and Logo Albert gaining their commercial pilot’s certificates at the Ardmore Flying School near Auckland.

Eight students who have completed their carpentry course at Palmerston North polytech UCOL have also been granted work visas through Pro-Construction in Manawatū.

Other students are at AUT, IPU New Zealand, Massey University, Otago University, Victoria University of Wellington and Waikato University.

As well as support from Labour and Green MPs, the students have been helped with fundraising efforts by the All Saints Anglican Food Bank, Auckland Central Parish of the Methodist Church, Church Unlimited, Dominican Sisters, Fielding Activate Church, Grace City Church (Palmerston North), Indonesian Catholic Community (Auckland), Indonesian Christian Community (Pamerston North), Onehunga Food Bank, Pax Christi Aotearoa, PNG community in Palmerston North, Rotuman Community Centre and Whānau Hub, Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, West Papua Action, West Papua Movement Aotearoa and many others.

The Papuans have also been boosted by support from AUT Melanesian Wantoks,  New Zealand International Students Association (NZISA), New Zealand Union of Students Association (NZUSA) and Taura Pasifika

Scholarships next step
However, Ikinia said the next challenge was to try to establish future scholarships for indigenous Papuans in New Zealand similar to those offered for Timorese-Leste and Pacific Islands students.

The Papua provincial government’s Foreign Scholarship programme introduced by Governor Lukas Enembe in recent years will wind up by the end of 2022.

Ikinia said one of the key factors in the ending of the scholarship was the loss of the governor’s independent authority over education funds under Indonesia’s controversial Special Autonomy Law (OTSUS) volume ll in the Melanesian provinces.

Also Governor Enembe’s second term is due to end by the end of 2023.

Commentators are warning that there will be “political and bureaucratic instability” in Papua due to the unpopular establishment of three new provinces that is being widely resisted by Papuan civil society.

Papuan students who are studying in New Zealand who are not on the scholarship termination list will still face uncertainty for the future.

The students are appealing to MPs and political party leaders, NGOs, churches, community groups, iwi, unions and other stakeholders to join their appeal for annual indigenous Papuan student scholarships.

• More information: Laurens Ikinia (PSAO student advocate)

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A new Aotearoa New Zealand book focusing on activists and their causes against militarism and for social struggles and climate justice across the Asia-Pacific is being launched in Wellington today.

Peace Action: Struggles for a decolonised and demilitarised Oceania and East Asia, edited by Wellington-based activist Valerie Morse, is the first book published by Left of the Equator Press.

“This book highlights the role of militarism as an ongoing colonial force,” says Morse.

“It is a collection of stories about activists, their organising and their causes, and the interconnections between social struggles separated by the vast expanse of Te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa.”

• READ MORE: Other reports on Pacific militarism

It includes chapters on the Doctrine of Discovery (Tina Ngata), on protecting Ihumātao (Pania Newton, Qiane Matata-Sipu mā), on anti-militarist organising in South Korea, on campaigning against US military training in Hawai’i and Japan, on French colonialism in Mā’ohi Nui and Kanaky, about Korean peace movements in Aotearoa and Australia, about Indonesia’s occupation of West Papua, on feminist resistance to war in so-called Australia, on NZ’s history of Chinese-Māori solidarity, and on peace gardening at Parihaka.

“The increasing military build up across the Pacific has come into sharp focus this year,” said Morse.

“Having any influence over issues of war and international affairs can feel impossible, but grassroots movements for decolonisation and peace are the heart of countering this spiralling militarism and addressing the region’s most pressing issues, including climate justice.”

She says she was inspired to do the book from learning about the kinds of organising across the Pacific rim.

“I wanted to share that learning in order to inspire and inform others.”

The book launch was an “awesome way to celebrate solidarity and connection with each other” and to build a collective knowledge for change.

It is being hosted at Trades Hall on Vivian Street in Wellington at 5.30pm today.

Trade Unions based at the hall were deeply involved in the Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement.

More information: leftequator@gmail.com

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

The post White Like Me, in the Oceania State appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Steven F. Forleo.

International students in New Zealand are appealing to the Indonesian government in response to funding being pulled for the autonomous Melanesian provinces to send students abroad.

Students from West Papua study all over the world — but with recent funding policy changes to autonomous West Papuan scholarship funds by the Indonesian government, 125 may soon be packing their bags for home.

Following the announced removal of the 10 percent of education funds previously allocated to provincial governments in Indonesian Melanesia, 42 students in New Zealand and 84 students in the United States have been ordered home — with things still up in the air for others studying in Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan and Russia.

• READ MORE: Papuan students form global umbrella body, reaffirm campaign for education rights
• Papuan students succeed in NZ – ‘the golden generation from Papua’
• Other reports on the Papuan education controversy

In a public statement, the International Alliance of Papuan Student Associations Overseas (IAPSAO) slammed the move, claiming it fails to honour the human right to education and incapacitates the development of indigenous human resources for the conflicted region of Indonesia.

“We view that the termination and diversion of 10 percent of the education fund managed by the Papua provincial government is an assassination of human resource investment for the future of Papua through education,” said student association Oceania chapter President Yan Piterson Wenda.

Now the association is calling for a meeting with Indonesian President Joko Widodo to discuss the change.

Laurens Ikinia, a postgraduate communications student at Auckland University of Technology, is originally from the central highlands of Papua province — an area gripped by conflict between the West Papua Liberation Army and the security forces of the central Indonesian government.

Thousands displaced
The armed conflict, exacerbated by increased activity by Indonesia’s military last year, has displaced tens of thousands of people.

The Melanesian provinces of Indonesia, Papua and West Papua, have long had deep grievances with Indonesian rule — grievances stemming not just from claims of human rights abuses and military control, but also frustrations around self-determination.

Papua Governor Lukas Enembe has been credited with pushing forward the scholarship funds for students in Papua and West Papua to go abroad and study, partly in an attempt to invest in the human capital of the disputed regions.

So after studying in New Zealand for six years under this scholarship system, Ikinia was shocked to see his name on a list.

The education fund will no longer support Ikinia — putting his progress towards a Masters of Communication in doubt, along with the academic futures of 125 others.

And to add insult to injury, the government is claiming that the students on the list are being cut off due to poor progress — an assertion Ikinia refutes.

“The reason the government is using to repatriate us is baseless,” he said. “Most of the students on the list are in the second and third years of their respective programmes.”

No proof of a lack of performance
A further statement by the student association said it found no proof of a lack of performance after investigating each student mentioned.

Ikinia said all of the other Papuan students shared his dismay, and wondered what their forced return means for the autonomy of their homeland.

“If we are to return it means that the special autonomy means nothing to us,” he said.

“The central government of Indonesia just transfers funds to the provincial government without giving the authority to manage the budget.”

This news came after chief executive of Education New Zealand Grant McPherson had issued a statement doubling down on the importance of international students to New Zealand, after filing a submission to the Productivity Commission to take this into account when changing immigration policy settings.

“International students coming to New Zealand support the achievement of the government’s broader goals and objectives, as well as contributing to New Zealand’s economic development,” McPherson said.

The submission also outlined benefits international students deliver for New Zealand, such as regional development, research output and helping relationships with other countries.

A human rights issue for students
But at 55 times the size of New Zealand, Indonesia will likely not be considering this as they cut the lifeline to these students. And for the students themselves, it could go so far as to be an issue of human rights.

The association’s first statement called out the move as overstepping on the students’ right to education, claiming international law accepted by the Indonesian government legally obligates it to respect, protect and promote the right to education.

The association questioned calling these students back based on a lack of academic progress, and wondered what motive lies behind the use of incorrect data.

Ikinia certainly does not seem to fit the category of a student who is not making progress.

Since his arrival in New Zealand he has completed an English language certification, graduated with a Bachelor’s in Contemporary International Studies and is close to completing his Master’s at AUT.

Now it seems graduation may be ripped away from him due to the seemingly arbitrary workings of the bureaucratic machine in Jakarta.

Matthew Scott is a Newsroom journalist. This article was first published by Newsroom and is republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

One heard little discussion, at least among the talking heads on cable news, of what volcanic ashfall does to a vulnerable ecosystem involving fresh water wells, fishponds, and crops such as coconuts. Coconut palms like volcanic soil, of lava and lava ash, beneath them; they do not, however, like the ash raining down on top of them, defoliating them, breaking their branches. This is especially important as Tonga’s main exports have long been copra and coconut oil. Ash is not good either for the vanilla plants, either, which produce their (sometimes) lucrative beans for the world marketplace.

The only undersea fiberoptic communications cable connecting Tonga to the world was cut by the eruption and will takes weeks to repair. The international airport had to be cleared by hand of ash. Nuku’alofa, on the main island of Tongatapu, was flooded by the tsunami accompanying the blast. We know about this because it is the capital, with 25,000 people, a few of whom were able to maintain outside contact. What of Tonga’s seventh largest town, Pangai (pop. 2000), in the Ha’apai group?

The kingdom of Tonga consists of about 170 islands and atolls, 36 inhabited. It covers an oceanic expanse of over 400,000 square miles. The Ha’apai group is just one cluster of 36 islands, 17 inhabited. The islands are far-flung; Pangai, on the island of Hunga Ha’apai, is 100 miles north of Tongatapu. We may not know the death toll for weeks.

Hunga-Tonga was itself born in 2014 when an undersea volcano became a new island. So people in Pangai are perhaps used to this. But how does this affect the kingdom’s future? Let us look at Tonga as a kind of prism through which to view the general state of the Pacific if not the whole world.

A Kingdom Never Colonized

One should observe first of all that Tonga is one of the few kingdoms left on the planet. Tonga has preserved a monarchical line since the adoption of the kingly title, in 1845, by a high chief whose father had been the reigning chief over Ha’apai and its many isles. Taufa’ahau (George) Tupou I, born in 1797, ruled from 1845 to his death in 1893. Everywhere else in the Pacific chiefs signed over sovereignty, or had it wrenched from them by the British, French, Germans and Americans. But the Tongan king played off the western powers against one another, rather like the Siamese kings had done, and was thus able to stave of colonization. (His successor Tupou II in 1900 signed a treaty with Britain accepting Tonga’s status as a “protectorate” and allowing London to handle the kingdom’s foreign affairs. But this was not, Tongans insist, full colonization.)

One should note how unusual it is for a non-western country never to have fallen under western colonization, or semi-colonization (as in China); I can think only of Ethiopia (except for the “Italian Ethiopia” period, 1936-1941), Persia, Siam, Japan and Tonga. And as a monarchy, Tonga is unique in the Pacific. The British terminated the Kingdom of Fiji in 1874. The French ended the line of Pomare kings in Tahiti in 1880. Another seven monarchies were abolished in what is now French Polynesia between 1881 and 1901: Mangareva (1881), Rapa Iti (1881), Raitea (1888), Bora Bora (1895), Huahine (1895), Rurutu (1900), and Taiohae (Nuku Hiva) (1901). U.S. Marines unceremoniously toppled Hawai’i’s Queen Lili’uokalani in 1893.

Samoa was divided between Germany and the U.S. before its chiefs had established a unified monarchy. In 1900 chiefs on Rarotonga ceded the Cook Islands (named after the explorer) to Great Britain. One could argue that Tonga was exceedingly lucky to be the only island nation in the Pacific to retain its sovereignty, if not its royal line. But that line is, of course, as arbitrarily rooted as any, anywhere. In this case, a chiefly family on Hapa’ai happened to gain hegemony over rivals in the early 1800s.

But (as in Britain, among some people), the Tongan monarchy is widely, strongly associated with native “tradition” and nationalism. One finds deference to chiefs (matai) in Samoa described as merely part of “the Samoan way” (fa’asamoa) In Tonga, the respect accorded to chiefs carries over into the reverence for the monarchy as national symbol. This is part of anga fakatonga (“the Tongan Way”), part of instilled national identity. The firm alignment between church and state encourages it, as it does social conservatism in general. One can ask, though, whether the reverence for the king (as the national symbol) discourages critical thinking about the complicity of the royals themselves in the process of constructing an economy so vulnerable and distorted by the underlying power relationships.

The Modern Monarchy

The present king, ʻAhoʻeitu ʻUnuakiʻotonga Tukuʻaho, Tupou VI, a Cambridge-educated brother of Tupou V, took the throne on the latter’s death in 2015 having earlier served as prime minister. The former reign (2006-2015) had been eventful: in 2006 months after the new king’s ascension, the capital of Nuku’alofa was partly destroyed by rioting, largely directed against shopowners in the Chinese community. It was followed by a generous offer of reconstruction aid from Beijing, which brought in legions of Chinese construction workers. Meanwhile the future King Tupou VI resigned as prime minister in the face of a budding pro-democracy movement.

In 2010 Tupou V presided over the first Tongan parliament as the national press hailed “the end of centuries of feudalism.” Tupou VI inherited this parliamentary democracy, just as a prime minister of “non-noble” status assumed his post. Akalisi Pohina, as leader of the “pro-democracy” camp, invited the king’s ire, such that in 2016 he dissolved parliament for the first time. But Pohina rebounded and the prime minister (an unrelated Pohina) is still a commoner.

The Legislative Assembly of Tonga, which dates back to 1875, has always reserved a disproportionate number of seats for members elected by the 33 hereditary nobles in the kingdom. It was once half and half, now it is 8 out of 25 seats in the legislature. These nobles head families of the purist sort, who avoid interbreeding with commoners to sustain their mana, which in the traditional scheme (somehow surviving Christian indoctrination) is ultimately derivative from the gods. No new blood can join the nobility and there is no way for a commoner to join this class, connected by kinship to the king.

All of Tongan society has been impacted by Methodist missions since the mid-nineteenth century. (Mormons and Catholics came later.) Christian morality with all its terrors was imposed here as in Samoa, Tahiti, the Cook Islands and Hawai’i. Thus, for example, despite the indigenous fakaleiti tradition (a variation of which appears throughout Polynesia), homosexuality is illegal and punishable by 10 years in prison. A conservative social platform is put forward by the churches with the nobles, as has been the case for a century and a half. By law all the land in Tonga ultimately belongs to the king, so he is more than a figurehead monarch.

The Role of China

In 1998 Tonga recognized the People’s Republic of China. Meanwhile Chinese settlers, many of them from Hong Kong and Taiwan, arrived in unprecedented numbers. Local merchants complained of the competition; in 2000 the noble and future prime minister, Lord Tu’ivakano, banned all Chinese stores from the district of Nukunuku on Tongatapu. After about a hundred assaults on Chinese in Nuku’alofa, the government declined to renew the work permits for over 600 Chinese storekeepers to curb “widespread anger.” Tensions peaked with the riots in 2006 and mass flight, for a time, of the Chinese community.

But as Tongan officials condemned the violence as “racist,” berating the Tongans involved. Beijing responded to the (partly) anti-Chinese uprising with a loan of $118 million at 2% interest, mostly to be used for construction, and other aid. In 2008, the PRC supplied the kingdom with about $400,000 in military supplies. Meantime the king reiterated Tonga’s “One China” policy and cooperated with Beijing in expelling a couple Falung Gong missionaries from the islands. In 2013, the Tongan national airline was gifted a 60-seat Xian MA-60 airliner from China. About 100 Tongans are studying in Chinese universities, and Beijing paid the expenses of Tongan athletes training for the 2020 Olympics in China.

By 2023 Tonga will be obliged to commit about 15% of its revenue to the Export-Import Bank of China. Tonga has asked Beijing for a restructuring of the debt, which will no doubt be negotiated, and no doubt involve more dependency. Tonga could certainly do worse in its bill-collectors, you’ll say; PRC foreign policy rests on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. Surely the China that built the Tanzam Railroad in the 1970s, providing an interest-free 30-year loan of $400 million to cover the project, is more interested in internationalism and the cause of resistance to imperialism? Let us not count on it.

Each new disaster requires more assistance. In 2018 Cyclone Gita, the most intense cyclone on record, hit Nuku’alofa destroying around 100 homes. It leveled the century old Parliament building (since rebuilt by Chinese). On the island of Eua the winds destroyed all the crops, including the vital vanilla crop. While the country recovered, in January 2021, Cyclone Harold flooded Nuku’alofa. The IMF Executive Board (headed by a Chinese) approved a $10 million disbursement to Tonga to help it meet its urgent balance of payments and fiscal needs. USAID provided over a million dollars for reconstruction and COVID-19 measures.

China provides 10% of Tonga’s imports (the same figure as the U.S.), and receives under 5% of its exports. But I suspect there is much growth potential in the Chinese vanilla market, and that some political decisions by Beijing increase that latter figure. Vanilla planters in Tahiti and New Caledonia once imported Chinese indentured workers to grow vanilla; now perhaps the plantation owners and cargo shippers will be Chinese colonizing Polynesians. Or at least Beijing knows it could offer to slice off half that debt for control over the vanilla market.

Beijing could also increase Tongan dependency by making an offer the king can’t refuse. In New Guinea, the PRC is developing the Daru fishery, industrial zone and tourist resort at a cost of $40 billion. Or it could offer the traditional Pacific colonial deal: give us a harbor, like Pearl Harbor, or Pago-Pago, or Pape’ete, and we’ll do you some favors. In 2017 China acquired a 99-year lease on Sri Lanka’s Magampura port at Hambantota for $1.1 billion. This considerably reduced Colombo’s foreign debt and made a certain kind of sense in this imperialist world. Tonga has several ports aside from the main one at Nuku’alofa. Pangai is on Hunga Ha’apai, no doubt absolutely in need of reconstruction right now. Could probably be done free, with improvements, for $1.1 billion, on the sole condition it be managed by Chinese for a century.

Pa’angas and Dependency

The undersea fiber-optical cable linking Tonga to Fiji (and thence the world), financed by the World Bank Group and Asian Development Bank, operative since 2013, was broken by the Ha’apai Hunga eruption. Service has not been restored and may take weeks. Who will pay for this?

Tonga is dependent now on aid and remittances from Tongans living abroad (mainly in New Zealand). But it was not always so. The Tongans were fiercely independent when the 16-year-old English cabin boy, William Mariner, was captured by retainers of the high chief of Ha’apai, Finau, on the island of Lifuka, in 1805. Finau took a liking to the boy, having slaughtered his shipmates, and took him under wing. Spending five years in the kingdom, Mariner later published An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands (1818), a very useful account. (We know it was read by Karl Marx because he references it in his Ethnological Notebooks, finding of particular interest the fact that inheritance and noble descent traced through the female line in Tonga.)

In his book, Mariner notes the Tongans’ thorough indifference to money. He records that while Finau’s men had captured 12,000 silver coins from the ship on which he’d served, they were clueless about their value. They thought they were gaming pieces of some sort (which is actually quite true, and their insight quite prescient). They resembled the round reddish-brown pa’angas bean, used in the disc-throwing game, lafo, (like the ulu-maika game in Hawai’i). So the Tongans did the practical thing and used the looted coins in the lafo game, in lieu of the traditional pieces made from the bean. Hence the word for the modern Tongan currency is pa’anga. (Do others see the humor in this?)

Mariner quotes Finau (“King Finow”) as follows to illustrate the Tongans’ concept of money:

If money were made of iron and could be converted into knives, axes and chisels there would be some sense in placing a value on it; but as it is, I see none. If a man has more yams than he wants, let him exchange some of them away for pork. Certainly money is much handier and more convenient but then, as it will not spoil by being kept, people will store it up instead of sharing it out as a chief ought to do, and thus become selfish… I understand now very well what it is that makes the papalangi [white men] so selfish – it is this money!

This King Finow was Fīnau Fangupō (ʻUlukālala II).  His power never extended to Tongatapu; he was one of three rulers in the Tongan islands by tradition. But his son was to bring all the islands under his control by 1820. He ceded Vavau island (far to the north) to his son-in-law, a powerful chief in his own right who soon established a new line. This was George Tupou I, often seen as the “first king of modern Samoa” and direct ancestor of the current king. At some point the royals, like the papalangi, became selfish about money.

Missionaries and Mammon

A key figure here was the British missionary Shirley Baker, who worked as a Methodist clergyman in Tonga from 1860 to 1878, firmly grounding the faith before quitting, mid-career, following an investigation of charges of indecency. He operated a sugar plantation. He ingratiated himself to King George Tupou I and helped guide the nation, being awarded the title of prime minister (a post he held from 1881 to 1890). He helped design the legal system and government institutions. He developed a close relationship with the German Godeffroy firm, which came to dominate copra production in the islands; indeed he contracted to supply the firm with coconuts contributed by believers as religious offerings to the church. He brokered the kingdom’s relations with Germany, resulting in German recognition of Tongan independence in return for a coaling base on Vavau in 1876.

(Perspective: eleven years later the Hawaiian king granted “the Government of the US the exclusive right to enter the harbor of Pearl River, in the Island of Oahu, and to establish and maintain there a coaling and repair station for the use of vessels of the US and to that end the US may improve the entrance to said harbor and do all things useful to the purpose aforesaid.” Marines from Pearl Harbor as you know overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.)

Baker stoked the king’s lust for pa’angas. He had developed a much different view of money from that of Finau seven decades earlier. He wanted traders to frequent the port of Nuku’alofa, from 1845 the national capital, and was pleased to supply them with land to raise cash crops for the world market. German settlers came to dominate life in Vava’u, around Neiafu Harbour.

Tonga: an Ancient Empire

Tupou I was not, in this respect, particularly “modern.” Past Tongan rulers were keenly interested in the outside world accessible to them, possessing, as they did, the world’s most advanced maritime tools for centuries. A Tongan vessel could carry 50 people quite easily to Fiji, Samoa, even Tahiti, for trade or other purposes. Thus Tonga, despite its size, and in contrast to all other Polynesian island chiefdoms and kingdoms, was for centuries the center of a tribute-empire encompassing the Samoan islands, Niue and Fiji, reaching its peak during the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries but still evident to Capt. Cook in 1778.

The explorer witnessed a tribute (inisi) ceremony involving tribute delegations of “darker skinned” people (a likely reference to Melanesians incusing Fijians) paying tribute to the Tongan king. The presence of basalt adzes and building stones traceable to far flung islands indicates there was much trade (if no money, banks, capitalists or national debt) in precolonial Pasifika. Tonga was by no means deficient before Baker’s time, such that the missionaries, planters and traders were needed to improve the environment, or the quality of people’s lives.

Tongan society is a very ancient one; the first voyagers reached the islands some 2800 years ago, over 2000 years before the first substantial settlement of Polynesians in Hawai’i. By 1000 BCE the Lapita culture, centering on the production of pottery (which dies out in most of Polynesia or never takes root) spread through the islands.

Ha’amonga a Maui, a trilithon megalith overhyped to tourists as the “Stonehenge of the Pacific,” was constructed in the thirteenth century. The Langi Lahi and Paepaeotelea royal tomb complexes date to the 15th-16th centuries. Unfortunately the once numerous temples of the native faith have been destroyed by zealous Christians, mostly in Baker’s time, as he applauded their efforts. The Fale Me’e (last of these houses of worship) survives only as a ruin. The “pre-contact” history of the region is unwritten but the chants preserve valuable information.

The Tongan Empire acquired a reputation in the South Pacific for its fierce warriors and its conquests; some islands in Fiji, a Melanesian nation, remain ethnically Tongan. A key figure in nineteenth-century Fijian history is Ma’afu, a prince of Tonga and king-making chief in Fiji as well. In 1643 the first Europeans to “discover” Tonga were Dutchmen aboard a vessel of the Dutch East India Co. They visited Tongatapu and Ha’apai but apparently made little impression on the islanders; western contact was only really established from the 1760s. Thereafter the whaling ships arrived, seeking provisions and R&R, then the missionaries, then the planters, all playing their role in remolding Tonga and reshaping the Tongan people to their own ends.

The U.S. Occupation of Tonga and the Great Cigarette Raid

I must mention another player: the U.S. military. Tonga had a small national army when war broke out in Europe in 1939. The Kingdom of Tonga, still a British protectorate, fervently embraced the Allied cause, and Queen Salote donated 160 acres to for the construction of an airfield. In 1942 a secret U.S. plan (“BLEACHER”)  for the occupation of the islands was implemented and for the next three years Tonga was at the service of U.S troops. The U.S. Navy population came to exceed the Tongan. The occupation is referred to in Tonga simply as Taimi o’e kau Amelika  (the Time of the Americans). But, as one scholar of the period, Charles J. Weeks, observes: “…as the troops involved in BLEACHER sailed into the remote Pacific they had no idea what to expect. Neither did the Tongans whom no one seems to have consulted about the occupation of their country.”

During the Occupation, for the first time, such western vices as beer and cigarettes became widely available in Tonga. The Seabees sometimes brewed their own product and taught Tongans how to make it themselves.  But these efforts by the Occupation, to win good will through such delights, simply encouraged Tongans, who did not share the occupiers’ concept of private property, to pilfer them on a large scale. When the Navy’s main warehouse storing them was raided, the Navy’s response was swift.

The episode called the “Great Cigarette Raid” occurred in August 1944. In it, U.S. sailors under their officers’ command terrorized Tongatapu, making mass arrests, torturing suspects, breaking into the prime minister’s home and humiliating him and his family. All to track down the missing loot! The resident British consul was unable to restrain the U.S. forces. But he later credited himself for curbing the U.S. commander’s plans to declare martial law, thus curbing a “violent effort to declare war on the Government of Tonga.” (Such undignified inter-imperialist contention, in a semi-colony occupied by both, in the midst of an anti-fascist war!)

Tobacco addiction was a lingering impact of the occupation; after the war, the kingdom vastly increased its annual import of cigarettes and beer from Australia and New Zealand. Aside from stoking islanders’ interest in tobacco smoking and beer consumption, the sailors brought venereal diseases. Prostitution arrived with the U.S. forces, probably for the first time since the whalers had frequented Tongan ports. According to a 1939 census, there were 441 “half-caste” (part-European) persons in the country, out of a total of 34,130, with only 400 resident (full-blood) Europeans.  Many more were born during the U.S. occupation, when 4000 to 9000 U.S. sailors and thousands of New Zealand troops were stationed in the islands, and thousands more passed through as transients. Nuku’alofa became renowned for its “rest and recreation” offerings, its sex industry regulated by the Americans, who did not hesitate to violate Tongan law in their occasional roundups of “women with loose character” for diagnosis and treatment of venereal disease.

The economic boom of the war years was followed by a contraction and return to prewar normalcy. High copra prices sustained the kingdom as it attempted to diversify, becoming at times one of the top ten vanilla producers and establishing a tourist industry. There had been no hotels permitted in the Tongan Kingdom during the reign of Queen Salote (1918-1965). But her son Taufa’ahau Tupou IV (r. 1965-2006) ordered the construction of the International Dateline Hotel to accommodate visitors to his coronation on Nuku’alofa waterfront on July 4, 1967.  At the same time he had Fua’amotu Airport on Tongatapu (built by U.S. Seabees during the war) upgraded to handle jet aircraft. All to attain a higher profile in the world for the Tongan monarchy!

The hotel was torched and seriously damaged in riots in 2006. So was the Royal Pacific (Pacific Royale) Hotel, owned by the Shoreline Group of Companies, in which the king was deeply invested. Afterwards the king was obliged to sell off all his business interests.

The Game is Unfair  

China is the ascendant economic power in the South Pacific, challenging the primacy of the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, vying with Japan and South Korea. It is not an historically imperialist power, and some think its model of “market socialism” doesn’t qualify as real capitalism, or that Lenin’s theory of imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism doesn’t pertain to China. Beijing’s record in the Pacific compares well with those of the western powers, beginning as it does so late. But one can say its aid comes with strings attached, and is designed to provide leverage, and serve what bourgeois scholars (who don’t understand or recognize class division) call “national interests.” One can say the same of British or U.S. aid, can we not?

In the 19th century, the Great Powers vied for hegemony over Tonga by backing different warrior chiefs as surrogates. Now the Great Powers vie for hegemony over Tonga by dangling and distributing pa’angas. He ancient game evolves; the beans that became coins now become bonds, loans, shares and futures. The point of the game is to get your opponent to fork over all of value they possess. This may have always been the case but today the game is not a beach pastime involving some friends but a gambling game determining a nation’s fate.

The rules of the game are not fair, as they once were, because the players are unfairly matched: the investors brought capital, and generated more from their plantations, while the emergent Tongan state had no capital. Politically independent or not (Tonga achieved “full independence” from the U.K. in 1970), the islands have become a classic neocolony, utterly dependent on the traditional crops, with their mercurial markets, and fishing; utterly dependent on loans and the labor-power Tongans forced to flee to employers overseas. With no clear end in sight.

The globe is warming. As the Tongan representative to the UN climate talks last November warned: “beyond the 1.5 C threshold would spell absolute catastrophe for Tonga” which would be submerged into the sea. But it is, in fact, likely the 1.5 C threshold will be exceeded in 2024! You wonder what consortium of global capitalists will step in to help.

The rules of the game are again unfair. Tonga, having been rudely jolted from communal agriculture to the regimen of wage-labor; having been obliged to accept British “protection”  from 1900 to 1970); having been transformed into a monocrop economy at the mercy of the global marketplace and banks; having suffered four years of U.S. occupation (to help them defeat the Japanese); having been occupied spiritually by the missionaries’ doctrines—may ultimately fall victim to the rising waters caused by the emission of greenhouse gasses by corporations like China Coal and ExxonMobil. Then the capitalist-imperialist conquest of Tonga will come to an end.

And then maybe Palau, Kiribati, even Fiji, warped by capitalist imperialism then drowned by it.

In the Tongan creation myth, closely related to those of other Polynesian peoples, the demigod Maui is a Tongan, whose special fishhook raises the island of Aotearoa (New Zealand) out of the water. Something like the reverse is happening; Maui himself has gotten hooked and is being pulled down. But that could be said of many peoples on many islands, pending their urgently needed revolutions.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Gary Leupp.