Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa traveled to Samoa and Fiji to engage with Pacific island partners.
There, she had bilateral meetings with her counterparts from 10 island countries and co-chaired the fifth interim ministerial session of the Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting, or PALM.
Outwardly, these efforts were part of a decadeslong policy of engagement between Japan and its Oceania partners, but underlying it is the increased stakes related to China's efforts to expand its influence in the region.
The fact that the South Pacific is an area of competition is nothing new, but the nature of that competition continues to evolve. The influx of Chinese investment and activities have introduced risk for some Pacific island nations, whose immediate aid and development needs can leave them vulnerable to undue influence. Japan, although a longtime partner in the region, has been adapting its approach to enable greater success in fostering a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” that is consistent with the rules and values of the United Nations system.
Some may wonder why some of the world’s top economies are so interested in engaging countries whose land mass and populations are among the smallest in the world. The reality is that a critical feature of those nations has remained unchanged since the heyday of seafarers: The islands provide key access points to important sea lines of communication. In other words, they are situated among some of the most vital shipping lanes and maritime corridors in the world.
For another, the advent of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea expanded the islands’ geopolitical importance. Specifically, this convention defined exclusive economic zones for fishing rights and access to natural resources that meant that the Pacific islands, although small in terms of land territory, are exponentially larger when considering their maritime administration areas.
While those factors are enough for some countries to seek engagement with the Pacific islands, there are two others that are important to consider. Some countries like Japan, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and France either once administered or still continue to provide direct government oversight and support to some of the Pacific islands. There are historical, cultural and political ties that influence policy and decision-making.
Finally, there is the issue of the rules-based international order. Because the Pacific islands can yield so many benefits to larger powers, it has made them vulnerable to exploitation — an outcome the U.N. system is mandated to prevent. For those governments seeking to uphold that mandate and challenge the primitive doctrine that “might is right,” the fate of the Pacific islands is directly linked to the efficacy of the rules-based international order.
It is unsurprising that geopolitical competition in the Pacific islands persists; however, the character of it is changing. Gunboat diplomacy and mercantilism have given way to economic diplomacy, but even this form of engagement has demonstrated its risks and limitations.
By using its economic power, China has undoubtedly succeeded in presenting a viable option for partnership to the Pacific islands. Ten of the island countries are participants in China’s Belt and Road initiative for infrastructure development and five are members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank headquartered in Beijing. There are demonstrated financial incentives for Pacific island countries who show a willingness to deal with China.
But there are limits to these economic incentives, especially with the strings that Beijing has been attaching to them. Many observers are concerned about the Chinese practice of so-called debt-trap diplomacy, meaning the practice of building massive infrastructure improvements at a debt that the beneficiary government is unable to service. Once defaulting, the Chinese government is then able to use that as leverage in its dealings with that government.
There are also concerns that Beijing will use its engagement with the Pacific islands to induce certain policy concessions; for example, by forcing them to abandon recognition of Taiwan as an independent state, which the Pacific island nation of Nauru did in 2023 and Kiribati and the Solomon Islands in 2019. The leaders of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau articulated these fears in letters to the U.S. Congress earlier this month.
For its part, Tokyo is seeking to address these issues head on through its Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy. Although Japanese engagement with the Pacific islands has been ongoing for well before China’s reach expanded to the South Pacific, its policies have evolved and adapted to the broader effort of reinforcing the rules-based international order across the region.
Through the PALM format, Japan has demonstrated consistent engagement with the Pacific island countries. This has included summit-level meetings every three years, the next iteration of which will take place in Tokyo this July.
As part of this effort, Japan has provided aid and various types of support, including building bridges between islands, transferring a medical ship, installing wind turbines, improving wharfs and funding person-to-person exchanges. Recently, Japan added official security assistance to the list with the provision of patrol boats and other equipment to Fiji.
Tokyo has also taken a distinctly noncoercive approach to the Pacific islands via cooperation with multinational partners. It has continually sought to coordinate with Australia, New Zealand and the United States through different mechanisms, with Australia and New Zealand being active in PALM meetings, including the ministerial session that took place just recently. This cooperation reduces the focus on individual positions and transactional deals in favor of collective interests and transformational outcomes for the region.
Japan wants to improve its approach to the Pacific islands by increasing its presence in Oceania. Last year saw the Maritime Self-Defense Force add Kiribati to its list of port calls along with the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Fiji; notable because both Kiribati and the Solomons have earned attention for their deepening ties with China. Further, it may have seemed like a small step, but Kamikawa’s visit to Samoa was the first by a Japanese foreign minister and the interim ministerial meeting in Fiji was the first-of-its-kind to be held in the region.
At that interim meeting, the participants promised to tackle five priority areas for the Pacific islands: COVID-19 response and recovery; sustainable oceans based on the rule of law; climate change and disaster resilience; strengthening foundation for sustainable and resilient economic development; and people to people exchanges and human resource development. In addition to the regional progress that Japan will seek in these areas, a critical factor going forward will be how well the Japanese government champions these issues in international fora on behalf of its Pacific partners.
Tokyo will likely continue to evolve the way it engages the Pacific islands, particularly as Chinese interest in the region remains. As conflict elsewhere in the world vies for the attention of other global leaders, Japan’s role in Oceania elevates in importance. The Japanese government has articulated its vision for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, and the level of independence and prosperity of the Pacific islands is the clearest evidence of the success or failure of that initiative.
[bio]Michael MacArthur Bosack is the special adviser for government relations at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies. He previously served in the Japanese government as a Mansfield fellow.[bio]
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.