In a country like Solomon Islands, with over 60 languages and 150 dialects spread over just under 1000 islands, loyalty to one’s nation often comes a long way behind loyalty to one’s relatives, or wantoks.

Aid donors run here with slogans like ‘tugeta yumi save duim’ – together we can do it – but Solomon Islanders have often recognised the differences rather than the similarities between themselves since independence in 1978.

Richard Irosaea, the Premier of Malaita, has the red white and blue flag of his province draped over his coffee table in his office in Auki, Malaita’s capital. When I spoke with him, the topic quickly turned to independence.

Premier Irosaea clearly believes in Solomon Islands, but not unconditionally.

‘If Solomon Islands becomes a federal state, we will definitely not be part of it. We will become a separate nation.’

Talks on federalism have taken place at a number of leadership conferences in Solomon Islands, including at a recent Premier’s Conference, though the idea is still controversial.

Silas Talota, the Minister assisting the Premier, was even more forthright.

‘I think that [Malaitan independence] is the way forward. Malaita should pursue that.’

Talk of provincial independence is common in the Solomons. Western Province, Temotu, and Makira provinces have called for independence at one time or another, and sceptics say that such talk is more about securing funding from the national government than genuine sentiment. Nevertheless, calls for independence tend to rattle national leaders, especially when it comes to Malaita. One out of every three Solomon Islanders is Malaitan. In Honiara, Solomon Islands’ largest city, that figure changes to one in two.

There is an echo of the Tensions in his thinking. He believes Malaitans are discriminated against throughout Solomon Islands, and believes – like many others – that Malaitan immigration to Guadalcanal was the root cause of the Tensions. Irosaea thinks that bringing Malaitans back to their home province could help from a social order standpoint, but he also believes in their labour.

‘I’d like them to (come back). Because of the human resources we have, Malaita would stand to be a successful state. I have no doubt about it.’

Malaita certainly faces challenges. World Bank data for 2010 showed that almost 30 per cent of the population of Malaita is in the bottom 3 income deciles, by far the worst rating for a province. Malaitans leave their province because there are few jobs and opportunities. Their labour in other provinces, and particularly in Guadalcanal, is an important contributor to the fragile Solomon Islands economy. Focusing development on Malaita may be part of the solution, but most aid money in the Solomons is spent in Honiara.

Francis Fukuyama visited Solomon Islands in 2008. During his visit, he called for the political elite in Solomons to lead a push towards nationhood to stop ethnic tensions from surfacing again. At the time, he said that wantok loyalties could be held in check by ‘a national elite that is loyal to a larger concept of nation.’

Compatibilist efforts to work the benefits of wantokism into the civil service have gone some distance since his visit, but many still associate the dense web of relationships in Solomon Islands with split allegiances.

At a Truth and Reconciliation Commission forum recently, participants in a question and answer session were asked to identify where they were from. Almost every questioner identified himself or herself by island. Only one, a government official, said he was from Solomon Islands.

Solomon Islands has some distance to go in gaining a thoroughgoing sense of nation. Hints at secession, particularly within its largest province, make that project even harder.

Charles Prestidge-King is a Masters of Arts (Strategic Studies) student at ANU, currently living and working in Honiara, Solomon Islands. He has written about the Solomon Islands for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Australian Associated Press, and the Lowy Interpreter.

1. The Solomon Islands and Pacific insularity
2. Solomons avoids violent election, but stability uncertain
3. The Solomons’ new leader

After the Solomon Islands Prime Ministerial election Danny Philip looked a happy man. Following two hard weeks of wrangling and lobbying between contending camps, he was elected leader by Solomon Islands Parliament with 26 votes to rival Steve Abana’s 23.

An emotional Philip took the stand in front of local and international media to dedicate the win to his mother, a long-time sufferer of polio, and to put forward his government’s agenda.

Much of it is business as usual. He promised a focus on infrastructure development, and to give resource owners their due, as well as a focus on health and education.

As far as the Pacific Islands Forum-led and Australian-funded Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, he told the crowd that he had ‘no intention’ of kicking them out. At the same time, he hinted that his government would push for reform of the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission, which has provided stability and other assistance to the remote nation since 2003.

‘We all know that there need to be changes, so RAMSI’s mandate can be more purposeful and relevant in light of the challenges facing Solomon Islands. To all participating members of RAMSI, I am telling you that I am a leader you can work with.’

In foreign policy more broadly, he said his government would ‘do the obvious – embrace a ”Look North” foreign policy, stick around with its traditional partners, and play smart in Melanesia.’

This is more interesting stuff. Looking North, unsurprisingly, means taking better advantage of opportunities in Asia, something successive governments have worked at. Traditional partners means Australia, New Zealand, PNG, and further afield, Japan and Taiwan.

But playing smart in Melanesia is a bit more vague. What role should Solomon Islands play in the Melanesian Spearhead Group? And how should Solomon Islands treat Fiji’s efforts to spread influence in the region? We might have more clarity once Philip’s policy framework is released sometime in the next thirty days.

Philip also took time to look to broader trends:

‘We will be finding real opportunities from the power shifts from the Atlantic to the Pacific where we live and where volumes of trade pass through our sea lanes.’

Well, maybe, but Solomon Islands is no Singapore– and Honiara doesn’t have the capacity to act as much more of a port than it already is. Solomon Islands has recognised Taiwan for a long time, so it’s hard to see how the vast growth engine that is China might help them in an immediate sense, particularly now that China and Taiwan now have something of a détente when it comes to challenging each other for influence in the Pacific. The log trade to South East Asia is a huge export earner, but everyone – including Philip – knows that logs are running out, and the industry’s thought to be losing hundreds of millions in potential revenue through corruption.

He made a number of references to economic development through reinvesting in infrastructure – ‘I’d like to see a robust and quality infrastructure development programme … this will lead to an increased level of income for people, boost visitor arrivals and small-scale industries like cocoa and copra.’

The key there is tourism. Solomon Islands is a beautiful country outside of its grubby capital and has the potential to offer a different kind of Pacific experience to tourists – not the resorts, cocktails and delayed elections of Fiji, not the resorts, kava and French expats of Vanuatu, but adventure, remoteness, kastom, and probably the best diving in the world. Despite some promising start-ups, the Solomons has a lot of work to do in building its tourism industry. Much of its infrastructure was destroyed between 1998 and 2003 during the time now known as the Tensions.

On that score, his government will seek to ‘fast-track’ reconciliation and the healing process by putting forward a forgiveness bill. Philip has made frequent mention of Solomon Islands as a ‘post-conflict’ society, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (modelled after South Africa’s efforts, and opened in Solomon Islands by Archbishop Desmond Tutu) is only part of the picture.

Visitors to the island nation might not have seen much of that conflict in recent weeks, with the police and RAMSI out in force for the elections. People forget the forced land clearances, the messianic militia leaders, the outright violence, and the near-destruction of Solomon Islands as a functioning economy all happened less than a decade ago.

In the end, Danny Philip waxed lyrical about the region and its possibilities.

‘As a government we will have responsibility to see that our nation stands to benefit from the so-called “Pacific Century” and understand the multipolarity that this new power shift will create.’

This power shift has been going on for some time, but the Solomons’ economy is still hugely dependent on aid and unsustainable industries. The reopening of Gold Ridge Mine, and nickel mining projects in the outer provinces will help, but they aren’t enough on their own.

Yes, the 21^st century might be about the Pacific, but it’s an open question as to whether the Pacific Islands are part of that conversation. The multipolarity that Danny Philip is talking about is fast becoming the case. Regardless of his policies, it’s still not clear that any of those poles will really help Solomon Islands to stand up on its own.

Charles Prestidge-King is currently a Masters of Arts (Strategic Studies) student at ANU, currently living and working in Honiara, Solomon Islands. He has written about the Solomon Islands elections for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Lowy Interpreter.

1. Secessionism and Solomon Islands
2. Solomons avoids violent election, but stability uncertain
3. The Solomons’ new leader

When Kevin Rudd gave his first speech on the Asia-Pacific Community (APC) in June last year, he would have been forgiven for thinking his call for a new regionalism would have been echoed by Japan.

Rudd and his advisors should not take Japan’s relative silence on APC to heart. Unlike Singapore, Japan’s silence should surprise nobody.

Japan and Australia are typically seen as natural partners in the Asian region, and in foreign policy, Japan and Australia’s aims, particularly with regard to regional institutions and to the future shape of the world affairs, are similar. And, of course, APEC was significantly the product of Australian-Japanese cooperation.

So why is Japan keeping so quiet on this front?

Most immediately, Japan is suffering from a pronounced leadership deficit. While Fukuda had some creative foreign policy ideas [.pdf], leadership after Koizumi has been inconsistent and unstable. Following their disastrous performance in the Tokyo metropolitan elections, things do not look at all good for Aso and the LDP in the upcoming general election and there is a widespread feeling that, no matter what, the DPJ will win government.

Sceptics say that, should the DPJ win, Hatoyama’s plan for a centralised, cabinet-led ‘national strategy bureau’ will lead to antagonism in the policy making process rather than reform. This is to say nothing of inter- and intra-ministry rivalries, which – in the case of METI and MOFA especially – have frequently proved detrimental to Japan’s foreign policy coherence over the last decade.

Even if Japan’s political leadership was certain, and its ministries committed to regional goals, it’s still an open question as to whether they would back an initiative like APC.

The Japanese economy has suffered the worst downturn since the Second World War, shrinking by a monumental annual rate of 15.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2009.

Some may be optimistic about the path through the crisis – especially if, as in hedge fund parlance, slightly down is the new up – but nobody in Japan is forecasting the end yet. All is not well on the home economic front.

Significantly, many in Japan feel it already has ‘enough on its plate’. North Korea’s rocket tests and the reality of North Korea’s nuclear program are more alarming to the Japanese public than perhaps anyone.

Right now, Japan’s political leadership is now devoting all its time and energy to the election. In the medium term, the dominant foreign policy issue that will demand its attention is the North Korean issue.

The other concern, of course, is the rise of China, and what this means for Japanese interests, regionally and globally. Bilateral and multilateral co-operation between Japan and China has taken a small turn for the better with the activation of the trilateral dialogues with South Korea, but the propensity to descend into zero-sum bilateral exchanges is still evident.

With Northeast Asia taking up so much time and attention, spending time, energy, and political will trying to re-invent regional institutions has simply not been on the agenda, especially when those institutions, rightly or wrongly, are not perceived as being aimed directly at tackling proximate issues surrounding China or North Korea’s continued aggression.

If Japan had any time to spend on a new regionalism, as Takashi Terada says, the present priority would instinctively be pushing for ASEAN+6, Japan’s rival to ASEAN+3.

Put simply, Japan is not in a position to take leadership on regional initiatives, particularly ambitious, pan-regional moves like the APC. With Singapore unconvinced and Japan otherwise engaged, Prime Minister Rudd and Ambassador Woolcott still have some legwork to do on the APC.

1. Australia’s Asia literacy and an Asia Pacific Community
2. Realizing the Asia Pacific Community: geographic, institutional and leadership challenges
3. Rudd in Singapore on the Asia Pacific Community idea

In 1996, Australia’s current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wrote an article for a collection entitled ‘Australia and China: Partners in Asia’, edited by Colin Mackerras of Griffith University.

In it, he outlined the case for improving Australia’s cultural and linguistic literacy of Asia in general, and China in particular.

The popular view of China was, as Rudd put it, the ‘product of 150 years of conflicting and intersecting paradigms, which carry inaccuracies’, a curious mix of racism, vestigial or otherwise, strategic paranoia, and a sense of economic opportunity.

Improving Australia’s China literacy would help clear up those inaccuracies, and would give Australians a better understanding of the cultural factors behind key Chinese institutions. With China’s increasing economic significance, it would also give Australians a tremendous advantage in business.

Despite a debate that started in the 1960s and attempts by several governments to push such a plan forward, we’re still no closer to a comprehensive plan for improving Australia’s Asia literacy than we were in 1996.

The COAG-commissioned report that Rudd co-authored in 1992, for instance, was ambitious, but its proposals were straightforward enough:

‘(E)very Grade 3 child in the country should be required to study a second language. Sixty per cent of those children will be required to study a language of Eastern Asia: Japanese, Mandarin, Indonesian or Korean. … Our projections are that, by the time this program works through the school system, 25 per cent of the school population of this country will be taking one or other of those four languages for ten consecutive years. …deliberately modeled on the language teaching policies and programs of the Western Europeans, the Dutch and the Scandinavians …’

The idea was never to create generations of Asia-focused specialists or canny foreign policy operators. It was dual-discipline, intended to create reasonably proficient Asian language-speaking Australians who have at least some cultural understanding of Asia and can engage with the region in whichever way they choose to.

The issue was ignored, if not deliberately buried, during the years Howard was in office. Yet aside from a smattering of media releases at much the same time as he was spruiking his Asia Pacific Community idea, we’ve heard very little on this from the Rudd government.

Henry Makeham has recently written about Australian graduates falling behind in the Asian job market. Being able to understand and to deal with China, and our neighbours in the Asian region, ought not just be a matter of competitive advantage.

China literacy goes to the central question of Australia’s future international interests. It did then, and it certainly does now.

We ought not expect every Australian to speak Mandarin, but with the collapse of Chinalco’s deal with Rio Tinto, and the fatuousness of the Federal Opposition and some sections of the press over the past few months, there’s rarely been a better time for improving the state of Asia literacy in general, and China literacy in particular, in Australia.

In 1996, Rudd expressed frustration that nearly a generation of discussion and no fewer than sixteen reports written on the matter had been met with no real policy response.

Rudd should not wait for the thirty-second report to be written. If we truly wish Australia to be a leader, or simply a competent manager of its own affairs in Asia, this is an important step to take. Now is the time for him to put his foot forward on Asia literacy.

1. Asia literacy: making a good policy better
2. Australia’s Asia literacy and an Asia Pacific Community
3. Exit Australia’s Kevin Rudd – Special editorial

Kevin Rudd’s focus on China began as an undergraduate and hasn’t waned.

This is worth keeping in mind as context to his comments on Australia’s approach to Asia, on his recent trip to Singapore.

Rudd considers the ‘rise of China’ as the greatest event and policy challenge for the coming century, and restated his commitment to make Australia ‘the most Asia-literate country in the West’, stressing the importance of what he called ‘functional expertise’, as well as linguistic and cultural understanding of our region. He also reiterated his idea that good policy is underpinned by good scholarship.

Rudd’s comments in Singapore, echoed sentiments expressed at the Crawford School’s China Update. In Singapore, Rudd signed a security pact with his counterpart, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and he talked about his idea of an Asia Pacific Community. Singaporean think tanks had earlier greeted that with a fair degree of skepticism.

The plan for an Asia Pacific Community (see here, here and here for analysis on the Asia Pacific Community) is another level up from the $62 million Labor pledged for Asian language teaching in Australia.

Rudd’s immediate plan on the latter front would see Australians equipped with the necessary language skills to take effective advantage of opportunities throughout Asia. His goal, in the longer-term, is to fashion an Australia that’s regarded as the ‘go-to place’ when it comes to knowledge of the wider region.

Yet the ambition goes well beyond that. As Rudd said in Singapore, the way in which countries like Australia and Singapore respond to China’s rise will be critical to their fortunes in the future. Which in turn means, as Rudd said, that, ‘how countries … seek to influence China’s view of its role and responsibility in the merging global and regional order, is also of great importance.’

An Asia-literate Australia, part of an Asia Pacific Community, might just hand Australia the role Rudd hopes it might play in an increasingly China–dominated future.

1. Squaring the Japanese and Australia proposals for an East Asian and Asia Pacific Community: is America in or out?
2. Rudd in Singapore on the Asia Pacific Community idea
3. Asia literacy: making a good policy better