Author: Benjamin Sims, PiPP and ANU

The South Pacific is in the world’s focus.

At the Pacific Islands Forum in Auckland, high-level delegates from countries as diverse as Russia and Bhutan convened to lobby Pacific leaders during the four-day September gathering. Read more…

Author: Frans-Paul van der Putten, Clingendael

This century will be America’s Pacific century, wrote US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the November issue of Foreign Policy.

As she put it: ‘The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the centre of the action’. Read more…

Author: Alfred Oehlers, APCSS

Seasoned observers of the Pacific may be experiencing a sense of déjà vu.

Not long after the ‘truce’ between China and Taiwan, suspending their competitive bidding for diplomatic recognition among Pacific island states, the game has seemingly returned. Read more…

Authors: Uwe Kaufmann, Di Yuan, Altaf Alam and Faqin Lin, University of Adelaide

Fair trade and ‘Fairtrade’ products have become a topic of great interest in Australia and some of its trading partners.

The Pacific Forum Island countries (PICs) are enjoying free market access to Australia and New Zealand under the non-reciprocal South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement (SPARTECA). Read more…

Author: Luke Nottage, University of Sydney

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was one of the first among world leaders to visit Japan, over 20–23 April, after the nation was stricken on 3 March by the ‘earthquake-tsunami-radiation triple disaster’.

But the Australian government was tactful and realistic in not placing emphasis on progressing bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations at that time. Read more…

Author: Sandra Tarte, USP

Recent claims in the media that Australia’s foreign minister has ‘ignored’, ‘neglected’ and ‘taken his eyes off’ the Pacific islands have underscored a number of policy dilemmas facing Australian diplomacy in the region. These have been evident for some time and centre primarily around the approach to Fiji’s post-coup government, led by Commodore Voreqe (Frank) Bainimarama.

Like other western democracies, Australia imposed diplomatic, military and political sanctions on the military-led government after the December 2006 coup. Read more…

Author: Peter Drysdale, Editor, EAF

The idea of a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, at least among the nine Asia Pacific countries that are currently signed up for the negotiations, has been hyped up over the last year as the Obama administration declared it to be the way forward on a new American engagement with Asia.

The TPP initiative — which includes Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and the United States — now tops Washington’s trade agenda barring the unfinished business of FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama. Read more…

Author: Dennis T. Yasutomo, Smith College

Media reports indicate that after the 11 March earthquake, Japanese residents of Sendai had a 30 minute warning before the tsunami hit. In a sense, the Japanese had expected this for 30 years. The longer-term question is what will happen in the next 30 years.

In 1980, the Japanese government adopted ‘comprehensive national security’ (‘sogo anzen hosho’) as its security doctrine, and comprehensive security stepped outside US military-centric thinking for the first time. Read more…

Author: Andrew Herd, ANU

In November last year the High Court of Australia handed down a decision that has potentially major ramifications for the future of Australia’s asylum seeker policy. The High Court unanimously decided that two Sri Lankan asylum seekers who had arrived on Christmas Island claiming asylum had been denied procedural fairness after being processed as offshore arrivals.

Although Christmas Island is part of Australia, and has been since 1958, the Howard government excised it and other islands across the north of Australia from the migration zone in the early 2000s. Under the Howard government, those who reached these islands were transported to Nauru or Manus Island for processing under the so-called ‘Pacific Solution.’ Read more…

Author: Luke Nottage, University of Sydney

The over-sensationalising of Australia’s alleged ‘Secret Dealing on Whale Hunts’, in Australian media reports last week drawing on documents released by WikiLeaks, has been correctly criticised by Tim Stephens. Yet his contribution has engendered further public debate over whaling, including the case recently initiated by Australia against Japan (with New Zealand also intervening) before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The Japanese government appears confident about winning the case, basically because the Whaling Convention was set up to permit (sustainable) whaling. Read more…

Author: Sandra Tarte, USP, Suva

In 2010, Fiji marked 40 years of independence. Significantly, the Prime Minister, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama, chose to celebrate the anniversary at the World Expo in Shanghai, rather than at home.

In many ways, this choice underscored the focus of Fiji’s leadership in 2010, which was to diversify and broaden international partnerships. Read more…

Author: Matthew Dornan, ANU

Fiji Water announced on Wednesday that it will maintain its water manufacturing operation in Fiji, just one day after stating it would leave the country over an ‘untenable’ tax increase on exports of water.

This is one chapter in an extraordinary story concerning the boutique water manufacturer; a story that has led to the resignation of Fiji’s Minister for Defence, National Security and Immigration, Epeli Ganilau, and to the deportation of Fiji Water’s Director of External Affairs on ‘security and national interest’ grounds. Read more…

Author: Charles Prestidge-King, ANU

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. Read more…

Author: Jon Fraenkel, ANU

Tonga’s first-ever democratic elections took place smoothly on Thursday, and resulted in a resounding victory for those urging reform. ‘Akilisi Pohiva’s Friendly Islands Democracy Party won 12 of the 17 popularly elected seats, just two short of the number required to form a government. The other five popularly elected MPs are independents, who at least in theory could team up with Tonga’s nine noble MPs to form a government. The nobles, however, have made clear that they – and indeed King George Tupou V – prefer that Tonga’s next prime minister should come from among the people’s representatives. For the first time in Tonga’s history, therefore, the outcome of a general election will determine the shape of the country’s next government.

Since King George Tupou I unified the scattered island group in the mid-19th century, Tonga has had royal-appointed governments. The 1875 constitution created a Legislative Assembly, but the king retained authority to appoint members of cabinet, including the prime minister. Read more…

Author: Biman Chand Prasad, University of the South Pacific

Battered by coups, sluggish growth and in recent years the global increase in food, fuel and commodity prices, Fiji’s economy is struggling to regain its feet.  The December 2006 coup led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama was the fourth in the last two decades. Bainimarama, in ousting the Laisenia Qarase-led Government promised to tackle corruption, put an end to racially discriminatory policies and reform the race-based electoral system.

The Prime Minister promised a general election under a new Constitution in 2014. However, the history of previous coups in Fiji and the economic recovery plans implemented by successive governments provide little optimism for a swift economic recovery. Read more…