Held from September 8 to 12 in the capital of the Solomon Islands, Honiara, the 54th Summit of the member states of the Pacific Islands Forum became a landmark event in the ongoing process of transformation in the Indo-Pacific region.
Meanwhile, the latest Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) received serious attention from the world’s leading players for an entirely understandable reason: the growing importance for each of them of exerting influence on developments in the Pacific Ocean basin, which makes up half the territory of the Indo-Pacific. It is precisely this region as a whole that is becoming the focal point of global political and economic processes. Let us also recall that this factor is by no means significant for the first time. Such was the case, for example, on the eve of and during the Second World War.
This time the PIF Forum was held without the participation of “partners”
This subtitle, in fact, designates one of the main distinguishing features of the latest PIF Forum. Let us indicate some “reference points” of the history of the PIF over the past several decades.
Created in 1971, that is, at the height of the Cold War, the Forum acquired its current form in 2000, today including 18 island states of the Pacific basin. Its present status and the character of its functioning could not but be influenced by the radical changes on the global playing table that took place ten years earlier with the end of the global conflict. In particular, already at that time a contender emerged to occupy at the playing table the place previously held by the USSR.
That contender was China, which, together with occupying the mentioned place, brought into the scenario of the new global game its own key problem, conditioned by the “specific” status of Taiwan on the international stage. And alongside the gradual transformation of the PRC into the second global power, the Taiwan issue inevitably shifted into the focus of its competitive struggle with the United States. For several years now, this has been a source of considerable turbulence also within the PIF, since the member states of this Forum are subject to the increasing influence of the “pulling tensions” created by the very fact of the U.S.–China global confrontation.
Specifically, what is meant are the disagreements that invariably arise on the eve of each PIF Summit over the participation of Taiwan’s representatives. Since 1992, the latter has enjoyed the status of “development partner” of the PIF. It should be noted that various types of “partnership” with significant external players are in the focus of activity of this Forum, which in its overwhelming majority includes poor island countries with a mass of diverse and serious problems. The exceptions are Australia and New Zealand, which enjoy, incidentally, within the PIF, a “special status”—in a sufficiently broad interpretation of this concept.
In particular, the “dialogue partnership” format includes more than 20 countries, including the United States, China, Japan, India, and leading European powers. And as recently as last year, the directly opposite influence of the first two on their respective “own” PIF members over the question of inviting Taiwan to the next Summit almost led to the disruption of the entire event. Therefore, on the eve of the current Summit, in order to avoid something similar, a truly “Solomonic decision” was adopted, which immediately removed the Taiwan issue from the path of holding the 25th Summit. Namely, all the various “partners” were not invited, which therefore included Taiwan as well.
It should be noted, however, that the very fact of Taiwan’s “partnership” was confirmed, under the pretext that three PIF member states still maintain diplomatic relations with the island. Depriving Taiwan of the mentioned “partnership” status, it was claimed, could once again put this Forum on the verge of rupture.
The main decisions of the 54th PIF Forum
The circle of the main questions and problems that are generally discussed on this platform, and that were the subject of debates at the latest Forum, are presented in the “What we do” section of the PIF Secretariat’s announcement of the forthcoming event. Slightly lowering the level of pathos in designating the declared agenda of the forthcoming debates, let us reduce it to three main points.
First, the growing instability both in the entire region of the member states’ location and in relations among some of them, as well as within almost every PIF member.
Second, the economic backwardness and poverty of the populations of most of these countries.
Third, the so-called “climate change problem,” which has become the subject of obviously self-serving speculations on the theme of the “decisive influence on them of greenhouse gas emissions as a product of human activity.” That is, one of several global scams thrown in recent years into the world space, apparently by one and the same generator of highly dubious geopolitical “meanings.” At the same time, the consequences of periodically occurring climate changes of hardly sufficiently understood nature can indeed most negatively affect precisely the island states of the Pacific Ocean.
All these questions and approaches to their resolution, which became the subject of debates of very diverse participants of the latest PIF Forum, are set out in the extensive (22-page) final Communiqué. As for practically significant decisions, commentators fairly unanimously highlight the project of creating the “Pacific Resilience Facility” (PRF), which provides for the pooling of financial resources in order to undertake certain measures to counter the consequences of those very same “climate changes.”
It should be noted, by the way, that since 2010 the so-called “Green Climate Fund” (GCF), immeasurably weightier compared to the future PRF, has been functioning internationally. But its real masters, it seems, are least of all concerned with providing assistance to the victims of various natural disasters. Accusations of this kind are voiced periodically, for example, in Pakistan, which has been struck by another river overflow due to seasonal monsoon rains—this time with simply catastrophic consequences.
Therefore, the PIF decided to create its own fund with a similar purpose, and here, of course, the very same “partnership” with the economically and financially capable leading world players would have been extremely useful. But, let us repeat, this time it was decided to leave them outside the doors of the discussion hall, so that with their global squabbles they would not muddy the waters of the area of the PIF members’ existence. But together with them, their wallets also remained outside. One of these, however, may quite be considered to belong to Australia, that is, a full-fledged member of this Forum. Evidently, Canberra will, for the time being become the main donor of the PRF.
Nevertheless, it is uncharacteristic of the aforementioned “partners” to give in to human emotions in the form of resentments, since for them only interests matter, within which remains the factor of critical significance of control over the situation in the Pacific Ocean basin. Therefore the process of “stretching” PIF members “along the lines of interests” will continue. The most recent evidence of this has been the conclusion by Australia (and, consequently, indirectly by Washington) of a “Security Pact” with Papua New Guinea, as well as the latest acts of expansion of the PRC’s presence in those same Solomon Islands.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on issues of the Asia-Pacific region
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