“Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP)”: Who are they and what their goals are?
In early February 2023, Washington unveiled the US Indo-Pacific strategy. The document repeatedly emphasized the importance of the informal group “Partners in the Blue Pacific” (PBP), established in September 2022 and composed of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the United Kingdom…
Who Owns Solomon Islands Now?
On August 26, 2022, news broke that the Solomon Islands had refused to allow a US Coast Guard ship to refuel in its port. In the history of the South Pacific, only New Zealand did so in 1985, when it barred a US nuclear-powered naval vessel from visiting its port. In 1987, Wellington declared the country a nuclear-free zone and imposed a formal and continuing ban...
The “Pacific Way” of Oceania Becomes a “Roaring Highway”
In 2022, the competition between Australia, the United States and China over spheres of influence in Oceania, the planet’s vastest region occupying the South Pacific, intensified. This has led to destabilization of relations of the small island states in the region. And while it has turned out to be easy to destroy decades-old architecture, the process of rebuilding...
The Role Played by Oceania in the Global Standoff
At present the world is divided into two major camps on the principle of global redistribution of resources. One of these two groups consists of the BRICS group, with a population of 3.2 billion people, dominated by such giants as China, India and Russia, plus their allies around the world. The other group consists of the G7 nations, with a combined population...
Wang Yi’s Pacific Tour: China Takes Over
On May 26, 2022, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi began a landmark 10-day tour that included visits to seven independent countries in Oceania – the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, as well as East Timor. This development has greatly troubled the traditional players in the South Pacific – the US, Australia and New Zealand...
What Russia, Singapore and Fiji Have in Common
Russia's cooperation with Singapore, a prosperous island city-state in Southeast Asia with a population of nearly 6 million people, neighbouring Indonesia and Malaysia and having one of the highest GDPs in the world, has been actively developing since 2009, when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev paid his first official visit to Singapore in the history of the Russian-Singaporean...
Russia Expands Its Influence in Faraway Lands
Over the last decade, Russia has been successfully strengthening its influence in different parts of the world: first and foremost, in the countries of Asia and Africa. The trade turnover with them has been growing every year, including the countries of South-East Asia, where Indonesia - the most populous state in the region (274 million people) - is one of Russia...
On France’s Feud with Australia
In recent years, the geopolitical situation in the Asia-Pacific region (APR has been marked by extremely fast-moving development, not only in its contentious area – the South China Sea, — but also around the so-called Australian “line of defense” in the South Pacific region (SPR, where the interests of the global nuclear powers collide. Those powers are China, the US, the UK and India. Russia...
Is the Western World Losing New Zealand?
For years now, the whole world has been gripped by the Sino-American confrontation. China is actively pushing the US and other Western countries from the top positions in various spheres of world economy and politics, and the US is fiercely resisting this. Important allies of the US in the West are the main states of the Anglosphere — the UK, Canada, Australia...
Britain Rebuilding Its “Empire” in the South Pacific
After 47 years in the 28-nation European Union, Britain decided that the alliance was no longer beneficial to it and left the EU, giving the world a new term in the process: “Brexit”. So now, starting January 1, 2021, the UK is no longer allowed to trade with partners outside the European Union under trade agreements previously concluded within the EU. Consequently, in the next...
Britain Returns to Oceania
By early 2021, Britain had finally settled all economic, political, and other issues about leaving the European Union, while actively strengthening trade and economic relations around the world, especially with countries that have historical and cultural significance. First of all, with the countries of Oceania, which only a century ago were part of the British Empire, namely, Australia and New Zealand...
Australia and France in the Pacific Ocean
France is a major player in Oceania, a place where Australia, which has a leading position in this vast region of the South Pacific, has historically developed solid, neighborly relations. From the middle of the XVIII century to the present, France has owned New Caledonia (with the world's fourth largest nickel reserves and a French military base, Wallis and Futuna...