While foreign entities discuss the geopolitics of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), media buzz invariably focuses on the geopolitical contest between Washington and Beijing. Regardless of whether one speaks about security ties between Solomon Islands and China or telecommunications investments by Australia, small island states are commonly viewed as passive battlegrounds of outside influences. This approach fails to account for the main change in modern diplomacy of the Pacific Islands, namely, that of the PIF as a strategic bargaining forum.
Instead of serving merely as an instrument for consensus-building among the islands or participating in a Cold War on behalf of either superpower, the Pacific countries are now leveraging PIF to impose conditions of engagement for competing major powers.
From hedging to institutional leverage
Small states’ “hedging” or the art of maintaining good relations with several big powers to obtain aid, is not always a novel idea. The problem is that small islands encounter different power inequalities when interacting with Washington or Beijing separately. Using the PIF as a bargaining forum allows overcoming this challenge.
The basic premise behind such leverage is the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, officially adopted by PIF leaders. Through this document, the forum set the terms in which the external players should conduct themselves: their foreign policies need to correspond to the region’s agenda, including climate change, economic development, and sovereignty at sea, rather than trying to export their own security agenda.
This unified position requires the competing countries to rethink their involvement tactics in both security and development domains. Under the Boe Declaration on Regional Security, adopted on September 5, 2018, the PIF members have officially extended the security definition to include climate change as the biggest threat to the region, noting that “leaders reaffirm that climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and well-being of the Peoples of the Pacific.”
Concessions extracted from the PIF
The strength of the PIF as a bargaining entity is derived from the way in which it is able to impose on the external powers a formal, competitive dialogue through mechanisms such as the Post-Forum Dialogue framework of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.
The Forum does not accept an offer of one-sided aid packages but rather imposes concessions from the rival external powers in the form of engagement strategies. On September 29, 2022, the United States promised to give an increased assistance package worth $810 million with a recommitment of the Compact of Free Associations funding, as well as the reopening of the diplomatic missions in the region. On the other hand, China has been obliged to concentrate its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership on bilateral development assistance, infrastructure loans, and targeted contributions to the economic initiatives in the region. In addition, Australia formulated its regional strategy in the form of the Pacific Engagement Strategy, signed on November 10, 2023, hatched by the Falepili Union of Tuvalu with foreign aid worth A$1.9 billion in the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.
The attempt by China to sidestep this existing regional arrangement in May 2022 through a wide-ranging multilateral security and economic agreement, the China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision, failed after being rejected by PIF members in favor of the regional organization’s top-down approach in which Pacific leaders play both sides when China divides the Forum, indicating that individual states will not forgo their bargaining power in favor of unilateral foreign direction.
The limits of collective bargaining & strategic autonomy
Bargaining strategically as a unit does present structural weaknesses in the form of the divergence of individual states’ interests, which represents the main limitation of the PIF’s current arrangement. Diplomatic recognition divisions mean that member countries of the PIF are divided between those who have diplomatic relations with Beijing and those whose official diplomatic ties are with Taipei (for example, Palau, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands). According to analyses across several publications, such as analysis from the Lowy Institute’s The Indicator, billed as Geopolitics in the Pacific Islands: Playing for advantage, this division causes tension every time there is a PIF summit, especially concerning protocols of partner participation. In addition to the political fault lines, the region has divergent economic dynamics. Developing economies struggling with debt problems have very different fiscal pressures compared to their bigger counterparts, making them more susceptible to debt traps or rapid infrastructural financing solutions that can transcend regional norms.
Nevertheless, these internal divergences cannot undermine the strength of the organization. By embracing multi-directional diplomacy, PIF countries have illustrated that strategic autonomy does not have to be tied to ideological conformity. Rather, it necessitates a consistent strategy of using global rivalry to finance regional ambitions.
Beyond geopolitical imperialism
The key issue at hand is not whether Washington or Beijing will “win” the Pacific. Power in a complex interdependent maritime space is neither static nor exclusive.
The ultimate measure of success is whether Pacific institutions are capable of preserving and enhancing their capacity to function as a collective bargaining platform. As long as the Pacific Islands Forum sets the conditions for engagement, compelling great powers to compete in areas of climate policy, infrastructure development, and economic connectivity, small island nations will continue to be the architects of their regional order in their own right.
This is an externally contributed piece. If you have additional context, a different take, or a perspective we’ve missed — whether you’re a researcher, policymaker, or practitioner — this is an evolving story and we’d like to hear from you. Drop a comment below or get in touch.
About the author
Paul Angelo Fabia is a Filipino political researcher and foreign affairs writer specializing in diplomacy, international relations, and Indo-Pacific affairs. His work explores the political, economic, and strategic developments shaping the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and the wider Indo-Pacific.
