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The Pacific Islands Forum is the most important intergovernmental organization to emerge in the Pacific since the post-war decolonization of the region, when Australia and New Zealand formed it with other regional leaders in 1971 to facilitate closer economic cooperation between Pacific Island countries and collective decision-making among member states.
In the half-century since it was established, the Forum has grown into the central forum for dealing with a range of contemporary issues, from climate change and sustainable development to regional security and the geostrategic positioning of the 18 independent states and territories that make up the Forum’s membership — from large states like Australia and New Zealand to small island states such as Tuvalu and Nauru.
In the international context, perhaps the PIF’s most important role is as a pressure group and lobbyist on behalf of the climate action that island states urgently need.
It is the world’s most exposed region to the impacts of climate breakdown, with the Pacific’s western rim in the most perilous position of all. Membership of the PIF is dominated by small island nations, including the country that hosted the 2018 meeting, Nauru.
They are disproportionately affected by sea-level rise, coastal erosion, increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, and the loss of biodiversity.
As a result, the forum acts as a powerful megaphone for these nations on the global stage, especially at the United Nations and at the Conference of the Parties, COP, annual climate summits.
The PIF has played a critical role in pushing for ever more ambitious carbon-reduction commitments and funding to support adapting to the impacts of climate change and mitigating them.
The PIF’s advocacy work ensures not only that the geopolitical challenges of the Pacific are heard but also that the existential nature of the climate crisis for PIF nations comes into focus.
Regional security
Another is that the PIF has become a major actor in regional security through setting norms and developing frameworks for collective actions in times of crisis through agreements such as the Biketawa Declaration (named after the country hosting the 2000 forum meeting).
Through the Biketawa Declaration, signatory Pacific Island leaders agreed the principles for regional intervention in times of instability. The terms of the declaration state that the PIF “stands ready to cooperate and coordinate in all matters relating to maintenance of regional peace and order and the promotion of our shared interests in the rule of law and good governance, democracy, social justice and respect for human dignity and rights, including the rights of indigenous peoples, subscribing to the principles of equality, unanimity and consensus.”
This has meant that, instead of being mere observers to the South Pacific’s internal conflicts and regional security issues, the PIF is in the business of facilitating peacebuilding and conflict resolution across the Pacific, from the Solomon Islands when ethnic tensions almost tore the country apart in 2000, to political instability in Fiji (whose military-led government was suspended from the forum in 2009-11), to sensitivities over asylum seekers.
The PIF has also been engaging broader security issues more recently, given renewed strategic interest from external powers, such as China and the U.S.
With geopolitical competition heating up, the PIF has provided a space for small Pacific Island peoples to assert sovereignty and maintain neutrality, and not to have the region be used by the great powers as a strategic playground that the latter can shape or manipulate according to their own needs and interests.
When it comes to generating economic development, the PIF seeks to spur sustainable growth through regional trade, resource management and tourism. Most member states are small and relatively geographically isolated, so economic cooperation is one way of overcoming structural disadvantages.
The forum also supports measures that would increase intra-regional trade, as well as projects aimed at improving the capacity of Pacific countries to link up to international markets. In the case of fisheries, for instance, the Pacific is home to some of the richest tuna stocks in the world.
The PIF has helped to coordinate regional efforts to manage fisheries in a sustainable way, while enhancing the protection of marine ecosystems and ensuring illegal fishing is curbed. Member nations can pool together their resources and negotiate with external partners in a more effective manner, ensuring that economic activities remain profitable and sustainable.
Furthermore, the PIF is a crucial vehicle for geopolitical equilibrium as the Pacific continues to acquire ever greater strategic significance for the major powers seeking to expand their influence in the region — in particular, the U.S., China and, to a lesser extent, Australia.
For the U.S., the Pacific remains central to its Indo-Pacific strategy and to its aim of countering, growing footprint in the region. Meanwhile, Beijing has sharply increased its diplomatic, economic and infrastructural investments in the Pacific. Through the PIF, Pacific Island countries can engage the major powers on their own terms, asserting their autonomy, and ensuring that their own development and security imperatives remain paramount.
Pacific Island multilateralism — the forum — is how its members can manage geopolitical competition without being drawn into rivalries with the major powers.
Guam’s future ultimately depends on its strategic value to the U.S. in the wider Indo-Pacific context. As an island U.S. territory in the Western Pacific, Guam has long been a critical outpost for US military interests, with tensions between China and North Korea reaching a breaking point amid a recent nuclear standoff.
The island is home to several important U.S. military bases, such as Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam, whose assets are regularly run on rotations for the projection of US military power into the Asia-Pacific.
More recently, Guam has been a prominent talking point for the U.S., as the nation seeks to rebalance military forces across the Pacific, by shifting thousands of Marines from Okinawa, Japan, to Guam.
The effort to expand the realm is part of a larger U.S. strategy to enhance military capabilities in the Pacific while simultaneously reducing political pressure in Japan to retain U.S. military bases.
This will, over time, transform Guam’s economy, infrastructure and geopolitical role. The military buildup and related investment in Guam’s infrastructure will bring jobs, investments and economic activity to the island. But an influx of military personnel and related industries could also overwhelm local resources, including housing, public services and environmental infrastructure. Demographic and economic change could also be significant.
At the same time, Guam’s strategic location is making it ever more vulnerable. With tensions growing with China, Guam could be a target in a conflict. In a crisis over the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, it might be the first U.S. target.
Yet Guam, like much of the Pacific, is also imperiled by climate change, and rising sea levels, increasing storm intensity and other environmental threats could cripple its infrastructure (military and civilian alike) in the coming decades. Climate-change adaptation and mitigation will therefore become part of the island’s future, both in civilian and military planning.
The economy has similarly become dependent on the U.S. military presence and tourism, those twin engines of growth for the past half century.
Like other Pacific Island territories, however, Guam has opportunities to develop trade and investment to diversify its economy. Thanks to its location in the middle of the Pacific, Guam could become a trading hub for the U.S., Asia, and the wider Pacific. It could develop logistics, energy and technology businesses to leverage its strategic location.
Politically, the future of Guam is also a battleground: some advocate for more autonomy from the U.S., or even independence. These movements are much smaller than those aimed at strengthening U.S. links, but they do gain traction among people who see the culture and political identity of Guam as distinct and different from that of the U.S.
Finally, though the PIF is likely to remain the chief multilateral mechanism for coordinating the region’s responses to myriad challenges — from the big-power geopolitics to the devastation of climate change — Guam as a stronghold, its economic prospects and, perhaps, its physical safety, is also tied up with its military status.
The forum and Guam both represent the Pacific’s growing place in world politics, as the region is drawn into the pressures of the outside, the dynamics of the region and the forces of globalization and climatic change.
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