Statecraftiness: Mapping Statecraft in the Pacific Islands

The increasingly ‘ crowded and complex ’ geopolitics of the Pacific Islands region makes understanding which partner states are deploying what tools of statecraft in the region, and where they are targeting them, vital to policymaking in the region.

But beyond data collected on discrete topics (such as the  Pacific Aid Map  created by the Lowy Institute), there has not been an attempt to collect, analyse, and map the various tools of statecraft that partner state actors are deploying across the region. The series of stories we have collated on this page help to fill this gap.

This StoryMap is a living resource that we are working to develop throughout 2024. Please revisit it regularly to see what updates we have made.

In tandem with developing this StoryMap, we published two series of our podcast “Statecraftiness – Investigating Influence in the Pacific” in 2023 and 2024. Links to episodes of the podcast are embedded throughout this StoryMap.

The most visible statecraft tool deployed in the Pacific is the presence of diplomatic missions and consular posts. Diplomatic posts are central to conducting routine diplomatic activities and facilitating diplomatic visits as a tool for improving bilateral ties. Australia is the only state actor with diplomatic posts in all PICs, followed closely by New Zealand, which is present in all PICs except Palau, Micronesia, and Marshall Islands.

The below map shows the network of embassies and other diplomatic posts representing foreign interests in PICs.

Partner states often seek membership of multilateral regional forums and treaties as a way to try to shape regional agendas, influence decisions, and build their relationships with PICs. PICs can also seek to enmesh partner states in the regional political infrastructure to constrain or shape their behaviour.

Diplomatic recognition is a significant tool of statecraft in the Pacific. PICs can leverage the longstanding contest for recognition between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China/Taiwan to access resources and increase their international clout. Partner states can also use diplomatic recognition as a tool of statecraft to improve their relationships in the region, most recently illustrated by the United States’ commitment at the September 2022 US-Pacific Island Country Summit – after pressure from PICs – to recognise Cook Islands and Niue. Partner states can also pursue diplomatic recognition to advance other tools of statecraft. For example, China has used Solomon Islands’ decision to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019 to secure a bilateral security agreement.

Please swipe the map below to view the change in diplomatic recognition of Taiwan between 2015 and 2024.

While aid receives the most attention as a tool of statecraft in the Pacific (and is well mapped by the Lowy Institute), trade is also an important tool. Trade liberalisation, through concessional or unrestricted market access to partner states can form an attractive inducement to PICs. And trade restrictions – especially if they are viewed as punitive – can generate tensions in partner states’ relationships with PICs.

Threatened by natural disasters, which are being exacerbated by climate change, the Pacific receives considerable humanitarian and disaster relief support.

But PICs are not passive in the face of the threat of climate change. In season 2, episode 6 of our Statecraftiness podcast, Gordon Peake explores how Pacific leaders and activists are engaging in climate diplomacy, negotiations, and sustainable development solutions to secure their region.

The COVID-19 pandemic intersected with and exacerbated the impact of natural disasters in the region. In season 2, episode 3 of our Statecraftiness podcast, Gordon Peake examined how partner countries and PICs practiced statecraft amidst the pandemic.

The Asian Development Bank estimates that the Pacific will require US$30 billion to fund new, climate-resilient infrastructure between the present and 2030. Supplying the funding and the capabilities for delivering infrastructure thus represents a very potent form of statecraft for interested partners.

But concerns have been raised about some of the infrastructure finance being provided to PICs, particularly whether loans are sustainable and what developmental benefits they deliver. Gordon Peake investigates this in episode 6 of our Statecraftiness podcast.

In late 2022, Statecraftiness podcast host Gordon Peake teamed up with creator and producer Anxious Coconut (Godfreeman Kaptigau) to tour the ‘sites of statecraft’ around Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. You can join them on their tour in the video below.

Please click on the recent major infrastructure projects below to learn more about where they are located and which partner states are involved in them.

Over the last decade there has been competition between partners to fund and/or build telecommunications infrastructure in the Pacific. A particular focus has been on building undersea cables. In episode 3 of our Statecraftiness podcast, Gordon Peake examines the race to build and control this vital infrastructure.

The following are undersea cables that connect the Pacific region:

• The Southern Cross Cable Network, at a length of 30,500 km, connects Australia, Fiji and New Zealand to the USA. Its suppliers are ASN and Fujitsu. It was commissioned in 2000. The cable was a private investment at an estimated $1.5 billion spent on the initial system.
• The Hawaiki Nui cable, at a length of 25,000 km, is a cable system connecting Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii that will be ready for service in 2025. Launched in 2021, it will be the first international cable to land in New Zealand’s South Island. It is a private project spearheaded by Hawaiki.
• The Manatua cable, with a length of 3,634 km, links Samoa, Niue, Cook Islands and French Polynesia, making it the first-ever fibre optic cable connectivity available to Cook Islands. The cable was manufactured in the United States and was declared ready for service in July 2020. It is managed by the Manatua Consortium, comprising OPT of French Polynesia, Avaroa Cable Limited of Cook Islands, Telecom Niue Limited of Niue, and the Samoa Submarine Cable Company.
• The Tui-Samoa cable, consisting of 1,693 km in length, is owned by the Samoa Submarine Cable Company, and supplied by ASN. It connects Fiji, Wallis and Futuna, and Samoa. It was ready for service in February 2018.
• The Gondwana-2/Picot-2 cable, at 1,515 km in length, connects New Caledonia to Fiji. It is owned by OPT French Polynesia and is supplied by ASN.
• The interchange Cable Network 1 was ready for service in January 2014 and stands at 1,259 km in length. It is owned by Interchange and supplied by ASN. It connects Fiji to Vanuatu.
• The Coral Sea Cable System at 4,700 km in length, was ready for service in February 2020. It connects Australia to the Solomon Islands and PNG, and is owned by PNG DataCo Limited, and the Solomon Island Submarine Cable Company.
• The Kumul Domestic Submarine Cable System, ready for service in February 2019 and at a length of 5,457 km, connects the many regions of PNG.
• The Japan-Guam-Australia South Cable, ready for service in March 2020, is owned by Australia’s Academic and Research Network and Google and is supplied by ASN. It connects Australia to Guam.
• The East Micronesia Cable, ready for service in 2025, connects Micronesia, Nauru, and Kiribati. At a length of 2,000 km.

Soft power involves "the intentional deployment of mostly non-material resources to influence recipient states, actors, or individuals to develop positive beliefs, attitudes, and/or opinions about the partner state, or the partner state’s worldview".

Partner states try to exercise soft power in a range of ways. Below we discuss cultural activities, scholarships, language training, churches, state media, social media, and strategic narratives. Partners also often see their developmental assistance programs as cultivating soft power.

In episode 4 of our Statecraftiness podcast, Gordon Peake examines the work of gender advisers in generating soft power.

In episode 7 of our Statecraftiness podcast, Gordon Peake turns his attention to governance assistance and public administration programs.

Cultural activities, such as cultural centres, cultural exchanges, and art projects, and sporting activities, such as sports development programs, are assumed to enhance partner states’ soft power in the Pacific by increasing mutual understanding and building relationships. Gordon Peake explores the value of ‘Sportcraftiness’ in season 2, episode 1 of our Statecraftiness podcast.

Gordon also examines ‘Foodcraftiness’ in season 2, episode 2 of our Statecraftiness podcast with project team member Henrietta McNeill.

The PacificAus Sports program works with partners across the Pacific Islands region to enhance sporting communities and create new opportunities for people-to-people links. Its partners include the NRL, AFL, Cricket Australia, Football Australia, and Netball Australia.

A government-sponsored Indian Cultural Centre infrastructure in Suva, Fiji, has been open since January 1972.

The China Cultural Centre in Fiji was inaugurated in 2015. The Centre has held exhibitions and cultural performance.

On 23 March 2019, Palau and Taiwanese governments signed an agreement to expand cultural exchange activities between the two countries. These activities range from academic research (such as a student delegation visit to the Palau International Coral Reef Center shown in the photo) to cultural performances and exhibitions. The shared Austronesian linguistic heritage of the indigenous tribes in Palau and Taiwan becomes one of the bedrocks of the strong cultural alliance. (see GCTF International Austronesian Languages Revitalization Forum).

Following China's tourist ban to Palau since 2018, Taiwan introduced COVID-era travel bubble between Palau and Taiwan, allowing travelers from and to the two countries to visit without quarantine.

In June 2015, the US and Taiwan initiated the  Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) , a partnership intended to strengthen Taiwan's regional presence by inviting experts from the Pacific region in training programs and multilateral cooperation. The topics of interest include, among others, public health, disaster relief, women's empowerment, and cyber-security.

In June 2019, Palau hosted the first GCTF event held outside of Taiwan, which is the fifth International Austronesian Languages Revitalization Forum. Scholars from Australia, New Zealand, US, Indonesia, Palau, and Taiwan attended the conference. In the same year Japan joined as a full partner, a move that was followed by Australia in 2021.

Funded by the New Zealand government's Creative New Zealand Pacific Arts Strategy (2018-2023), the project showcases Pacific artists' voices and oral history through a digital platform, The Pantograph Punch.

Launched as collectors' items and not for formal circulation (numismatic) on the 8 August 2022, the Fijian Reserve Bank issued a banknote of a Fiji 88 cents (88 being considered a lucky number in the Chinese culture), intended to generate income from sales to the Chinese and Asian market.

With around 8 thousand people from China living in the country, the act is framed as a move by the Fijian government to embrace the country's diversity and economic cooperation with China.

The China Aid Project on Sports Technical Assistance to Tonga is an aid initiative which provides training equipment and supports around 100 Tongan athletes and coaches to train in several provinces in China (namely  Hunan , Yunnan and Sichuan) in preparation for the  2019 Pacific Games held in Samoa  and the  2020 Tokyo Olympic Games  (held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). These are athletes from boxing, badminton, archery, swimming, athletics, table tennis, and volleyball.

Partner states have long identified the importance of building people-to-people linkages in the Pacific through education programs and scholarships.

In episode 5 of our Statecraftiness podcast, Gordon Peake investigates education scholarships as a tool of soft power.

And in this policy paper,  Australia’s Pacific Scholarships as a tool of statecraft: student perspectives , Priestley Habru, Wilhelmina Utukana, Feagaimaalii Soti Mapu, Jim Tawa Biliki, and Epo Mark discuss how holding an Australian scholarship has shaped their opinion of Australia.

Being able to speak Pacific languages could help partner state representatives and their other citizens to deepen people-to-people links in the Pacific. However, there are currently few programs outside the region for learning Pacific languages.

Please take a tour of the map below to find out where study programs for Pacific languages can be found.

Churches play an often unappreciated role in the conduct of soft power statecraft. This is especially true of the Pacific region, where Christian beliefs are often embedded in local culture and churches frequently participate in the development of local communities. Churches also represent a means to distribute foreign aid to remote communities.

Media broadcasts and publications are another key soft power statecraft tool. While international stations from all the world's large powers can be picked up across the Pacific, at present five countries - Australia, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States - stand out for their efforts to tailor content for audiences across the Pacific as a way of cultivating their influence there.

State media plays a critical role in disseminating strategic narratives and conducting information campaigns, either to enhance a partner state’s own reputation or to degrade the reputations of its adversaries.

These are the major partner state media organisations that broadcast into the Pacific. Work is ongoing to map their coverage in the region.

The media landscape in the Pacific is changing rapidly. In the past, partner states could only reach people through expensive and limited state programming (which could then only be consumed by those with access to radios and televisions).

Today the advent of smart-phones and widely available mobile data (many plans include free access to Facebook) has resulted in a substantial broadening of partners’ potential audience. Diplomatic missions take advantage of the ability to speak directly and cheaply to citizens of PICs, although the quality of the content they post on social media varies. Australia and New Zealand, in particular, have devoted resources to tailoring content to appeal to local tastes and in local languages.

 Strategic narratives  are ‘a means for political actors to construct a shared meaning of the past, present, and future of international politics to shape the behaviour of domestic and international actors’. If leaders can get their target states (and other actors) to ‘buy into’ their strategic narrative, this can ‘shape their interests, their identity, and their understanding of how international relations works and where it is heading’.

As shown below, partner states have recently deployed a series of strategic narratives in the Pacific Island region.

Joanne Wallis has analysed Australia’s efforts to narrate itself as a member of the ‘Pacific family’. In this article,  Contradictions in Australia’s Pacific Islands discourse , she argues that the Pacific family framing contradicts Australia’s narrative about its strategic interests in the ‘Indo-Pacific’. In another article,  The enclosure and exclusion of Australia’s ‘Pacific family’ , Joanne Wallis argues that Australia’s efforts to enclose the Pacific Islands region through narrating it as Australia’s family are, at times, undermined by its efforts to exclude Pacific Islands people through its migration policies.

In  Ordering the Islands? Pacific Responses to China’s Strategic Narratives , Joanne Wallis, Geyi Xie, William Waqavakatoga, Priestley Habru, and Maima Koro, outline the three key strategic narratives that China has deployed to attempt to influence Pacific Island countries, and analyse how they have been received, interpreted, and, at times, instrumentalised by Fijian, Solomon Islands, and Samoan leaders.

In  The United states as a ‘Pacific Nation’: Imaginary, Performance, and Spatialisation , Joanne Wallis, Emily Conroy, and Cayleigh Stock analyse how the United States has attempted to narrate itself as a ‘Pacific nation’ to justify its role in the region.

Pacific Island countries have also deployed strategic narratives. In this article,   The ‘Blue Pacific’ strategic narrative: rhetorical action, acceptance, entrapment, and appropriation?  , Joanne Wallis, Maima Koro, and Corey O’Dwyer analyse how Pacific Island countries have used the   Blue Pacific   strategic narrative to try to influence their partner states.

In season 2, episode 4 of our Statecraftiness podcast, Gordon Peake considers the World of Wordcraft – how the words chosen in government documents shape understanding and influence actions.

Security cooperation is increasingly being recognised as a potential tool of statecraft, as beyond enhancing the capacity of PICs to respond to security challenges it can improve partner states’ relationships in the region, shape regional responses to crises, and, if accompanied by the presence of partner states’ security forces, lead to a formal presence in partner PICs.

A related project,  Security Cooperation in the Pacific Islands , identified and mapped the various cooperative security agreements, arrangements, and institutions between and among states and territories in the Pacific Islands region, and their partners. These are shown on the map below.

In addition to their involvement in regional initiatives, partner states are increasingly seeking bilateral security agreements and partnerships with PICs.

In our fourth policy paper,  Statecraftiness: Australia’s defence diplomacy in the Pacific Islands , Joanne Wallis, Quentin Hanich (University of Wollongong), and Michael Rose analyse the effectiveness of Australia’s defence diplomacy as a tool of statecraft in the Pacific Islands.

These issues are also explored in season 1, episode 8 of the Statecraftiness podcast.

The size of the Pacific poses particular challenges when it comes to maritime and aviation safety.

Most PICs are responsible for their own search and rescue (SAR) zones under the ‘ Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) technical arrangement for cooperation among Pacific Island countries and territories ’. However, in practice partner states assist in mounting complex rescue operations that employ long-distance ships and aircraft equipped with advance search technology.

New Zealand takes a particularly direct role in assisting its neighbours with this American Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau and Tonga all sit direction within its  area of responsibility .

 Australia  takes a less direct approach, coordinating with neighboring countries including the PNG National Maritime Safety Authority (NMSA) to increase their SAR capability and provide direct assistance when needed.

International SAR cooperation between outside powers is coordinated through the Pacific Community and the International Maritime Organization under an arrangement entitled, ‘maritime SAR technical arrangement for cooperation among Pacific Island countries and territories’ that support international lifesaving in the Pacific Ocean.

While Australia and New Zealand have long provided both bilateral and multilateral policing training and assistance across the Pacific, it is becoming an increasingly crowded space. In episode 2 of our Statecraftiness podcast, Gordon Peake examines policising assistance and what influence it has garnered.

Select a country in the map to explore policing assistance provided to them by Australia, China or New Zealand.

Military presence, particularly through bases, is a key defence and security related statecraft tool. While concern has been expressed that the 2022 security agreement between Solomon Islands and China could create a mechanism for Chinese military or police deployment to Solomon Islands, the US, France, and Australia already have bases in the region, as illustrated on the map below.

People-to-people links are increasingly being recognised as an important statecraft tool. Pacific expatriate and diaspora communities offer important commercial, personal, and cultural links between their home communities in the region and those of the partner state in which they live.

While understanding population census data is complex, the map below draws on the best and most recent data available, but still is best approached as a general sketch of the situation.

Tourism deserves its own category as a statecraft tool, as it is both an economic activity and a determinant of peoples’ movement. And this statecraft tool can be used coercively, as  Palau found out in 2018 , when its reliance on Chinese tourists was used against it to try coerce it to drop recognition for Taiwan.

Labour mobility has grown in importance as a tool of statecraft for partner states. Access to partner states for PIC citizens can provide a valuable source of remittances and employment. This is particularly relevant in a region like the Pacific, where youth unemployment rates are high and domestic economies are often unable to create sufficient jobs.

Explore the map below to learn about the extent of participation by PICs in labour migration programs.

As our map of military presence illustrates, the United States and its allies maintain an unchallenged military presence in the Pacific. But other actors – both state and non-state – are using grey-zone activities.

While the  Australian Government defines  grey-zone activities broadly, we focus on efforts to manipulate the information domain, including misinformation, disinformation, and intelligence and espionage. The following are some examples of grey-zone activities in the Pacific region.

This activity is supported by the Australian Government through a grant by the Australian Department of Defence. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or the Australian Department of Defence.

We also thank Kira Page, Sam Quinsey, Corey O’Dwyer, Jackson Grange, Ade Prastyani, and Henrietta McNeill for their wonderful support and insight.