Opinion | Great powers seeking a warm Pacific island welcome can learn from India

China’s foray into the South Pacific in recent years with a focus on infrastructure investment has alarmed Australia and its Western allies such as the US, which see it as a security issue – triggering a geopolitical contest that has raised concern among the small island nations.

Last July, at the Pacific Islands Forum in Fiji, leaders made it clear that they refuse to be pawns in a game played by outside powers. They also confirmed that climate change remains the Pacific’s greatest existential threat.

A month earlier, Fiji’s defence minister Inia Seruiratu told Asia’s top security meeting, the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, that in the Blue Pacific, machine guns, fighter jets, warships and infantry battalions are not the primary security concern. “The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change,” he said. “It threatens our very hopes and dreams of prosperity.”

Military tensions in the region escalated in November 2020 when China and Papua New Guinea (PNG) signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a “multifunctional fishery industrial park” on Daru Island, about 200km from Northern Australia. That set off speculation in the Australian media and certain segments of the Canberra political establishment about China supposedly planning a naval base on their doorstep.

Tensions moved into high gear in March 2022, after a draft security agreement between the Solomon Islands and China was leaked to the Australian media. It triggered a flurry of reporting, raising concerns that China may be moving towards establishing its first military base in the South Pacific.

Since then, there have been frequent visits to the region, particularly by Australian and US political and military leaders offering defence training deals dressed up as development aid – including help to shore up small island nations’ patrolling capabilities to protect their fisheries.