Fiji Shows The Way To Scale Back On China

2023-09-27 01:17:01

(MENAFN- Asia Times) This is part 1 of 2 articles on Fiji's management of geostrategic competition in 2023.

On August 25, after a gathering of the
Melanesian Spearhead Group
in Vanuatu, Sitveni Rabuka, the Fijian prime minister,
observed
that China and the United States“are trying to polarize the Pacific into their own camps, so we have to be very certain that whatever we do, we are mindful of the collective need of the Pacific to be a zone of peace, a zone of non-aligned territories.”

Only 10 days earlier, in Fiji's capital, Suva, Samantha Power, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development,
had told
an audience at the University of the South Pacific,“The United States is not forcing nations to choose between partnering with the United States and partnering with other nations to meet their development goals.”

China's foreign ministry
had chimed in on
the choice of development partners sentiment two months prior.

Set against one another, the above statements indicate a gap in the perceptions of external states and Pacific Island countries amid intensifying geostrategic competition in Oceania. As such, the task for Oceania's political leaders to manage powerful and competing interests toward domestic and regional benefit is unenviable.

This series in two parts examines how, before and after the Fijian elections in December 2022, Suva has practiced the“friends to all, enemy to none” ethos held in many Pacific Island state capitals, and what the chances are of success for not choosing.

This first part explores the Rabuka administration's outward decisiveness in domestic and international affairs, but part two shows how Suva has in reality implemented external power balancing that has resonances beyond the Fijian Islands.

When Fiji went to the polls on December 14, 2022, familiar political parties and leaders sought political power, including FijiFirst, led by incumbent Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, the National Federation Party (NFP), led by Biman Prasad, and the Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), led by Bill Govoka.

The previous month, in a leadership contest, SODELPA removed Sitiveni Rabuka as party leader. He subsequently formed the People's Alliance Party (PAP) and stood for national office. Rabuka is a long-standing political figure in Fiji, having led two military coups in 1987 and served as prime minister between 1992 and 1999.

MENAFN27092023000159011032ID1107148877

Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.