Why Pacific Island States Should Seek Collective Security

Beijing has become increasingly aggressive in its interventions in Pacific Island Forum events, trying to exclude Taipei's participation in Pacific diplomacy.

Both the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) are partners of the Pacific Island Forum. Three forum members – Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Palau – recognize the Republic of China while all other forum nations have diplomatic relations with the PRC.

Beijing is widely believed to have pressured some Pacific leaders not to attend the forum this week.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration's foreign policy has exacerbated the crisis in Pacific security, from withdrawing aid to most states in the Pacific in 2025 to launching the war in Iran in 2026, which created an energy crisis in the region.

Increasingly, mainstream narratives portray Pacific nations as pawns on a chessboard and portray the Pacific Island Forum as“fractured” by the China-US contest.

But Pacific nations are not passively waiting for their loyalties to be switched from Beijing back to Washington. They are states with their own agency, interests and histories. Nor is the Pacific Island Forum broken. Its members have been together for 55 years and have weathered many upheavals.

The question is not which great power the Pacific should follow. It is how Pacific countries can acquire enough shelter, collectively, so they do not have to follow anyone.

A useful security partnership should help make a nation more resilient, without requiring it to surrender diplomatic choices. Development finance should build self-sufficiency, not create political dependency.

This is why the Pacific Islands Forum matters.

The forum is imperfect. Its members have different diplomatic relationships and security concerns, and different views on matters such as seabed mining. They will not always agree.

But diversity is an argument for stronger regional institutions, not weaker ones. A Pacific country negotiating alone with a great power is negotiating from weakness. Eighteen countries negotiating together have a collective voice.

They also have something the great powers want: access to an ocean whose strategic and economic significance is rising rapidly.

The Pacific's leverage lies partly in its geography. Its maritime spaces are vast and its nations are key nodes along routes and resources that have always been valuable to larger powers.

The Solomon Islands' recent proposal for a region-wide security arrangement should be recognized as an attempt to ensure no Pacific country faces coercion alone.

While the initiative's proponent, Prime Minister Matthew Wale, is absent from the forum due to political upheaval back home, his delegation remains in Palau to speak up for the motion.