Something interesting is happening in how Australians think about their own country’s influence in the Pacific. According to the Lowy Institute’s 2025 poll, 39 per cent of Australians now see Australia as the most influential power in the Pacific Islands, a notable increase from last year’s result of 31 per cent.
Australia has overtaken China, previously seen by Australians as the dominant player, which holds steady at 34 per cent.
These figures suggest a shifting perception domestically, perhaps reflecting Canberra’s energetic “listening” diplomacy, through which Australia has ramped up diplomatic effort and significantly increased financial assistance to the Pacific over the past three years. Canberra’s approach of marrying generous aid packages with not-so-subtle diplomatic leverage on security matters appears to have resonated at home.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government has successfully positioned itself as a more responsive partner to Pacific concerns, particularly on security, climate change, and economic resilience. Canberra’s recent agreements with countries including Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, and Nauru – which blend financial support, migration pathways, and security consultations – have clearly influenced public perceptions of Australia’s regional influence.
US influence evaporates
Meanwhile, American influence in the Pacific is evaporating like wet footprints in the hot sun.
The United States was already lagging behind China in 2024 (at 25 per cent versus China’s 34 per cent), but this year’s result shows only around half as many Australians think America holds the most influence in the Pacific (18 per cent) as those who think the same of China (34 per cent).
This year’s poll shows that Australians have been quick to realise that America’s language on “the China challenge” in the Pacific is not matched by its actions.
Would anyone paying attention have expected a different result? Especially given the Trump administration’s firebombing of USAID’s budget, programs and now staff, not just in the Pacific but globally, a brutal process that commenced on Donald Trump’s first day back in the White House on 20 January 2025.
The Trump tariffs were announced just after this year’s polling. Even so, with tariffs of 32 per cent against Fiji, 30 per cent against Nauru, 22 per cent against Vanuatu, and none but Palau spared overall, “America First” rhetoric is being felt in the region more like “America Only”.
More recently, Trump gave a green light to US deep sea mining in the Pacific Ocean as potential source of critical minerals, diving feet-first into an issue that threatens to divide the Pacific Islands Forum along economic, political and environmental lines.
This year’s poll shows that Australians have been quick to realise that America’s language on “the China challenge” in the Pacific is not matched by its actions. The contradictions, or, more generously, the ambiguity, with respect to America’s reliability as a partner to Pacific countries is undeniably hurting America’s relations in the region.
Ambiguity may be a viable posture for hot-button issues such as Taiwan, but in diplomatic relations, America will be judged by its reliability and consistency.
At the 2024 PIF Leaders’ Meeting, senior Biden administration official Kurt Campbell was caught in a hot mic moment telling Albanese that the United States was giving Australia ‘the lane’ in the Pacific. The reality is that America is giving China the lane. Australia’s not going anywhere.
Permanent contest
And the competition remains intense.
While Australia is undeniably the largest aid donor in the region, and uniquely maintains a diplomatic presence in every PIF member state, Beijing’s bare-faced influence-building is plain as day.
The China-Pacific Island countries Foreign Ministers’ meeting last month foreshadowed increased Chinese presence in security and policing, development, and stronger economic ties with those Pacific countries that recognise China over Taiwan. Beijing’s blend of visa-waivers, economic incentives, infrastructure financing, and diplomatic duchessing, ensures its presence is both felt and appreciated across island capitals.
To Canberra’s chagrin, plenty of Pacific countries are evidently happy to buy what China is selling.
In 2024, China registered 26 Coastguard vessels with the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, signalling a more assertive regional maritime presence. It is not clear how China intends to deploy its more than two-dozen vessels, but if the dynamics in the South China Sea are any indication, it will likely result in Chinese vessels harassing other countries, while protecting its own fishing fleet – widely understood as often responsible for illegal fishing in the Pacific Ocean.
In theory, using Coastguard vessels rather than warships extends China’s maritime domain awareness and access without being as provocative as a military presence. That said, Chinese Coastguard behaviour in the South China Sea is already stretching the definition of “grey-zone activities”.
China’s rapid advance into the security sector since signing its controversial security pact with Solomon Islands in 2022 indicates persistent ambitions. Its Pacific police training programs, not just in Solomon Islands, but also in Vanuatu, Kiribati, Samoa, and Fiji are increasingly publicised by China in an attempt to market itself a contributor to regional security rather than a threat to stability.
To Canberra’s chagrin, plenty of Pacific countries are evidently happy to buy what China is selling, even while some countries including PNG and Fiji are aligning more closely to Australia’s worldview.
Therein lies the rub: while perceptions do matter, it is Pacific countries’ own strategic choices that will ultimately be the deciding factor in who has influence and how the regional balance of power is shaped for decades to come.
Explore the 2025 Lowy Institute Poll and 21 years’ worth of data on our interactive website: https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/
