Pacific Islands, explained.
A headline outcome is expected to be Fiji’s proposed “Ocean of Peace” declaration (Getty Images Plus)
Pacific leaders will gather in Honiara for big declarations on security and climate, but regional fragmentation poses a pressing challenge.
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A test of unity: Can the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ meeting keep the family togetherA test of unity: Can the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ meeting keep the family together
Chinese military activity in the Pacific has reached new levels in the past year. A PLA Navy task group circumnavigated Australia in February, staging a live-fire exercise in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand. Beijing registered 26 new Coastguard vessels with the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, intended for high-seas boarding and interdictions. Most strikingly, in late 2024, China conducted its first intercontinental ballistic missile test in the Pacific since 1980, in an unmistakable display of military reach.
These developments compound pressures already weighing heavily on Pacific countries. Transnational crime is on the rise, cyberattacks are becoming more frequent, the region is fighting multiple health crises, and Papua New Guinea continues to wrestle with tribal violence. Disasters, such as the devastating earthquake in Vanuatu in December, remind us again of the region’s acute exposure to forces beyond its control.
It is against this unsettled backdrop that Pacific leaders will gather in Honiara from 8–12 September for the 54th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting. For all the expected fanfare of communiques and declarations, the main question is whether the Forum can hold the line on regional unity in the face of intensifying great-power rivalry and the existential threat of climate change.
One of the meeting’s headline outcomes is expected to be Fiji’s proposed “Ocean of Peace” declaration. Like the earlier Boe Declaration, it is intended to articulate a collective commitment to peace and regional security.
The value of such declarations is largely normative. For Australia, endorsement would frame its growing security investments in the region as consistent with principles agreed by the Forum. For China, however, consensus remains out of reach: Beijing cannot secure regional endorsement of its security role while Taiwan-recognising members Palau, Tuvalu, and Marshall Islands sit at the table.
Shutting out the international community risks undercutting momentum on funding for climate resilience, the very issue leaders consistently identify as the region’s greatest security threat.
Yet community frustration at the gap between fine words and concrete action is building. The political reality is one of increasing divergence.
The Freely Associated States in the North Pacific have long granted Washington exclusive security rights over their territories; PNG and Fiji are aligning ever more closely with Australia, New Zealand, and the United States; Nauru and Tuvalu have signed binding bilateral security treaties with Canberra; while Solomon Islands and Kiribati remain unapologetic about their expanding security partnerships with Beijing.
Cook Islands’ political spat with New Zealand over the former’s signing of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China earlier this year continues. Neither party seems in a reconciling mood.
Regional fragmentation is a constant risk. In this context, even a modest, carefully worded declaration of principles is better than another fracture in the Forum’s ranks.
Australia’s Penny Wong addresses the Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Suva, Fiji, 9 August, 2024
Beyond military manoeuvres, Beijing is pressing harder to reshape regional institutions. At last year’s Leaders’ Meeting, China’s Special Envoy objected to language on Taiwan in the draft communique, effectively dictating terms to Pacific leaders.
This year, Solomon Islands’ decision to bar all dialogue partners from attending the Honiara gathering is a slightly less galling “Plan B” to surreptitiously accommodate China’s preferences, after Solomons’ first proposal of pointedly excluding Taiwan triggered threats of boycott from some members.
Canberra, meanwhile, quietly squirms at a dilemma of its own making.
But the real cost of the snub will be borne by Pacific countries. Shutting out the international community risks undercutting momentum on funding for climate resilience, the very issue leaders consistently identify as the region’s greatest security threat. Not Taiwan’s attendance at the PIF.
A disgruntled PNG Prime Minister James Marape said he would telephone his Solomon Islands counterpart to urge him not to undermine the Forum’s fragile balance. Marape might be better placed directing his appeal to Beijing’s ambassador. It’s not clear what role China’s diplomats already posted in Solomon Islands might seek to play at the Forum.
Despite the bawdy geopolitics, climate change remains the Pacific’s central and existential concern. Leaders are expected to reaffirm their backing of an Australia-Pacific bid to co-host COP31 in 2026, a chance to spotlight the Pacific’s plight and push major emitters for more ambition.
The International Court of Justice delivered its Advisory Opinion on climate change, confirming that states have legal obligations to prevent and redress climate harm. Pacific leaders will seize on this landmark finding to press for accountability and more adequate climate finance.
Canberra, meanwhile, quietly squirms at a dilemma of its own making. Winning the right to co-host COP31 could burnish Australia’s international standing, but with only about a year to prepare, staging what has become a 50,000-person climate festival will be a stretch.
And with a marine heatwave fuelling a massive algal bloom off proposed host-state South Australia’s coast, Australia risks highlighting its environmental vulnerabilities instead of showcasing its climate credentials.
The Honiara meeting will be more than a ritual of handshakes and set-piece speeches (although there will be plenty of those).
On security, the “Ocean of Peace” declaration will show whether members can bridge their diverging alignments and still progress regional collective security. On climate, leaders will seek to harness new legal and moral momentum from the ICJ. On institutional integrity, the Forum must resist being pulled apart, either by external powers flexing their influence, or by members tempted to narrow the tent.
The Forum remains the only place where Pacific leaders can set their own agenda and decide on collective responses to shared problems. The question for leaders in Honiara is whether the Forum can make progress on serious challenges facing the region or drifts apart.
About the author
Mihai Sora
Mihai Sora is Director of Research at the Lowy Institute, where he leads the Institute’s research agenda across programs spanning geopolitics and security, the Indo-Pacific, China, the United States, global economics, aid and development, and the international order.
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