Beyond Great-Power Rivalry: How the Pacific Islands Forum Is Reclaiming Agency

By Thibaud Brilland

Picture Credit: RNZ

In September 2025, the Solomon Islands hosted the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Summit. Despite being one of China’s key partners in the region since the signing of a framework agreement in March 2022, Honiara made a striking decision: it excluded the Forum’s usual dialogue partners, including China, the United States, France, and Japan, from the summit. In doing so, PIF member states asserted their agency under the “Blue Pacific” doctrine in a clear and deliberate manner. The decision shifted the regional conversation away from great-power rivalry and toward Pacific ownership of regional affairs.

This raises a series of broader questions. Is the PIF merely a stage for US–China competition? How have geopolitical strategies in the region evolved? And to what extent have Pacific Island states succeeded in building a unified bloc capable of safeguarding their independence?

The United States’ strategy in the Pacific can be clearly illustrated through its relationships with Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau. This approach, originally developed during the Cold War in response to the Soviet Union, is now increasingly oriented toward China. Historically, Washington viewed the Pacific Islands as an “American lake”. The region had been wrested from Japanese control through pivotal battles such as Midway at sea and Guadalcanal on land in the Solomon Islands. When the Cold War began, the United States sought to prevent any third military power, namely the USSR, from gaining access to what became known as the “Compact Islands”: Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.

This approach was formalised through the doctrine of “strategic denial”. Developed by Anthony Solomon in the Solomon Report (1963), it argued for a strong and permanent US presence to prevent the possibility of a second Pearl Harbor. The doctrine was legally entrenched under Henry Kissinger during the Nixon and Ford administrations through three agreements signed in 1986 and a further agreement in 1994, collectively forming the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) with the Freely Associated States (FAS). These agreements combine economic assistance with military oversight. The United States provides trust funds, support for education, healthcare, public administration, private sector development, and visa-free access for FAS citizens. In return, Washington retains the right to veto any policy or action taken by FAS governments if it is deemed to interfere with US defence interests. In the current geopolitical climate, this effectively prevents FAS states from signing security or strategic agreements with China.

COFA also underpins a substantial US military footprint in the Pacific, including airfields, radar systems such as the TACMOR radar currently under construction in Palau, maritime patrol operations, and historically, nuclear testing sites like Bikini Atoll. This strategy of denial is even more visible in US Pacific territories such as Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.

China’s geopolitical interests in PIF countries are largely threefold and must be understood as interconnected rather than isolated. They align with Xi Jinping’s vision of ushering China into a “new era” of global prominence, articulated at the 19th Party Congress, with 2049 serving as a symbolic milestone marking the centenary of the People’s Republic of China. The first dimension of China’s engagement is economic. Access to natural resources is central to this strategy. Fisheries, supported by the vast exclusive economic zones of Pacific Island states, are critical to Chinese food security and are often secured through licensing agreements. Beyond fisheries, polymetallic nodules containing cobalt, nickel, and manganese are found on the seabed around the Cook Islands, Kiribati, and Nauru. These minerals are essential for battery production. China already dominates the rare earth sector, accounting for roughly 60 percent of global extraction and nearly 90 percent of refining capacity. Protecting and expanding this advantage is a strategic priority, often reinforced through debt leverage and ownership of key infrastructure in small island states.

The second dimension of China’s interest is geographic. Beijing views itself as constrained by three island chains, the second and third of which include several PIF countries. Although this framework originated as a US strategic concept developed by John Foster Dulles in 1951 during the Korean War, it has been adopted by China to argue that it is strategically encircled by the United States and its allies. This narrative is frequently used to justify the expansion of Chinese military capabilities.

The third dimension concerns the diplomatic isolation of Taiwan. Of the twelve states that officially recognise Taiwan, three are Pacific Island countries: Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu. In 2024, Nauru faced a significant budget shortfall following a reduction in Australian funding. China stepped in with an offer of non-conditional financial support, prompting Nauru to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing.

In recent years, the PIF has demonstrated a growing determination to avoid being subsumed by rivalry between the region’s two major external powers. While member states continue to sign bilateral agreements, they have shown increasing cohesion at the multilateral level. Contemporary diplomatic scholarship highlights a shift away from viewing the Pacific as a passive arena of competition and toward recognising Pacific agency through “Blue Pacific” regionalism. In The New Pacific Diplomacy, Greg Fry argues that by exercising normative power rooted in shared identity, context, and challenges, Pacific states have expanded their strategic autonomy.

This approach is formalised in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, launched in 2022. Through seven thematic pillars and shared values, PIF states articulate a collective voice grounded in their common strengths and vulnerabilities. This positioning has already produced concrete outcomes. In 2022, the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom launched the Partners in the Blue Pacific initiative to coordinate aid to the region without formally including the PIF in decision-making. The initiative was criticised as an attempt at geopolitical co-optation and was collectively rejected. That same year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed a pre-drafted multilateral agreement for PIF countries to sign. It too was rejected, with leaders citing concerns over sovereignty, security, and the lack of consensus within the PIF framework.

Growing external interest has also created space for what Kuik Cheng-Chwee describes as “hedging”. Rather than aligning rigidly with a single major power, Pacific states pursue diversified and sometimes contradictory strategies to create safety nets in an uncertain geopolitical environment. In practice, this often means deepening economic ties with China while relying on the United States and Australia for security cooperation. These shifts have enabled Pacific Island states to refocus attention on internal priorities such as climate change, infrastructure gaps, and development needs, rather than being drawn into external rivalries that do not serve their long-term interests.

Nevertheless, this multilateral approach remains fragile. Bilateral agreements continue to pose a challenge to regional unity, and Pacific states remain dependent on external funding. Diversifying partnerships, including with actors such as France and ASEAN countries, remains essential if Pacific agency is to be sustained over the long term.

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Fry, Greg, and Sandra Tarte. The New Pacific Diplomacy. Canberra: ANU Press, 2015.https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/new-pacific-diplomacy

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