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Some more background as the Pacific Islands Forum meets in Nauru. See also Snippets/Breaking news for Winston Peter's $10m Pasifika broadcasting announced at the Forum meeting.
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By Michael Shoebridge, director of the defence and strategy programme at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.Australian Strategic Policy Institute. From The Strategist
Australia can
base its engagement with the South Pacific on strategic, economic,
environmental and resource issues, but we’d be much better off
building our relationships on something that is both deeper and more
appealing: we like the people of the South Pacific and we think that
their success and the success of their nations is good for us.
This basis
for Australian engagement—which informs strategic, economic,
cultural and environmental agendas—is a much more inspiring one
than simple mercantile advantage or viewing South Pacific nations as
pawns in a game of great-power competition.
The Pacific Islands Forum meeting will
focus on security,
centred on discussion of the ‘Biketawa Plus’ declaration. That’s
good, though we might start with some broader agenda items that put
security into context as just one part of our relationships.
So, what
might a more aspirational approach look like? A complete agenda would
take longer than an article of this length, so I’ll just give a bit
of a tasting menu to show what might be possible. Read on.
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