Luxon heads into Pacific’s ‘perfect storm’

As Prime Minister Christopher Luxon prepares to attend his first Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ summit in Nuku’alofa next week, the Tongan capital is undergoing last-minute preparations of its own.
The city’s stray dogs are reportedly being rounded up before Pacific leaders arrive, while temporary accommodation is still hurriedly being constructed.
While organisers are undoubtedly sweating the details, the organisational issues pale in comparison to the broader issues facing the forum.
Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific Islands Programme at Australia’s Lowy Institute, says he is hearing more and more from Pacific communities about the pressures they face: from the economic and social impact of climate change, to rising dropout rates at schools and declining health services, and the skyrocketing cost of living.
“It’s like a perfect storm right now for the Pacific: these needs are not new, and they’ve always been severe, but every year becomes a little bit more acute, a little bit more severe.”
Sohai says population pressures within urban Pacific centres are increasing, with more outbreaks of violence in Papua New Guinea, intermittent cases of unrest in the Solomon Islands, and some concern about building pressure in Vanuatu.
Dr Anna Powles, a senior lecturer at Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies, says there continue to be broader concerns about “the robustness and resilience of the regional architecture” as it faces these disparate issues.
The leaders’ meeting is not just a first for Luxon, but for former Nauru president Baron Waqa in his new role as the forum’s secretary-general.
Waqa’s appointment was among a number of measures taken to heal a rift with Micronesian states, which had announced plans to leave the forum in 2021.
The choice of Waqa has not been without controversy, with critics raising concerns about Nauru’s treatment of asylum seekers under his leadership and alleged civil rights abuses that led to the suspension of New Zealand aid; the secretary-general brushed off the criticisms as “irrelevant” after taking office earlier this year.
Despite the pressing concerns in the Pacific, there appears a mismatch between what the public want and what their governments – backed by funding from international partners – deliver, as more foreign aid and national budgets go towards infrastructure projects while health and education investment has “flat-lined” in the past decade.
“You see stuff like a stadium built in a city like Honiara, which doesn’t have clean running water, doesn’t have reliable electricity, has one main road. So that international interest, yes, it can be a good thing, but that interest … doesn’t always meet local priorities, genuine priorities.”
A new Lowy Institute report co-authored by Sora shows the real-world consequences of heightened geopolitical interest in the Pacific: there have been 178 different bilateral and multilateral engagements with Pacific countries since 2021, while 18 new embassies have been established in the region since 2017.

The upcoming leaders’ meeting will be the first since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic where the forum’s 21 dialogue partners have been invited to attend in person, with the turnout likely a further sign of how hot the competition for influence has become.
The forum leaders are reviewing the dialogue partner mechanism as more countries seek to get their foot in the door, with Powles saying a tier system may be put in place to better manage external interest.
“Secretary-General Waqa has made this fairly explicit in his speeches since he assumed the position, that the forum was not going to play into geopolitical rivalries.”
That may be welcomed by New Zealand, given the diplomatic cachet it has as a full member, but there may be jostling for position between dialogue partners as they vie for senior status.
Such rivalries run the risk of detracting from pressing issues within the Pacific – not least May’s unrest in the French territory of New Caledonia over voting reforms that the indigenous Kanak population feared would dilute their political say, following three failed independence referendums.

The forum was due to send three leaders to New Caledonia for a fact-finding mission ahead of the leaders’ meeting, but was forced to delay the visit after a dispute between the French and New Caledonian governments over who held responsibility for approving the trip.
Powles says the meeting is a valuable opportunity for New Caledonia’s leadership to speak to other Pacific nations without French involvement (it is a forum member while France is only a dialogue partner).
But Sora says Pacific leaders are likely to tread carefully on the issue given the forum’s principle of non-interference, while other delicate situations like the West Papua independence movement sit in the background.
Climate change, constantly named as the Pacific’s top priority by the forum, will also feature heavily, with United Nations secretary-general and climate action advocate Antonio Guterres heading to Nuku’alofa to meet leaders.
With the Pacific Resilience Facility, a Pacific-owned finance mechanism intended to help fund the region’s response to climate change, still well short of a US$500 million fundraising target, the hope will be that Guterres’ presence will encourage more countries to open their wallets.
Heightened international engagement with the region also gives Pacific leaders added leverage as they seek to deal with the climate threat, as Sora notes.
“If you’re negotiating right now as a Pacific country, this summit would be your best opportunity in recent years for attracting that additional funding for climate change.”
There are many more topics to be traversed: from Guam and American Samoa’s bids for associate membership, to a lack of Pacific banking services, and divisive topics like deep sea mining. 
As Powles puts it: “There are some pretty meaty issues on the table, but there’s also a lot of distractions.”