Pacific leaders back regional police force amid China concerns

Pacific leaders on Wednesday endorsed a sweeping regional policing initiative despite a warning from a bloc of Melanesian countries that it should not be used for geostrategic advantage by Australia and New Zealand. 

The Australian-backed Pacific Policing Initiative, or PPI, is seen as a counterweight to growing Chinese influence in the region that in recent years has become a focal point for competition between major powers. 

Leaders from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga and Palau fronted the media in the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa to announce the police initiative had received backing from the Pacific Islands Forum.

The announcement came just a day after the five-member Melanesian Spearhead Group, or MSG, issued a statement saying parts of the PPI were “cryptic” and needed to be calibrated for Pacific needs. 

On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said endorsement of the law enforcement program was a major objective for this year’s forum.

“By working together, the security of the region will be much stronger and will be looked after by ourselves,” Albanese said.

“Of course sovereign nation states will determine how they participate in this.”

Australia has proposed pouring about $400 million (US$272 million) into training facilities to improve regional policing capabilities under the PPI, including for the establishment of a regional hub in Brisbane. 

Though the Australian government is adamant the initiative is Pacific-led, some analysts say it is also a way for Canberra to retain its position as the Pacific island’s preeminent security partner as China looks to strike bilateral policing agreements.

China signed a secretive security pact with the Solomon Islands in 2022 and unsuccessfully sought to strike a region-wide security deal with nearly a dozen Pacific countries that same year. 

Fiji earlier this year amended a police cooperation agreement with Beijing, scrapping a provision that allowed Chinese officers to be deployed in Fiji.

On Tuesday, the MSG – which includes Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the pro-independence Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front, or FLNKS – said the PPI must fit the needs of Pacific nations. 

“We need to make sure that this PPI is framed to fit our purposes and not developed to suit the geo-strategic interests and geo-strategic denial security postures of our big partners,” said Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai, the current chair of the MSG in his opening remarks to a caucus meeting in Tonga. 

At the same meeting, MSG Director General Leonard Louma said the police deal was a “worthy initiative” but many aspects were still “cryptic.”

Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and the FLNKS were absent from Wednesday's announcement but two MSG leaders were on hand to praise the deal. 

PNG Prime Minister James Marape said the Pacific needed to build up its security apparatus so it could lend a hand from within the region. He also thanked “big partners” Australia and New Zealand for their contributions to the Pacific’s needs, adding that one police training center would be in PNG.

Fijian leader Sitiveni Rabuka said his country’s police force had benefited from regional cooperation and training in the past.

“Most of the problems we face are regional problems … so it’s our responsibility to develop our own policing initiative,” the prime minister said. 

The PPI contains three pillars, according to Albanese, the first of which was the establishment of up to four regional police training centers to be located in Pacific countries. It will also include a pool of officers ready to be deployed during regional crises and a development and coordination hub to be based in Brisbane. 

Tongan Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said a central tenet of this initiative was that forum members would have the discretion to choose how they would contribute to and benefit from the three pillars. 

“Tonga, like many other countries, is facing a number of transnational security challenges, including an increase in drug trafficking within the Pacific in recent years,” he said. 

“Therefore I think it is really important to have a Pacific-led, Pacific-owned initiative that reinforces the existing regional security architecture.”

After the deal was announced, the leaders left without taking questions from the media.

Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific islands program at the Lowy Institute, said the deal was a massive achievement for Pacific countries, at a time when regional unity was under pressure and when Pacific countries were facing mounting threats.

“Pacific countries are still free to pursue individual policing activities with other partners, of course. Sovereignty is paramount,” he told RFA affiliate BenarNews. “But this initiative aims to fill those gaps in policing to which China purports to be responding.”

Pacific civil society groups, speaking on the sidelines of the forum, said engagement with community organizations about the policing initiative had been disappointing.

“There's a lot of reaction taking place rather than deep thinking and analysis and actually listening,” said Sharon Bagwan Rolls of the Pacific Women Mediators Network.

“Traditional security measures are still connected to people, so it does need to come back through the forum process, back into civil society to have those conversations.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.