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NUKUALofA, August 26, 2024 (BENAR NEWS/AFP) – Leaders of Pacific island nations and senior diplomats from key partners such as China and the United States gathered in Tonga for a week of talks on the decolonization of New Caledonia, climate change, and regional security and cohesion.
The Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting opened on Monday in the Kingdom of Tonga.
Tongan choir singers and dancing students in traditional dress welcome foreign leaders to the coastal capital of Nuku’alofa for this year’s Pacific Islands Forum
The importance of the Pacific Islands Forum as the region’s top diplomatic body grows as geopolitical competition intensifies in the Pacific Islands region, which faces increasing militarization and an unprecedented struggle for influence as the United States and its ally Australia resist Chinese encroachment.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will also attend a meeting of the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum in Nuku’alofa, where he will reinforce calls from Pacific leaders on the need for faster and stronger action to combat climate change.
As the two leaders were meeting, a 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck the main island of Tongatapu at a depth of more than 100 kilometers, but no tsunami warning was issued in one of the countries in the world with the highest risk of natural disasters.
This year’s Forum has a record number of registered participants, including the largest ever Chinese delegation, civil society groups and business lobbyists.
Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa said at the opening of the summit that this was a “critical moment” in the region’s history.
“We may be a small island nation, but we are a force to be reckoned with,” he said in his speech. “We are at the centre of geostrategic interests, and we are at the forefront of addressing climate change and its impacts.”
Waqa said regional solidarity was essential to addressing the challenges facing Pacific people.
“We need to be vigilant about regional security issues, and we have to make sure that these issues are in line with national and regional needs,” he said.
High on the leaders’ agenda were climate change, regional policing initiatives, the 2050 Blue Pacific Strategy and the application of the U.S. territories of Guam and American Samoa for associate membership status.
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiweni Rabuka will also outline his vision for the region to be declared a “Sea of Peace”.
“We have to ensure that our foreign affairs are conducted in a way that does not interfere with others,” Rabuka told reporters after a church service on Sunday.
“We want to eliminate the issue of fear. If we are friends with China, (or) we are friends with the United States and some people are not — that should not cause any fear.”
For Pacific island leaders, resolving unrest in French New Caledonia, a full member of the Pacific Islands Forum, is one of the most pressing issues.
Another pressing security challenge facing Pacific leaders is the unresolved crisis in the French territory of New Caledonia, which quickly came to the fore on the opening day.
“We must reach a consensus on our vision for peace and security in the region,” said Tonga’s Prime Minister Shosi Sovalenei.
“We must respect the vision of our ancestors for self-determination, including in New Caledonia.”
New Caledonia’s mostly Melanesian Kanak ethnic group fears voting reforms recently proposed by Paris could crush their dreams of independence.
The cause has resonated widely across the Pacific, where many former colonies now take great pride in their hard-won sovereignty.
In mid-May, French-backed electoral reforms that weakened the voting rights of New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanak people sparked weeks of violent unrest in the capital, Noumea.
The unrest left 11 people dead and cost the economy more than 2 billion euros ($2.24 billion), with France deploying thousands of police and special forces. Electoral reforms were put on hold ahead of France’s National Assembly elections in late June, but tensions remain high.
A Pacific Islands Forum fact-finding mission was originally scheduled to go to New Caledonia last week, but was postponed due to reported disagreements between the region’s pro-independence ruling coalition and France.
Some Pacific leaders have called for a new referendum on independence for France’s Pacific territories.
Leaders are expected to renew a push to create homegrown climate adaptation funds, an idea that has stalled as much-needed foreign donations dry up.
They will also carefully consider Australia’s bid to host the 2026 COP climate conference, a coal-rich country.
The controversial topic of deep-sea mining is not on any official agenda, but is likely to be the subject of heated debate behind closed doors.
Forum host Tonga is at the forefront of countries eager to open up new industries, joined by fellow forum members Nauru and the Cook Islands.
But other countries, such as Samoa, Palau and Fiji, see this as an environmental disaster in the making and are fully supporting an international ban…
The forum, founded in 1971 and comprising 18 members from Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, as well as Australia and New Zealand, said climate change was the region’s biggest concern but geopolitics would overshadow proceedings.
Billions of dollars worth of aid flow into the region each year, and about 18 new embassies have been opened since 2017.
“There is a real sense that heightened geopolitical interests mean larger delegations and more participants outside the direct body of the forum,” said Dr Anna Powles, a senior lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University in New Zealand. Bernal News.
“The forum will ensure that the agenda does not become an opportunity to advance geopolitical interests as it has in the past,” she said… PACNEWS
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