Pacific policing and Australia’s bid to host a major climate conference are top of mind as senior Australian ministers undertake a charm offensive in the region.
Defence Minister Richard Marles is travelling to Vanuatu while Pacific Minister Pat Conroy is heading to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
Marles will meet Prime Minister Charlot Salwai Tabimasmas, his deputy Matai Seremaiah Naulu and a host of ministers and open the redeveloped Cook Barracks in Port Vila.
Pacific expert Meg Keen says she expects the shoring up of support for an Australian-led regional policing pact to be paramount on the agenda.
Police chiefs are working towards a region-wide Pacific policing initiative (PPI) after leaders ticked off on the plan at the Pacific Islands Forum summit.
But China is also looking to muscle its way into the sector and strike its own deals, something Australia has decried.
“You just had China hosting the China policing training hub which came hot on the heels of the PPI – that initiative is incredibly important to Australia,” Dr Keen told AAP.
Conroy will meet Solomons Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele and other senior government ministers to discuss a security partnership following concerns about Honiara’s policing links with China after the two nations signed their own pact.
Discussions will span “a new phase in our security relationship” after a Solomons international assistance force ended, the Pacific minister said.
Referencing the same assistance force, Dr Keen pointed to the Solomons and Vanuatu as “key on policing” with the two nations concerned about internal security.
During his eighth trip to PNG, Conroy will meet with ministers and head to the autonomous Bougainville region.
There is a sustained push by Pacific nations to keep Bougainville’s independence process from PNG on track after nearly 98 per cent of the province voted for it in a referendum yet to be ratified in Port Moresby.
The issue was one of the main drivers of instability in Australia’s north, Dr Keen said.
“They finally found a mediator for Bougainville after a long process, moving that forward and getting support has got to be important for Australia,” she said.
Getting Vanuatu to back Australia’s bid to host the COP31 climate summit was also integral after its prime minister called for the federal government to be more ambitious in its emissions reduction agenda, Dr Keen added.
All three are resource-rich countries in areas such as mining, forestry and fisheries and where “China is most active” in a bid to access these sectors, she said.
China’s intense diplomacy was on display at the PIF Leaders Meeting in Tonga last month, when the regional body issued a communique confirming Taiwan’s status with the organisation.
China’s Pacific envoy Qian Bo called for a correction to the text, which was then updated and stripped of the paragraph, which PIF leaders blamed on a miscommunication in the secretariat.
