As strategic and economic competition heats up in the region, Tonga is becoming increasingly important to old and new partners, and it's useful to look at perceptions of Tonga and the region, Canadian author and strategic thinker Cleo Paskal, told The Royal Oceania Institute (ROI) in Nuku'alofa this week.

She was the guest speaker for Tonga's fledgling think tank, which held its second public lecture at its new office in the Fakafanua Centre, Nuku'alofa.

Cleo, a Chatham House (London) Associate Fellow, is research lead on a think tank project: “Perceptions of Strategic Shifts in the Indo-Pacific to 2024”. She spoke about Tonga's changing strategic and economic environment.

She was welcomed by ROI founders Lord Fakafanua (the Speaker of Parliament) and Tevita Motulalo, who hosted the event on February 17, with a morning tea.

Lord Fakafanua said Tonga needed to have The Royal Oceania Institute think tank, “to think and use science and research to base our policies on...and we hope that the ROI will provide that and be able to interact with other think tanks who do the same for other countries.”

Interest in Pacific


Cleo said she was talking about perceptions, “to tell you what other people outside of Tonga are thinking about Tonga now, and what that could mean for you when you are making your decisions. They may say they are asking for one thing but it might be a cover for something different.”

For Tonga to take full advantage of this renewed interest in the Pacific, she said it helps to know what is motivating its potential partner, in terms of strategic positioning.

She said that Chinese influence in the region is becoming overt as Pacific Island Countries (PICs) exercise a wider range of strategic and economic options, and there is wide acknowledgment of Chinese influence in both Australia and New Zealand. There is a lot that is new and serious in the different relationships.


“So when Washington, or Paris, or London, or Tokyo, or Delhi, are thinking about Tonga, a large part of what they are thinking about - is China,” she said.

Maritime Indo-Pacific

The term “Indo Pacific” stands for the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, a vast maritime area stretching from east Africa to the west coast of the USA. Tongans were historically aware of their maritime zones of political and social influence going back to the first great migrations. She pointed out that Tonga's traditional leadership structure was built on this knowledge.

“It is worth understanding that Tonga's monarchy also brings visibility, power and influence that many other countries don't have, because of royal protocols [that open doors],” she said.

She spoke about how other countries manage their strategic interests in the region with New Zealand positioning itself overtly in the defence cooperation “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing agreement (USA, UK, Australia, Canada, NZ), whereby New Zealand covers Polynesia.

“As such, a good relationship with the Pacific Islands countries is critically important to New Zealand,” she said.

NZ's interests

“So what's gone wrong? The West thought that with Five Eyes they could leave the region strategically to Australia and New Zealand and they’ll tell us what to do. But one problem was they combined NZ aid and Australian aid into their Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade. So about 10-15 years ago some of the aid priorities started to serve Australian and New Zealand trade and foreign policy interests.”

She believed that Wellington's engagement with the region “is still being shaped by several major legacy policies that risk undermining regional security” and “the most blatant of these is the PACER Plus trade agreement”.

 “PACER Plus is not about economic development in the PICs. It is overtly about turning PIC economies into satellite economies of Australia and New Zealand, even at the cost of impoverishing the PICs themselves.”

A reset is needed, she said, because, “In Pacific relations - PICs are more than just satellite states to be ‘managed’. That approach doesn't work”.

Not all PICs had signed on to PACER Plus. She believed that PACER Plus would economically fragment and weaken Oceania. “Rather than integrating PIC economies it is creating new divisions.”

Relationships

She said that Chinese influence in the region is becoming acknowledged.

Over the last two years both Australia and New Zealand had become very worried about their positions, and announced a reset and step up of their relationships with the region.

“The biggest part of that new engagement, according to an Australian Foreign Policy White Paper, there’s two main elements, namely integrating Pacific countries into Australian and New Zealand economies and security institutions. That's a very big statement – the goal is to integrate, this is very similar to what it looked like 100 years ago,” said Cleo, who gave several examples of where she believed foreign authorities had overstepped their Tongan partner's national integrity and interests.

Discussion

“So a lot of people are interested in the Pacific.

“You have more options than you think you do. You are more important than some of your other partners would like you to think you are. And it’s going to take thinking on your part to figure out how you are going to make that work for your country and your people in the kingdom ...so I would encourage you to participate and keep this discussion ongoing,” said Cleo.

Lord Fakafanua believed that so far, Tonga's international interactions are very cordial. “We've seen the UK commit back to Tonga and that's just proof of Tonga's importance to the world. Our geostrategic space needs to be discussed. We need to understand how we fit in the whole global network and before we know how we can fit in, we need to know who we are and what we want out of that,” he told the ROI gathering.