If done right, the relationship between India and the Pacific islands could drive growth, prosperity, and security for the foreseeable decades ahead.
Assuming we don’t stumble into nuclear Armageddon in the time leading up to President Trump’s inauguration, India and her partners will need to do the gruelling task of shoring up mutual interests and collaborative action.
The seeming anarchy in global management that warrants revisiting the priorities and methods of partnership building. It’s not merely about carving out spheres of influence, or regional hegemony. It’s about real estate—vantage points of influence. It’s the ability to bargain from a position of strength, and the forethought to take the discussion into the adversary’s territory rather than, from a losing position, pushing them out from one’s own.
THE INDO-PACIFIC
That’s why it is opportune to revisit the meaning of the Indo-Pacific concept considering India and the Pacific are literally in the name. Who’s to say this formulation wasn’t intentional from its very beginning?
This is a region where peer competitor China seems to be deploying every known trick in the book to secure it for its own. This is not least for the Pacific islands’ wealth of high-grade submarine rare earth minerals and other strategic resources, something Indian submarine mining companies would have interests in. Additionally, the region is at the forefront of the corridor of global prosperity and security in the next few decades. Spread along the Equator, they are the most ideal locations for the cyber and ballistic capabilities in the future whether offensive or defensive.
The region is so vast, if consolidated into a single federal entity it would rival entire continents in sheer geographical space. If you’re in space over the Pacific, you can only see bits of Asia and the Americas on the fringes—the Pacific islands’ territories and economic zones would cover more than quarter of what you could see, and sprawl in a fashion they can cordon off Australia and New Zealand.
All of this is why, if done right, the relationship between India and the Pacific islands could drive growth, prosperity, and security for the foreseeable decades ahead. And, if done wrong, or not at all, the future might look rather bleak.
However, some powers may, or may not, be too friendly in the near and long term. As a result, as it was understood that India’s “Look East” policy wasn’t enough and India had to “Act East”, now Act East may not be enough, India may have to “Hook East” with more direct proactive policies to secure the task in the bag.
But credit where credit is due—India, under the Modi government, initiated and held the first regional forum exclusively between Pacific island countries and a global nuclear power. So far China and the US has joined the trend and helped their own forum with Pacific countries. Japan has been hosting a periodic leaders’ meeting for a while now, more focused on civilian development.
But none has talked about the issue that matters—strategic investments that will elevate the region to tangible global significance, and along with it, a solid Indian partnership. It will not take much for this region to host the new Dubai or Singapore of the future. It’s advisable to advance mutual investments that would move in that direction, even if ever so slightly.
OLD HABITS DIE HARD
It is understandable that India, like the European powers dealing with the region, would like a convenient hub-and-spokes system to stand in for the complexity of dealing with several diplomatic missions in such small islands. That way of thinking may have had its uses, but India is not Europe. Sometimes the best way to secure the golden mile is good old-fashioned pound the pavement.
That depends on the vision and goals. If one’s vision is to receive an amalgamation of mistranslated ideas and miss out the granularity and resolution of what’s really going on, then the current accreditation format of diplomatic missions in the Pacific is good enough. That didn’t prove too helpful in coming late to the party in formation of embassies in Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands.
It goes without my saying that similar missions should be opened in Tonga as well. These countries are fully sovereign states and, from personal experience, India is completely missing in the diplomatic picture, and Indian soft power is absent from the cultural scene. Even the last Pacific Island Forum, the Indian high commission and mission to the Forum were blocked or missing from a few events because of problematic logistics. In the bigger picture, Tongan monarchs are constant travellers to India and the Tongan monarchy has a special place in the region’s culture and history. It is well overdue for a state visit of the Tongan monarchy to India, and also an overnight visit by the Prime Minister of India to Tonga, as was dared by the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi 35 years ago.
Tongans of Indian heritage (most descendant from the indentured population in Fiji), are well established and are powerhouses in the local economy. But they’re small traders from the 19th century. The vast might of Indian technological and financial innovation would mould a new region that is more friendly to Indians and Indian interests. There is a groundswell among the peoples of the Pacific to formalise a new political, diplomatic and security architecture fit for the challenges of the times, and India needs to be in on the ground level. Sharing her experiences of managing a subcontinent of thousands of cultures and languages is feat that can be a gift.
India has sent missions to space and to Mars, maybe it should send the same mission of curiosity of friendship and partnership to the islands of the Pacific. The Polynesian/Pacific island region is almost a 21st century reincarnation of the Peloponnesian League, being an orbital cluster of its own wielding significant strategic benefits in the future if done right particularly the resurgence of Eurasia, and the challenges faced by a maritime oriented world on which India and the Pacific both depends.
* Tevita Motulalo is a graduate of Manipal University Master of Geopolitics and International Relations. He was 2015 Next Gen Pacific Security Scholar, and has written for Gateway House and for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. He is Director of the Maui Institute Nukualofa, Kingdom of Tonga.