Urgent Need for New Approaches to Keep the Pacific Free

Excerpt

The PRC has well-advanced plans for establishing influence that leads to control across much of the Pacific—plans that are essential if it is to achieve its other stated goals, such as taking Taiwan and pushing the United States out of the Pacific. 

Outside of the U.S. Freely Associated States, Washington has seemingly given the strategic lead in the Pacific Islands to Australia and New Zealand, though that may change with the second term of U.S. President Donald Trump. Canberra and Wellington’s policies have failed to achieve meaningful influence, as the PRC expands its own influence across the region, freedoms are being extinguished, rule of law is being undermined, and strategic space is being taken over—as seen not only in with the security deals with Solomon Islands and Cook Islands, but with three countries abandoning Taiwan since 2019.

This crucial region needs new ideas and approaches to blocking and building that can free it of PRC-driven corrosion. PICs need ideas that look to new partners, new paths to economic development, and new ways for the people of the region to get the tools they need to defend themselves from what looks to be the biggest assault on their freedoms since the end of World War II. Young practitioners willing to learn from and support Pacific leaders such as Suidani and Panuelo will be on the front line of this fight for freedom. If they get it right, they could help avert the next brutal battle for the Pacific.

Cleo Paskal is a non-resident senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies focusing on the Indo-Pacific region.