Prime Minister Albanese didn’t look too enthusiastic as he set off for Palau on 31 August. He knows that Palau is another example of where insignificant does not mean inconsequential.
Thu 3 Sep 2026 01.00 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
With dozens of strategic bombers and nine Carrier Strike Groups, the United States likes to maintain a near-permanent display of its military might (what defence groupies call “strategic posture”) around the globe. Until it can’t.
This week, the Pacific showed world leaders firsthand what climate change looks like. Back home, the Coalition and One Nation saw something else. They saw an opportunity to dog whistle and punch down on our Pacific nations.
Prime Minister Albanese didn’t look too enthusiastic as he set off for Palau on 31 August. A presidential republic in free association with the USA, Palau is less than 500 square kms in size and has a population of fewer than 18 thousand people living on 340 little islands to the east of Indonesia and the Philippines. It may be off the beaten track, but not so far off that Albanese hasn’t been there before. He and his wife holidayed there just last year. So at least he knows where it is and what he’s in for.
He knows that Palau is another example of where insignificant does not mean inconsequential. One of only three Pacific countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan (the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu being the others), Palau has invited Taiwan to attend the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) as an “official development partner”. That’s doubtless where Albanese’s long face begins.
But sadly, it does not end there. China is also attending as a PIF “official dialogue partner”, and is understandably piffed off. Five of the PIF leaders have suddenly found themselves unable to attend — claiming political problems at home (the Solomon Islands), indisposition and other priorities (Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu and Fiji).
So once again, at a time when cohesion and collaboration are at a premium in the Pacific, the PIF is split by geo-political competition that has nothing to do with addressing the climate, economic development and social infrastructure issues affecting the well-being of the people living in the PIF countries. China is once again acting out its displeasure at being upstaged by Taiwan, and Taiwan is making the most of its ability to disrupt even as its cohort of diplomatic partners is atrophying.
All of this has provided New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, with another opportunity to generate a bit of self-attention by insinuating “foreign interference” as the reason for the fall off in representation — without actually calling China out. This is exactly what Albanese does not need after his halting efforts at security diplomacy during the past year or so. His approach has unfortunately been all too consistent with the anti-China narrative that has infected so much of the Australian media.
Containment of China, or at least constricting its freedom of action in the South Pacific, has been the implied objective of Australian diplomacy in the Pacific for most of this decade. Instead of maximising and exploiting our significant advantages in the Pacific, Australia has attempted to pursue a “strategy of denial” by constraining China.
Most of the PIF members just don’t want to be caught up in this game, preferring the focus to be on what they want from both Australia and China rather than what Australia doesn’t want from China. And Australia has not met this diplomatic challenge at all well, especially given how prone China itself is to maladroit manoeuvre in the Pacific.
Quality research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts you can trust.
Australia pursues a defensive international policy in the Pacific, premised on two irreconcilable pathologies: fear of China and dependence on the USA. We subordinate our interests in the Pacific, and those of the members of the Pacific community, to an ongoing preoccupation with largely futile steps to control China’s realisation of its interests (whatever they are, because they’re not clear) and to bolster America’s presence and role in the Pacific in pursuit of its own interests.
We assume that America’s interests are aligned with ours. They’re not. America’s interests in the Pacific are about seeing off competitors, maintaining the “balance” in favour of US military power and strategic dominance. That, unfortunately for Australia’s current policymakers, is of declining relevance and achievability. Australia’s interests are necessarily more local and less confrontational: they focus on communal and national well-being, harmony, peace, prosperity and stability, all as key components of human security, without which there can be no national or regional security.
Australia needs considerably more self-direction in the framing and conduct of its Pacific policy. Of course we need our economic partnership with China. And of course we need our long-term cultural and political alignment with America.
This is not a binary relationship, however. A Pacific policy constructed around the convergent interests of PIF members, particularly climate change mitigation, improved health outcomes and easier access to the Australian labour market, would reveal the juvenile contests between Taiwan and China for what they truly are — irrelevant and distracting sideshows.
If Prime Minister Albanese wants a PIF to which he could lend his considerable authority, those are the interests that will deliver it. There’s nothing more conducive to a successful Australian policy in the Pacific than a good PIF.
Allan Behm works in The Australia Institute’s International and Security Affairs Program
