Can the Pacific Islands remain ‘friends to all’?

Most Pacific Island countries claim the foreign policy of “friends to all and enemies to none” amid the mounting geopolitical disputes between the United States and China. But what does this foreign policy mean?

This policy seeks to identify short- and long-term national interests on an ad hoc basis with bilateral partners, including superpowers the United States and China. Many developing states profess this foreign policy to ensure they remain neutral during this period of intense rivalry.

Among the key issues discussed by Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders including Australia and New Zealand during their recent 52nd meeting in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, was great-power competition, with the region increasingly being used as a geopolitical playground for hard power projection.

On geopolitics, the host of the PIF meeting, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, stated that the Pacific region was seen as the focus of “heightened geo-strategic interest.”

Nevertheless, he said, the region would not shift attention away from the key issue of climate change, especially when dealing with the PIF’s 21 dialogue partners, which include the United States and China.

China has its footprint in the region through its Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure program largely funded by China’s Exim Bank in the form of loans to countries in the Pacific and developing countries in other regions of the world. However, recent studies indicate that the populations of a few countries in the Pacific already disapprove of the BRI because of debt risks.

China’s official development finances in the Pacific region have decreased significantly since 2016, according to the 2023 Pacific Aid Map launched by the Lowy Institute, but China maintains