Debate on Guam’s future as a US territory has intensified with its legislature due to vote on a non-binding resolution to become a US state amid mounting Pacific geostrategic tensions and expansionist declarations by the Trump administration.

Located closer to Beijing than Hawai’i, Guam serves as a key US strategic asset, known as the “tip of the spear,” with 10,000 military personnel, an air base for F-35 fighters and B-2 bombers and home port for Virginia-class nuclear submarines.

The small US territory of 166,000 people is also listed by the UN for decolonisation and last year became an associate member at the Pacific Islands Forum.

Local Senator William A. Parkinson introduced the resolution to the legislature last Wednesday and called for Guam to be fully integrated into the American union, possibly as the 51st state.

“We are standing in a moment of history where two great empires are standing face-to-face with each other, about to go to war,” Parkinson said at a press conference on Thursday.

“We have to be real about what’s going on in this part of the world. We are a tiny island but we are too strategically important to be left alone. Stay with America or do we let ourselves be absorbed by China?”

His resolution states the decision “must be built upon the informed consent of the people of Guam through a referendum”.

Trump’s expansionist policies
Parkinson’s resolution comes as US President Donald Trump advocates territorially expansionist policies, particularly towards the strategically located Danish-ruled autonomous territory of Greenland and America’s northern neighbour, Canada.

“This one moment in time, this one moment in history, the stars are aligning so that the geopolitics of the United States favour statehood for Guam,” Parkinson said. “This is an opportunity we cannot pass up.”

As a territory, Guam residents are American citizens but they cannot vote for the US president and their lone delegate to the Congress has no voting power on the floor.

The US acquired Guam, along with Puerto Rico, in 1898 after winning the Spanish-American War, and both remain unincorporated territories to this day.

Independence advocates and representatives from the Guam Commission on Decolonisation regularly testify at the UN’s Decolonisation Committee, where the island has been listed as a Non-Self-Governing Territory since 1946.

Commission on Decolonisation executive director Melvin Won Pat-Borja said he was not opposed to statehood but is concerned if any decision on Guam’s status was left to the US.

“Decolonisation is the right of the colonised,” he said while attending Parkinson’s press conference, the Pacific Daily News reported.

‘Hands of our coloniser’
“It’s counterintuitive to say that, ‘we’re seeking a path forward, a path out of this inequity,’ and then turn around and put it right back in the hands of our coloniser.

“No matter what status any of us prefer, ultimately that is not for any one of us to decide, but it is up to a collective decision that we have to come to, and the only way to do it is via referendum,” he said, reports Kuam News.

With the geostrategic competition between the US and China in the Pacific, Guam has become increasingly significant in supporting American naval and air operations, especially in the event of a conflict over Taiwan or in the South China Sea.

The two US bases have seen Guam’s economy become heavily reliant on military investments and tourism.

The Defence Department holds about 25 percent of Guam’s land and is preparing to spend billions to upgrade the island’s military infrastructure as another 5000 American marines relocate there from Japan’s Okinawa islands.

Guam is also within range of Chinese and North Korean ballistic missiles and the US has trialed a defence system, with the first tests held in December.

The “moment in history” for statehood may also be defined by the Trump administration spending cuts, Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero warned in her “state of the island” address on Wednesday.

Military presence leveraged
The island has in recent years leveraged the increased military presence to demand federal assistance and the territory’s treasury relies on at least US$0.5 billion in annual funding.

“Let us be clear about this: Guam cannot be the linchpin of American security in the Asian-Pacific if nearly 14,000 of our residents are without shelter, because housing aid to Guam is cut, or if 36,000 of our people lose access to Medicaid and Medicare coverage keeping them healthy, alive and out of poverty,” Guerrero said.

Parkinson’s proposed legislative resolution calls for an end to 125-plus years of US colonial uncertainty.

“The people of Guam, as the rightful stewards of their homeland, must assert their inalienable right to self-determination,” states the resolution, including that there be a “full examination of statehood or enhanced autonomous status for Guam.”

“Granting Guam equal political status would signal unequivocally that Guam is an integral part of the United States, deterring adversaries who might otherwise perceive Guam as a mere expendable outpost.”

If adopted by the Guam legislature, the non-binding resolution would be transmitted to the White House.

A local statute enacted in 2000 for a political status plebiscite on statehood, independence or free association has become bogged down in US courts.

‘Reject colonial status quo’
Neil Weare, a former Guam resident and co-director of Right to Democracy, said the self-determination process must be centred on what the people of Guam want, “not just what’s best for US national security”.

“Right to Democracy does not take a position on political status, other than to reject the undemocratic and colonial status quo,” Weare said on behalf of the nonprofit organisation that advocates for rights and self-determination in US territories.

“People can have different views on what is the best solution to this problem, but we should all be in agreement that the continued undemocratic rule of millions of people in US territories is wrong and needs to end.”

He said the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence next year can open a new venue for a conversation about key concepts — such as the “consent of the governed” — involving Guam and other US territories.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A Pacific regionalism academic has called out New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS and says the security deal “raises serious questions for the Pacific region”.

Auckland University of Technology academic Dr Marco de Jong said Pasifika voices must be included in the debate on whether or not Aotearoa should join AUKUS.

New Zealand is considering joining Pillar 2 of the agreement, a non-nuclear option, but critics say this could be seen as Aotearoa rubber-stamping Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

New Zealand is considering joining Pillar 2 of the agreement, a non-nuclear option, but critics say this could be seen as Aotearoa rubber-stamping Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines.

On Monday, Peters said New Zealand was “a long way” from making a decision about participating in Pillar 2 of AUKUS.

He was interrupted by a silent protester holding an anti-AUKUS sign, during a foreign policy speech at an event at Parliament, where Peters spoke about the multi-national military alliance.

Peters spent more time attacking critics than outlining a case to join AUKUS, de Jong said.

Investigating the deal
Peters told RNZ’s Morning Report the deal was something the government was investigating.

“There are new exciting things that can help humanity. Our job is to find out what we are talking about before we rush to judgement and make all these silly panicking statements.”

The Minister answers questions following his speech from media, including on the strategic environment, AUKUS Pillar 2, defence spending, leadership in 🇳🇿’s national security system, and bipartisanship in 🇳🇿 foreign policy. pic.twitter.com/BSSolJLhHQ

— Winston Peters (@NewZealandMFA) May 1, 2024

According to UK’s House of Commons research briefing document explaining AUKUS Pillar 2, Canada, Japan and South Korea are also being considered as “potential partners” alongside New Zealand.

Peters said there had been no official invitation to join yet and claimed he did not know enough information about AUKUS yet.

However, Dr de Jong argues this is not the case.

“According to classified documents New Zealand has been in talks with the United States about this since 2021. If we do not know what it [AUKUS] is right now, I wonder when we will?”

The security pact was first considered under the previous Labour government and those investigations have continued under the new coalition government.

Former Labour leader and prime minister Helen Clark said NZ joining AUKUS would risk its relationship with its largest trading partner China and said Aotearoa must act as a guardian to the South Pacific.

Profiling Pacific perspectives
Cook Islands, Tonga and Samoa weighed in on the issue during NZ’s diplomatic visit of the three nations earlier this year.

At the time, Samoa’s Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa said: “We don’t want the Pacific to be seen as an area that people will take licence of nuclear arrangements.”

The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga) prohibits signatories — which include Australia and New Zealand — from placing nuclear weapons within the South Pacific.

Fiamē said she did not want the Pacific to become a region affected by more nuclear weapons.

However, other Pacific leaders have not taken as strong a stance as Samoa, instead acknowledging NZ’s “sovereignty” while re-emphasising commitments to the Blue Pacific partnership.

“I do not think that Winston Peters should mistake the quietness of Pacific leaders on AUKUS as necessarily supporting NZ’s position,” de Jong said.

“Most Pacific leaders will instead of calling out NZ, re-emphasis their own commitment to the Blue Pacific ideals and a nuclear-free Pacific.”

Minister Peters, who appears to have a good standing in the Pacific region, has said it is important to treat smaller nations exactly the same as so-called global foreign superpowers, such as the US, India and China.

Pacific ‘felt blindsided’
When the deal was announced, de Jong said “Pacific leaders felt blindsided”.

“Pacific nations will be asking what foreign partners have for the Pacific, how the framing of the region is consistent with theirs and what the defence funding will mean for diplomacy.”

AUKUS is seeking to advance military capabilities and there will be heavy use of AI technology, he said, adding “the types of things being developed are hyper-sonic weapons, cyber technologies, sea-drones.”

“Peters could have spelled out how New Zealand will contribute to the eight different workstreams…there’s plenty of information out there,” de Jong said.

“They are linking surveillance drones to targeting systems and missiles systems. It is creating these human machines, teams of a next generation war-fighitng technology.

The intention behind it is to win the next-generation technology being tested in the war in Ukraine and Gaza, he said.

Dr de Jong said it was crucial New Zealand find out how this was and could impact “instability in the Pacific”.

“Climate Change remains the principle security threat. It is not clear AUKUS does anything to meet climate action or development to the region.

“It could be creating the very instability that it is seeking to address by advancing this military focus,” he added.

Legacies of nuclear testing
Dr de Jong said in the Pacific, nuclear issues were closely tied to aspirations for regional self-determination.

“In a region living with the legacies of nuclear testing in Marshall Islands, Ma’ohi Nui, and Kiribati, there is concern that AUKUS, along with the Fukushima discharge, has ushered in a new nuclearism.”

He said Australia had sought endorsements to offset regional concerns about AUKUS, notably at the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting and the ANZMIN talks.

“However, it is clear AUKUS has had a chilling effect on Australia’s support for nuclear disarmament, with Anthony Albanese appearing to withdraw Australian support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and the universalisation of Rarotonga.

“New Zealand, which is a firm supporter of both these agreements, must consider that while Pillar 2 has been described as ‘non-nuclear’, it is unlikely that Pacific people find this distinction meaningful, especially if it means stepping back from such advocacy.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

One year since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese went to San Diego to unveil the AUKUS deal the news came that the first of three second-hand Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines supposed to arrive in 2032 may not happen.

Former coalition prime minister Scott Morrison announced AUKUS in September 2021 and Albanese continued to champion the pact between the US, Britain and Australia.

Phase one involves Australia acquiring eight nuclear-powered submarines as tensions in the Indo-Pacific are growing.

Concerns about the submarines ever materialising are not new, despite the US passing its National Defence Bill 2024 which facilitates the transfer of the nuclear-powered warships.

However, the Pentagon’s 2025 fiscal year budget only set aside funding to build one Virginia submarine. This affects the AUKUS deal as the US had promised to lift production from around 1.3 submarines a year to 2.3 to meet all requirements.

Australia’s acquisition of the first of three second-hand SSNs were to bridge the submarine gap, as talk about a US-led war on China continues.

US Democratic congressperson Joe Courtney told The Sydney Morning Herald on March 12 the US was struggling with its own shipbuilding capacity, meaning promises to Australia were being deprioritised.

Production downturn
Courtney said that the downturn in production “will remove one more attack submarine from a fleet that is already 17 submarines below the navy’s long-stated requirement of 66”.

The US needs to produce 18 more submarines by 2032 to be able to pass one on to Australia.

After passing laws permitting the transfer of nuclear technology, the deal is running a year at least behind schedule.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge said on X that “When the US passed the law to set up AUKUS they put in kill switches, one of which allowed the US to decide not [to] transfer the submarines if doing so would ‘degrade the US undersea capabilities’”.

Pat Conroy, Labor’s Defence Industry Minister, retorted that the government was confident the submarines would appear.

The White House seems unfazed; it would have been aware of the problems for some time.

Meanwhile the USS Annapolis, a US nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) has docked in Boorloo/Perth.

AUKUS still under way
Regardless of whether Australia acquires any nuclear-powered vessels, the rest of the AUKUS deal, including interoperability with the US, is already underway.

Andrew Hastie, Liberal Party spokesperson, confirmed that construction at HMAS Stirling will start next year for “Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West)”, the permanent US-British nuclear-powered submarine base in WA, which is due to be completed in 2027.

SRF-West includes 700 US army personnel and their families being stationed in WA. If the second-hand nuclear submarines do not materialise, the US submarines will be on hand.

SRF-West may also serve as an alternative to the five British-designed AUKUS SSNs, slated to be built in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide over coming decades.

Australia respects the Pentagon’s warhead ambiguity policy, meaning that any US military equipment stationed here could be carrying nuclear weapons: we will never know.

Shoebridge said on March 13 he was entering a hearing to decide where the AUKUS powers can dump their nuclear waste. Local waste dumps are being considered, as the US and Britain do not have permanent radioactive waste dumps.

The waste to be dumped is said to have a low-level radioactivity. However, as former Senator Rex Patrick pointed out, SSNs produce high-level radioactive waste at the end of their shelf lives that will need to be stored somewhere, underground, forever.

‘Radioactive waste management’
The Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Bill 2023, tabled last November, allows for the AUKUS SSNs to be constructed and also provides for “a radioactive waste management facility”.

The Australian public is spending US$3 billion on helping the US submarine industrial base expand capacity. An initial US$2 billion will be spent next year, followed by $100 million annually from 2026 through to 2033.

The Pentagon has budgeted US$4 billion for its submarine industry next year, with an extra US$11 billion over the following five years.

The removal of the Virginia subs, and even the AUKUS submarines from the agreement, would be in keeping with the terms of the 2014 Force Posture Agreement, signed off by then prime minister Tony Abbott.

As part of the Barack Obama administration’s 2011 “pivot to Asia”, the US-Australia Force Posture Agreement allows for 2500 Marines to be stationed in the Northern Territory.

It sets up increasing interoperability between both countries’ air forces and allows the US unimpeded access to dozens of “agreed-to facilities and areas”.

These agreed bases remain classified.

US takes full control
However, as the recent US overhaul of RAAF Base Tindall in the NT reveals, when the US decides to do that it takes full control.

Tindall has been upgraded to allow for six US B-52 bombers that may be carrying nuclear warheads.

US laws that facilitate the transfer of Virginia-class submarines also make clear that as Australia is now classified as a US domestic military source this allows the US privileged access to critical minerals, such as lithium.

Paul Gregoire writes for Sydney Criminal Lawyers where a version of this article was first published. The article has also been published at Green Left magazine and is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An international relations professor says that if New Zealand joins AUKUS it could impact on its relations with Pacific countries.

AUKUS is a security agreement between Australia, the UK and the US, which will see Australia supplied with nuclear-powered submarines.

That has raised concern in the Pacific, which is under the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga.

The topic has come up while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited New Zealand.

The visit came after he visited Tonga.

Robert Patman, professor of international relations at the University of Otago, said New Zealand’s views on non-nuclear security are shared by the majority of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members and also the Pacific Island states.

“Even if New Zealand joined AUKUS in a non-nuclear fashion, technically, it may be seen through the eyes of others as diluting our commitment to that norm,” Professor Patman said.

Sharing defence information
Professor Patman explained that “pillar 1” of AUKUS is about providing nuclear-powered submarines to Australia over two or three decades, and “pillar 2” is to do with sharing information on defence technologies.

“We haven’t closed the door on it, but it’s a considerable risk from New Zealand’s point of view, because a lot of our credibility is having an independent foreign policy.”

Asked about New Zealand’s potential membership in AUKUS, Blinken said work on pillar 2 was ongoing.

“The door is very much open for New Zealand and other partners to engage as they see appropriate,” he said.

“New Zealand is a deeply trusted partner, obviously a Five Eyes member.

“We’ve long worked together on the most important national security issues.”

New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said the government was exploring pillar 2 of the deal.

Not committed
But she said New Zealand had not committed to anything.

Mahuta said New Zealand had been clear it would not compromise its nuclear-free position, and that was acknowledged by AUKUS members.

Patman said that statement was reassurance for Pacific Island states.

“[New Zealand is] party to the Treaty of Rarotonga,” he said.

“We have to weigh up whether the benefits of being in pillar 2 outweigh possible external perception that we’re eroding our commitment, to being party to an arrangement which is facilitating the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.”

He said New Zealand had also been in talks with NATO about getting access to cutting-edge technology, so it was not dependent on AUKUS for that.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

“But it is what it is,” he said of the tripartite arrangement.

‘Escalation of tension’
“We’ve already seen it will lead to an escalation of tension, and we’re not happy with that as a region.”

Other regional leaders who have publicly expressed concerns about the deal include Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare, Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister Simon Kofe and Vanuatu’s Climate Change Minister Ralph Regenvanu.

With Cook Islands set to host this year’s PIF meeting in October, Brown has hinted that the “conflicting” nuclear submarine deal is expected to be a big part of the agenda.

“The name Pacific means ‘peace’, so to have this increase of naval nuclear vessels coming through the region is in direct contrast with that,” he said.

“I think there will be opportunities where we will individually and collectively as a forum voice our concern about the increase in nuclear vessels.”

Brown said “a good result” at the leaders gathering “would be the larger countries respecting the wishes of Pacific countries.”

“Many are in opposition of nuclear weapons and nuclear vessels,” he said.

“The whole intention of the Treaty of Rarotonga was to try to de-escalate what were at the time Cold War tensions between the major superpowers.”

“This Aukus arrangement seems to be going against it,” he added.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Speaking from Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Dame Meg Taylor said Pacific leaders were being sidelined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.

“The issue here is that we should have paid much more attention to the Indo-Pacific strategy as it emerged,” she said.

“And we were not ever consulted by the countries that are party to that, including some of our own members of the Pacific Island Forum. Then the emergence of AUKUS — Pacific countries were never consulted on this either,” she said.

Last week in San Diego, the leaders of the United States, the UK and Australia — President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese respectively — formally announced the AUKUS deal.

It will see the Australian government spending nearly $US250 billion over the next three decades to acquire a fleet of US nuclear submarines with UK tech components — the majority of which will be built in Adelaide — as part of the defence and security pact.

Its implementation will make Australia one of only seven countries in the world to have nuclear-powered submarines alongside China, France, India, Russia, the UK, and the US.

“We believe in a world that protects freedom and respects human rights, the rule of law, the independence of sovereign states, and the rules-based international order,” the leaders said in a joint statement.

“The steps we are announcing today will help us to advance these mutually beneficial objectives in the decades to come,” they said.

Following the announcement, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wengbin said by going ahead with the pact the US, UK and Australia disregarded the concerns of the international community and have gone further down “the wrong path”.

“We’ve repeatedly said that the establishment of the so-called AUKUS security partnership between the US, the UK and Australia to promote cooperation on nuclear submarines and other cutting-edge military technologies, is a typical Cold War mentality,” Wang said.

“It will only exacerbate the arms race, undermine the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, and hurt regional peace and stability,” he said.

The 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy is the United States’ programme to ” advance our common vision for an Indo-Pacific region that is free and open, connected, prosperous, secure, and resilient.”

The Rarotonga Treaty
On his return from San Diego, Australia’s Albanese stopped over in Suva where he met his Fijian counterpart Sitiveni Rabuka.

After the meeting, Rabuka told reporters he supported AUKUS and that Albanese had assured him the nuclear submarine deal would not undermine the Treaty of Rarotonga — to which Australia is a party — that declares the South Pacific a nuclear weapon free zone.

But an Australian academic said Pacific countries cannot take Canberra at face value when it comes to AUKUS and its committment to the Rarotonga Treaty.

Dr Matthew Fitzpatrick, a professor in international history at Flinders University in South Australia, said Pacific leaders need to hold Australia accountable to the treaty.

“Australia and New Zealand have always differed on what that treaty extends to in the sense that for New Zealand, that means more or less that you haven’t had US vessels with nuclear arms [or nuclear powered] permitted into the ports of New Zealand, whereas in Australia, those vessels more or less have been welcomed,” he said.

Professor Fitzpatrick said Australia had declared that it did not breach it, or it did not breach any of those treaty commitments, but the proof of the pudding would be in the eating.

“I think it’s something that certainly nations around the Pacific should be very careful and very cautious in taking at face value, what Australia says on those treaty requirements and should ensure that they’re rigorously enforced,” Professor Fitzpatrick said.

Parties to the Rarotonga Treaty include Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

Notably absent are three north Pacific countries who have compacts of free association with the United States — Palau, Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Dame Meg Taylor said Sitiveni Rabuka’s signal of support for AUKUS by no means reflected the positions of other leaders in the region.

“I think the concern for us is that we in the Pacific, particularly those of us who are signatories to the Treaty of Rarotonga, have always been committed to the fact that we wanted a place to live where there was no proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“The debate, I think that will emerge within the Pacific is ‘are nuclear submarines weapons’?”

Self-fulfilling prophecy
Meanwhile, a geopolitical analyst, Geoffrey Miller who writes for political website Democracy Project, said the deal could become a “self-fulfilling prophecy” for conflict.

“Indo-Pacific countries all around the region are re-arming and spending more on their militaries,” Miller said.

Japan approved its biggest military buildup since the Second World War last year and Dr Miller said New Zealand was reviewing its defence policy which would likely lead to more spending.

“I worry that the AUKUS deal will only make things worse,” he said.

“The more of these kinds of power projections, and the less dialogue we have, the more likely it is that we are ultimately going to bring about this conflict that we’re all trying to avoid.

“I think we do need to think about de-escalation even more and let’s not talk ourselves into World War III.”

Miller said tensions had grown since Russia invaded Ukraine and analysts had changed their view on how likely China was to invade Taiwain.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australia needs to be put on notice by Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders over abandoning its commitments under the South Pacific’s nuclear free accord — the Treaty of Rarotonga — by signing up to the controversial security pact, AUKUS, says the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG).

The deal by the Australian, the United Kingdom, and the United States governments is “highly problematic” and “heightens risks for nuclear proliferation” in the region, PANG coordinator Maureen Penjueli said.

“Security and defence pacts today are about the Pacific Ocean — which is our home — but it has never been with Pacific people, let alone our governments,” she said.

AUKUS is promoted as a trilateral partnership between the three allies to enable Australia to boost its military capacity by acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for its navy.

However, Australia, was a key part of PIF and also a party to the Rarotonga Treaty, the region’s principal nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament agreement, Penjueli said.

The accord legally binds member states “not to manufacture, possess, acquire or have control of nuclear weapons (Article 3)”, as well as “to prevent nuclear testing in their territories (Article 6)”. The treaty further places an emphasis on keeping the region free from radioactive wastes.

Penjueli said that Pacific people had had first-hand experience of the threats of nuclear weapons testing, and continued to live with the sideeffects of historical nuclear catastrophes to this day.

Long list of nuclear threats
“We see AUKUS as just one in a long list of nuclear threats and issues that the region as a whole has been confronted with,” she said.

“We see Australia playing a key, often unilateral role, taking decisions around peace and security which is not aligned with Pacific peoples’ immediate priorities around security, in particular human security.

“AUKUS raises serious concerns over Australia’s intentions for its island neighbours.”

Pacific Island governments and civil society had been at the forefront in advocating for a nuclear free and independent Pacific.

They have expressed strong opposition to AUKUS since it was announced in September, which experts say undermines regional solidarity on the issue of a nuclear free Pacific.

Australuan foreign policy analyst Dr Greg Fry said that the more immediate threat to the South Pacific nuclear-free zone lay not in the nuclear submarines, which were not due until 2040 and beyond, “but in the fundamental shift in Australian-US defence arrangements which were announced alongside AUKUS”.

According to Dr Fry, these arrangements included the possible home-basing of American submarines, surface vessels, and bombers, in Australia, as well stockpiling of munitions.

Home basing threat
“Home basing would require the presence of nuclear weapons in Australia. This raises questions for article 5 of the Rarotonga Treaty which bans the stationing of nuclear weapons in the treaty zone.

“It would, therefore, require Australia to notify the Secretary-General of the PIFS under article 9 of the treaty.”

Dr Fry said Australia’s assurances that the nuclear reactors powering the submarines would not be in danger of accidently releasing radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean needed to be examined against the history of accidents involving nuclear submarines.

“There has already been a serious accident in the Pacific. In 2005, the US nuclear attack submarine USS San Francisco ran into a sea mount near the Caroline Islands in the Federated States of Micronesia.

“Although the nuclear reactor was undamaged, it was reported as ‘remarkable’ that it was not given the extensive damage to the submarine,” he said.

“Aside from the obvious nuclear concerns, the partnership is also widely noted to be an effort by the Australia-UK-US governments to counter the growing influence of China in the Pacific.

“It [AUKUS] also means Australia is even more fully integrated with US forces in a new cold war with China right now,” said Dr Fry.

Major policy shift
He added that “this is a major shift in policy from one where we pretended we were friends to both China and US”.

Penjueli said that several Pacific countries have had long diplomatic relations with China and the Asian superpower was not considered a problem.

“Our countries have taken much more nuanced policies with China. It is time that Australia is put on notice at the Forum. It is clearly part of our neighbourhood but it is acting outside of the norms of Pacific Islands Forum.”

She said that while AUKUS had taken the limelight, it was not the only cause for nuclear anxiety for the region.

The revelation by a Japanese utility company about plans to release nuclear waste from the Fukushima nuclear power plant — one of the world’s worst atomic disasters — into the Pacific Ocean had also set the alarm bells ringing.

“Japan is also a partner to the forum and the announcement has infuriated regional governments and activist groups,” Penjueli said.

“Our governments have opposed nuclear testing, they have opposed the movement of nuclear shipments of radioactive waste and they have strongly opposed the announcement by Japan to dump radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.

“The Pacific Ocean is not a dumping ground for nuclear materials, nor is it a highway for nuclear submarines.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Australia’s new security pact with the US and the UK has touched a nerve at the core of Pacific regionalism.

The AUKUS alliance, announced by leaders of the three countries last week, finds them seeking strategic advantage in the Indo-Pacific region with a focus on developing nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian Navy.

Announcing the pact via video link with Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his British counterpart Boris Johnson, US president Joe Biden said it was about enhancing their collective ability to take on the threats of the 21st century.

France has recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia for consultations, in a “Pacific” backlash over a submarine deal after Canberra cancelled a multibillion-dollar deal for conventional French submarines, reports Al Jazeera.

President Biden declared: “Today we’re taking another historic step, to deepen and formalise co-operation among all three of our nations, because we all recognise the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term.

“We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region, and how it may evolve.”

Describing this threat as rapidly evolving, Biden said AUKUS was launching consultations on Australia’s acquisition of conventionally armed submarines powered by nuclear reactors. The president emphasised that the subs would not be nuclear-armed.

Serious concern for Pacific
But the general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Reverend James Bhagwan, said the move towards nuclear submarines was a serious concern for a region still dealing with the fallout from nuclear weapons tests.

“Three weeks ago, the current chair of Pacific Islands Forum, the Prime Minister of Fiji (Voreqe Bainimarama) reiterated that we want a Blue Pacific that is nuclear free. It’s at the heart of Pacific regionalism,” he said.

“From the Sixties, from when the very first tests started in our region, this is something that government, civil society, churches have all been very adamant against, to keep our Pacific nuclear-free. We are still dealing with the fallout from nuclear testing.”

However, Morrison said it was time to take the partnership between the three nations to a “new level”, noting that “our world is becoming more complex, especially here in our region, the Indo-Pacific”, a sign of the alliance’s growing angst over China.

But the move towards nuclear submarines confronts the spirit of a nuclear-free zone that Pacific regional countries signed up to decades ago.

Furthermore, the pact comes as the Pacific Islands Forum continues to protest about Japan’s plans to dump treated nuclear waste water into the ocean from the Fukushima power plant, that was damaged in an earthquake and tsunami 10 years ago.

Taken by surprise
The Federated States of Micronesia, a country with close ties to the US, was diplomatic in conveying how the pact caught it by surprise.

A spokesperson for the FSM government said it had “trust, faith and confidence” in the US and Australia in their promotion, and protection, of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific

“It can safely be assumed that the United States and Australia are making security decisions with the best interests of the Pacific in mind, because our vitality is their vitality. That said, this news is a surprise.

“Micronesia is confident this decision makes our country safer, but Micronesia also looks forward to learning more about how precisely that is the case.”

Rather than loss of business, Pacific Islands are more concerned about existential loss, having first hand experience of nuclear testing by French, American and British.

“The ocean impacts on our life,” Reverend Bhagwan said.

“We are the fish basket of the world. So if one submarine comes in and something goes wrong and the nuclear waste from that submarine gets into our ocean, that’s too much already.”

Pacific interests
Reverend Bhagwan questioned how the pact stacked up with Scott Morrison’s claims that Australia considered Pacific Islands countries as vuvale, or family.

“This is our Pacific way. Sometimes we don’t agree, but we always act in the best interests, we always come and support one another,” he said.

“This is not Australia acting in the best interests of the rest of its Pacific Vuvale.”

China has described the pact as being detrimental to regional peace and stability.

Relations between Beijing and Canberra are at an all-time low, and a spokesman for the Chinese government urged Australia to think carefully whether to treat China as a partner or a threat.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the prohibition of nuclear-powered vessels in its waters remained unchanged, adding that the pact “in no way changes our security and intelligence ties with these three countries”.

She said New Zealand was first and foremost a nation of the Pacific which viewed foreign policy developments through the lens of what is in the best interest of the region.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz