TUTUVATU

For Pacific Islands countries (PIC), the current geostrategic, geoeconomic and geopolitical discussions, especially around the Indo-Pacific strategy, is framed in three ways. First, the vulnerability narrative, which portrays PICs as vulnerable and therefore susceptible to outside influence, especially from China. Second,  the treatment of PICs as pawns in the power play-off between the larger countries. Third, the portrayal of PICs as having no agency in the relations that they forge. All of these frames are problematic. But here, let me deal with the vulnerability frame. Underlying this narrative are the interests of the metropolitan countries, rather than those of Pacific Islands countries. Western countries are worried that the dominance they enjoyed in the region since WWII is now being threatened by China’s growing influence. The Quadrilateral partners’ (Quads) – U.S., Australia, Japan and India – rhetorical and policy responses to China’s growing influence in the regio