State Capture: Behind Sogavare’s marriage of convenience with China
Introduction Solomon Islands has emerged as Australia’s most consequential single security concern in the Pacific Island region today. The international dimension …
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Preserving Peace as China Rises II: Preparing for a Post-American Asian Order
With US leadership unable to guarantee peace and security in the Indo-Pacific this century, the region will need to transition …
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Preserving Peace as China Rises I
Inventive foreign policy that can simultaneously reassure the Indo-Pacific’s established powers and accommodate Chinese ambitions is urgently needed. This report …
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Future Submarine Project Should Raise Periscope for Another Look
The Future Submarine Project – replacement of Australia’s 6 ailing Collins Class submarines with 12 Future Submarines – has a …
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Southeast Asia’s American Embrace
All Southeast Asian states want to take advantage of the benefits of a rising China, yet none wants it to …
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The Bipolar Pacific
Australians have become accustomed to bad news from the Pacific islands. Conflict in the Solomon Islands, coups in Fiji, murders …
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Five Out of Ten: A Performance Report on the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI)
The Solomon Islands, with a population of 500,000, is the third-largest state in the Pacific. It is also one of …
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The HIV/AIDS Crisis in Papua New Guinea
The rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in Papua New Guinea has created a health emergency. At least 120,000 Papua New Guineans …
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Time for a Change in Tonga: From Monarchy to Modernity
The Pacific, rather than being famous for blue waters and sandy beaches, is fast gaining a reputation for hosting corrupt, …
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Vision or Fiction? Prospects of Regional Integration in the South Pacific
Following the formation of the European Union, regional economic integration has been sought as path to rapid development by several …
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Partisan games stir up the divided states of America
US midterm elections are always a vote of confidence in incumbents, and this year’s midterms are expected to inflict severe …
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Re-vamping the Pacific: will Australia ‘step up’ or ‘step out’?
In 2014, I wrote a short piece on the Pacific Islands that found its way, surprisingly, across the globe and into the Bangladeshi …
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Build back ‘freer’
The Biden campaign this week announced its vision to ‘build back better’ — arguing “this is no time to just …
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Countering China’s BRI march
As China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) marches west through Southern Asia, diplomatic envoys criss-cross the Indo-pacific like honeybees; collecting …
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Pacific anxiety: Should we worry about China?
China’s increasing aid and infrastructure projects in the Pacific have stirred considerable media attention. But does Beijing’s growing reach pose …
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End the cargo-cult aid mentality that has ruined our neighbours
The villagers of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, together with those of Fiji's military dictatorship where living standards …
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Pakistan a Chinese pawn to stall India
AT the Shangri-La Dialogue meeting of defence ministers in Singapore last month, Indian Defence Minister Pallam Raju was asked whether …
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The Fiji meeting would be a farce if it were funny
The Prime Minister (unelected) of Fiji, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama has succeeded in attracting the leaders of the Melanesian Spearhead Group …
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What a difference a decade doesn’t make to the lives of Pacific Islanders
Ten years after the UN pledged to address poverty and poor health and education levels in the Pacific region, the …
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Army of well-paid advisers keep Pacific poor
Taxpayers should be extremely concerned that egregiously high salaries are paid to aid-funded advisers, not because they are earning more …