Introduction by Croakey: As we monitor Tropical Cyclone Alfred – expected to make landfall in south-east Queensland late on Thursday or early Friday – Fiji recovers from storm damage after category two Tropical Cyclone Rae passed the Lao Island group of Fiji on Tuesday.
In this month’s edition of her column, Pacific Islands focus, Isabelle Zhu-Maguire writes that many Pacific leaders will continue fighting for climate justice, even without United States engagement in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Zhu-Maguire, PhD candidate at the Coral Bell School of Asia and Pacific Affairs, Department of International Relations within the Australian National University, also reports on increasing dengue fever outbreaks in Tonga and Fiji, concerns about air pollution, and strained diplomatic relations between the Cook Islands and Aotearoa/New Zealand.
The quotable?
…the loyalty of the Pacific Islands cannot be taken for granted. Despite being considered ‘micro-states’ by many, they wield autonomy and influence over their big oceans. Their concerns should be listened to.”
Isabelle Zhu-Maguire writes:
In this month’s Pacific Islands focus, I delve into current political tensions in the Cook Islands, and share some updates on health and environmental issues in the Pacific Islands.
Following a tense month between the Cook Islands and Aotearoa/New Zealand, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown last week survived a vote of no confidence in parliament.
The vote was put forward by the opposition leader after recent controversial decisions by Brown, including signing a deal with China and a proposal to create a Cook Islands passport which would mean the Islands need to give up Aotearoa/New Zealand citizenship.
The comprehensive agreement with China includes preferential treatment in regional and multi-lateral forums, the establishment of diplomatic missions and cooperation on seabed mining.
It feels very reminiscent of the ways in which the Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic ties to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 2019, and then their security agreement with the PRC in 2021.
These situations underscore a few major things.
First, the loyalty of the Pacific Islands cannot be taken for granted. Despite being considered ‘micro-states’ by many, they wield autonomy and influence over their big oceans. Their concerns should be listened to.
Second, these diplomatic ‘spats’ are a great way to get the attention of the world. The Pacific rarely gets so much media air-time as when their leaders are shaking hands with Chinese officials.
Will this latest episode in the Cook Islands re-spark PRC relations as a key bargaining tool of the Pacific Islands?
Third, the headlines do not capture the whole picture. The trip to China that led to a comprehensive agreement was already planned before the latest debacle.
Furthermore, there have been protests in the Cook Islands against the country’s leadership. Many Cook Islanders do not want this rift in relations with Aotearoa/New Zealand as they rely on the country for passports and work opportunities.
Geopolitical tensions
The Cook Islands is an archipelago country, containing 15 islands and 236 square kilometers of ocean. The Cook Islands are home to 18,000 people, approximately 75 percent of whom are Cook Island Māori.
It is self-governing and hence is a sovereign nation. However, the country is in free association with Aotearoa/New Zealand, which means that Cook Islands nationals have the right to become citizens of Aotearoa/New Zealand and can receive government services when in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The Cook Islands also receives most of its foreign aid from Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Cook Island Prime Minister Mark Brown announced in December 2024 that he would be visiting China in February. This announcement came during a visit to the Cook Islands by the Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PRC – the highest-level visit by a Chinese government official to the archipelago.
Brown’s visit to China was confirmed in early February. Only a few days after the confirmation (6 February), a spokesperson for Aotearoa/New Zealands’ Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters said that its Government was presently not “seeing eye to eye” with the Brown Government.
One of the major rifts in the relationship was the proposal of a separate Cook Islands passport – brought forward by Brown in late January.
Brown then announced that his Government was dropping the passport proposal after a Aotearoa/New Zealand government spokesperson said that “New Zealand will change its passport regime and any Cook Islanders who applies for a Cook Islands passport will be seen as renouncing the Aotearoa/New Zealand one”. Brown claims to have been “shocked” by this ultimatum, according to RNZ Pacific news.
Before his flight to China on 7 February, Brown told PINA News that no security agreement would be signed.
However, in China, the Cook Islands and the PRC signed a comprehensive strategic agreement which will serve as an overarching framework of engagement. The Cook Islands also sought Chinese expertise on seabed mining, and secured a NZ$4 million grant for potential projects likely including renewable energy.
Commentary around this geopolitical tangle has been somewhat mixed. A spokesperson for the Aotearoa/New Zealand Foreign Minister told RNZ Pacific that PM Brown traveled to Beijing without “properly consulting” Aotearoa/New Zealand about the agreements he planned to sign.
On the other hand, some locals in Rarotonga, the largest island of the Cook Islands, say that Aotearoa/New Zealand has been a “bully”, according to RNZ Pacific.
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles recommitted Australia’s position as being a “partner of choice” for the Cook Islands.
Meanwhile, in the Cook Islands, hundreds protested against Brown’s leadership led by the opposition ‘Te Pāti Māori’ party.
My colleague at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Hilary Gorman, PhD candidate, an international development consultant and resident of the Cook Islands, told me about the geopolitical tensions:
When it comes to people’s views about the relationship between Cook Islands and China, people’s views vary significantly. There has been a lot of speculation and likely misunderstanding about what the recent state visit and agreement mean. People want to know what the agreement entails.
On the ground, the majority of local Cook Islanders say that they want to hold on to their New Zealand passport and the benefits associated with it. Many people have expressed the sentiment that they know they are Cook Islanders, and they do not need a Cook Islands passport to confirm that.”
Dengue fever outbreak
In Samoa, as a response to the continued whooping cough outbreak that I reported in January’s Pacific Islands focus, the New Zealand Government has donated 6,000 vaccines to Samoa. This ‘Boostrix’ vaccine has been approved for adults by Medsafe New Zealand and pregnant women have been specifically encouraged to get vaccinated.
In Fiji, a concerning outbreak of dengue fever has been declared with 200 cases reported in the country’s Western Division. A majority of the reported cases has been in people aged 10 to 29 years. These cases are likely related to the bad weather and subsequent flooding that Fiji has been experiencing since Christmas 2024.
Tonga too has declared a dengue outbreak with 88 cases confirmed in Tongatapu (38), Vava’u (36) and ‘Eua (14) islands.
HIV remains a significant concern in Fiji. About 1,000 Fijians were diagnosed with HIV between January to September 2024 – nine-times the 120 infections recorded in all of 2019.
Johanna Thomas-Maude, Senior Research and Teaching Fellow at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington, wrote in The Conversation that cases of HIV remain high and are mostly due to increasing methamphetamine use, homelessness, unemployment, “coupled with disconnection from traditional land and culture”.
Thomas-Maude highlights that outbreaks in Fiji of diseases like HIV “put the whole region at risk” as the country remains a hub for regional business and governance.
In Papua New Guinea, the National Capital Health Authority announced its people and healthcare system are being burdened by high rates of cancer with about 9,000 deaths and 15,000 new cases of cancer each year.
Ken Wai, PNG’s National Capital Health Authority secretary, told the Post Courier that high alcohol and tobacco use, low fruit and vegetable consumption, and high stress levels in the country are linked to these numbers.
Port Moresby General Hospital’s lead oncologist Dr Peter Olali discouraged the use of herbal medicines to treat cancer, according to RNZ.
Finally, key data from a PLAN International report shows that girls in the Pacific Islands are already experiencing adverse health impacts due to climate change.
Out of the 319 girls (aged 10-18) surveyed, only two reported that climate change was not impacting their health. Almost half the girls told PLAN that they were experiencing a lack of clean water and a third said that they were experiencing changes to the quality and access to fresh food.
Environmental disaster
The Pacific Islands have spent another month at the forefront of global environmental advocacy with leaders across the region speaking out against the Trump Administration’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement.
Across the region, the sentiment is relatively unanimous – that the decision is not surprising but still highly disappointing. Many Pacific leaders vow to continue the fight for climate justice, even without US engagement in the UNFCCC.
In other environmental news, Indigenous Solomon Islands landowners have filed a compensation claim against international companies over the 2019 grounding of the cargo ship MV Solomon Trader, which led to 300 tonnes of oil leaking into the marine area of Rennell Island.
It is the biggest ever environmental disaster in the Solomon Islands and continues to impact the marine life around Rennell Island whose population is largely reliant on local fish stocks as a staple food.
Australian lawyer Dirk Heinz told RNZ Pacific that the apology given by the company was seen as “generic” and not accepted by the local population. Heinz said, “on a cultural level, people are anxious about lasting health impacts”.
Similarly, people of Samoa’s Safata district say they continue to smell fuel odours near the location of the October 2024 HMNZS Manawanui boat sinking, the first New Zealand naval loss since World War II. Samoa’s Marine Pollution Advisory Committee (MPAC) has now permitted villagers to resume fishing near the site of the disaster but locals remain worried about potential toxins in the water.
The New Zealand Defence forces have been working to remove fuel but locals have sought further assistance from the Chinese embassy and have subsequently received NZ$30,000 from China for livelihood assistance.
Finally, researchers from UNSW have released the results of a project which is the first to study air pollution in Fiji and the Solomon Islands. Between 2020 and 2023, the researchers found that pollution had exceeded World Health Organization guidelines in both Suva and Honiara.
In Honiara in particular, for 75 percent of the total days studied, air pollution exceeded these WHO recommended levels, often by double or even triple.
The study’s authors posit this is a major issue for the health of these populations and more needs to be done to consistently measure air pollution in the Pacific.
Further reading from the region
Fijian teen faces deportation from NZ due to education needs (RNZ Pacific)
Nauru to take non-citizen NZYQ cohort freed from immigration detention (PINA)
The high human cost of policing in Papua New Guinea (RNZ Pacific)
Napat: ‘Donors must work our way or take their money back’ (PINA)
Maritime carbon tax ‘matter of survival’ for Pacific Isles (PINA)
Palau cyberattack disrupts service at Ministry of Health (PINA)
‘$1 per egg’: Northern Mariana Islands struggles with egg shortage as prices skyrocket (Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific)
Pacific SDG14 Summit kicks off with ENBI Tripartite MOU (Pita Ligaiula, PINA)
About the author
Isabelle Zhu-Maguire is a PhD candidate at the Coral Bell School of Asia and Pacific Affairs, Department of International Relations within the Australian National University. Her thesis investigates the ways in which Australia listens and responds to the climate advocacy of Pacific Island Nations.
She has conducted extensive research into the experiences of women in Afghanistan and their perspectives and realities living through conflict, oppression, and climate change.
Isabelle has also been advocate for greater youth inclusion within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Croakey thanks and acknowledges Isabelle Zhu-Maguire for providing this column as a probono service to our readers.
Bookmark this link for future editions of the Pacific Islands focus column.
