Page 15 - IB November 2023

Regional Security

TWO-HEADED

MONSTER, OR

MYTH?

Australian Army soldiers deliver supplies to repair buildings on Galoa island (near Vanua Levu) in Fiji that were damaged by Tropical Cyclone Yasa in 2020. Photo: CPL Dustin
Anderson/Australian Department of Defence via Getty Images

By Richard Naidu and Samantha Magick network of intertwined development assistance and security
arrangements that are fast evolving via this growing
As the United States of America’s westernmost territory, competition over the Pacific.
Guam employs the unofficial but frequently used motto, In a May 2023 article for the International Relations of the
“Where America’s Day Begins”, referring to the island’s Asia-Pacific Journal titled ‘Security cooperation in the Pacific
proximity to the International Date Line. Islands: architecture, complex, community, or something
A strategic point of interest in the United States’ Indo- else?’, the authors find that the region is “neither a security
Pacific military layout, Guam is also the first US line of complex nor a community, due to the extensive involvement
defence against all threats from Asia. The territory’s of metropolitan powers and external partners.” Instead,
geostrategic potential is rooted in its proximity to China and “security cooperation in the Pacific Islands is best described
is cited in a Stanford University paper as representing “the as a patchwork of bilateral, minilateral, and multilateral,
westernmost location from which the U.S. can project power, formal and informal agencies, agreements, and arrangements,
manage logistics, and establish command and control.” across local, national, regional, and international levels,”
That has earned Guam what’s described in military circles they write.
as the ‘Guam killer’ - the DF-26, China’s first conventionally According to The Lowy Institute’s sixth annual Pacific
armed missile capable of striking Guam. Tested for the first Aid Map released last month, geopolitical dynamics and
time in 2019, the weapon has a range of 4500 kilometres, and competition for influence have contributed to a surge in
can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads. development financing in the Pacific.
“We live under the notion that in any kind of conflict The Map shows Australia is the region’s largest development
between China and the United States, Guam will be the first partner, with China reducing overall support to the region
strike,” says Professor Robert Underwood, a former Member whilst increasing the “politically targeted nature” of its aid.
of the US Congress (1993-2003) with years of experience of Australia disbursed US$17 billion between 2008 and 2021,
sitting on the Congressional House Armed Services Committee. making up nearly 40% of the region’s overseas development
“This competition is seen by both the United States and financing, while leading in grant financing as well.
China as critical to their future, their dominance, their Alexandre Dayant, Deputy Director of the Lowy Institute’s
presence in the Pacific Ocean. They look at the Pacific as an Indo-Pacific Development Centre, says that since the onset of
area where there are resources about which they can compete the pandemic, there has been “surprisingly little new Chinese
… as a place they can penetrate economically,” he said. financing in the region.”
Speaking in Fiji earlier this year, Underwood said the China’s total development finance disbursements fell to
Pacific was facing “a two-headed challenge … the geopolitical just US$241 million in 2021, below its pre-pandemic historical
strategic competition, as well as the existential threat of average of $285 million per year. This year, Beijing’s Official
climate change, and to see how those are connected.” Development Finance (ODF) commitments were a quarter
that of its historical average. From “loud and brash”, China’s
Balance of Aid regional development financing has gone to a downsized
Those connections are spread across a complicated envelope of funds, more strategically targeted at the most

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