Page 32 - IB January 2023

Opinion

RULES-BASED ORDER: WHOSE ORDER?

By Kaliopate Tavola should be noted that the U.S. had clearly spurned the bilat-
eral agreement that the Solomon Islands Government (SIG)
Rules-based order and rules-based approaches are synony- had reached earlier with China. This is clearly a contravention
mous. The ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy of the US’ (IPSUS), specifical- of the provisions and the spirit of the Declaration.
ly under ‘Our Indo-Pacific Strategy’, Objective No. 1: Advance Negotiators later agreed to remove any mention of China in
a free and open Indo-Pacific, states, for example: “We will the Declaration which, for one reason or another, persuaded
build support for rules-based approaches to the maritime the Solomon Islands government to append its signature to
domain, including in the South China Sea and the East China the document. This is neither here nor there. The damage had
Sea.” been inflicted: and a question can be raised whether there
Lyle Goldstein of DefenseNews.Com referred to rules-based are exceptions to the US’ RBO/RBA in the context of PICs.
approaches (RBA) in his critique of IPSUS – see my IB article As a matter of fact, questions are being asked outside the
of April 2022 issue (Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States: region as what RBO/RBA really are. Ben Norton of Multipo-
Too Anodyne to be Utilitarian). He wrote: “Acute issues rang- larista, last November shared what the former French Ambas-
ing from the Sino-Indian border to the reefs of the South China sador to the U.S., Gerard Araud, had said about this subject.
Sea to the ultimate flashpoint of Taiwan are simply glossed The Ambassador “publicly criticised Washington, saying it
over with anodyne references to ‘rules-based approaches’ and frequently violates international law and that its so-called
‘integrated deterrence’”. rules-based order is actually an unfair Western order.”
In Goldstein’s view, the IPSUS’ RBA to resolving those geo- This is interesting commentary coming from a member of
strategic flashpoints mentioned in the Indo-Pacific Strategy, the Western alliance. It shows that as far as RBO/RBA are
are likely to be dull and ineffectual and are not likely to bring concerned, there is disunity within the group as to their char-
any degree of resolution to the disputants. This is so, since acteristics and applications. Araud put the blame at the door
the treatment under the RBA is likely to be too covertly brief of “U.S. diplomats…for insisting that Washington must always
to be informative. be the ‘leader’ of the world.” He stressed as an alternative
IPSUS, at the end of last September, released its ‘Decla- “that the West should work with other countries in the Global
ration on U.S.-Pacific Partnership’ which I critiqued - (see South, ‘on an equal basis,’ in order ‘to find a compromise with
‘Declaration on U.S.-Pacific Partnership Abrogates Established other interests.” He then added his punchline: “[The] West
Order’ – IB: Nov 2022 issue). My reference to ‘order’ here is must ‘try to see the world from Beijing.’”
not to be confused with either rules-based order (RBO) or its John Pilger threw light on this subject in his publication;
equivalent RBA. My reference is specifically one of ‘regional ‘Silencing the Lambs – How Propaganda Works’ last Septem-
order’ in the context of Pacific regionalism – the Pacific Islands ber. He quoted from playwright Harold Pinter who said before
Forum (PIF). The abrogation of the order I referred to, came he died in 2008 that the U.S. foreign policy is “best defined
about from the intended general application of the effects of as follows: kiss my arse or I’ll kick your head in. It is as simple
the Declaration’s 11 commitments on PIF, when PIF members and as crude as that. What is interesting about it is that it’s so
of Australia and New Zealand are not party to the Declaration. incredibly successful. It possesses the structures of disinfor-
Further abrogation of the regional order is implied in the mation, use of rhetoric, distortion of language, which is very
recognition of the Pacific Island Countries (PICs), excluding persuasive, but are actually a pack of lies.”
Australia and New Zealand, as prospective partners for an Accepting his Nobel Prize for Literature, Pinter further said,
optional regionalism. I did point out, however, that regardless “The crimes of the United States have been systematic, con-
of it being an abrogation, in the current regional context, it stant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually
could have a silver lining by giving precedence to a PICs-only talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has
forum – a concept that has been actively discussed in the exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide
region for some time. while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a bril-
In my critique last November, I started questioning the liant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”
nature and validity of any order that could pass as RBO/RBA. For the Pacific Islands Forum, and especially PICs, my best
I queried how Australia and New Zealand would be engaged advice is that, on the basis of the provisions of RBO/RBA in
under the above-mentioned Declaration. I mused about the the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States and as well as
probability of Australia and New Zealand engaging with the in the ‘Declaration on U.S.-Pacific Partnership’ – do not be
business of the Declaration indirectly under the auspices of hypnotised! Continue probing the U.S. as regards its RBO/RBA.
the QUAD, Indo-Pacific, AUKUS, or Partners in the Blue Pacific. The challenge is for the U.S. to start building RBO/RBA and
They have direct access to all those bodies, either through meaningful dialogue with the region. It can do so by using its
membership or through their relations with the U.S. In any next Post-Forum Dialogue session to launch the joint discus-
case, any indirect external approach to PIF likely, in the words sions for shared results.
of some regional commentators, ‘rides roughshod over estab-
lished regional processes’. The author is a former Fijian Ambassador and Foreign Minister and
Moreover, I questioned the validity of the Declaration’s runs his own consultancy company in Suva, Fiji.
commitment on ‘respect for the ability of nations to make The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do
sovereign decisions in the best interest of their people.’ It not necessarily reflect the opinions of this publication.

32 Islands Business, January 2023