Australia overcomes last-minute concerns to secure comprehensive training plan for Pacific Police | Pacific Islands Forum

Pacific island leaders have agreed to support a comprehensive regional policing plan after Australia and other supporters overcame last-minute concerns that the proposal was part of a geopolitical move to exclude China.

But each Pacific country must decide for itself whether to contribute to the planned new multinational police unit, which is intended to respond quickly to disasters or other major security problems.

Under the terms of the consensus reached at the Pacific Islands Forum (Pif) talks in Tonga on Wednesday, no country will be forced to accept the aid.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the agreement showed that the Pacific family of nations was now “closer together than ever before”.

As part of the Pacific Policing Initiative, up to four police centres of excellence are to be set up in the Pacific region. Australia will contribute around $400 million in funding towards infrastructure costs over a period of five years.

The Australian Government will establish a Police Development and Coordination Centre in Brisbane, providing Pacific Coast police officers with access to Australian Federal Police facilities for training and operational preparation.

Without mentioning China directly, Albanese said the plan would allow the Pacific to take care of its own security.

Pif is a regional coalition of Australia, New Zealand and 16 other countries and territories in the Pacific. It does not include China and the United States, which are vying for influence in the region.

Asked whether the agreement meant that no Pacific island state would have to turn to China for security, Albanese said: “This is about the Pacific family looking after security in the Pacific. This is not about any other country.”

But just hours before the agreement was announced, Vanuatu's Prime Minister Charlot Salwai and the regional subgroup to which Vanuatu belongs publicly expressed their fears that the plan could serve the West's strategic interests.

Salwai called the Pacific Police Initiative “important” but noted that the region must ensure that the plan “is designed to meet our objectives and not developed to serve the geostrategic interests and the geostrategic denial-based security posture of our major partners.”

This “denial” language is a clear indication of China's exclusion. Australia has repeatedly expressed concerns about China's attempts to enter into security and policing agreements with Pacific island nations, including the 2022 agreement with the Solomon Islands.

Salwai is chairman of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), a regional subgroup that includes Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.

He expressed his concerns in an opening speech at an MSG parliamentary group meeting in Tonga.

MSG Director General Leonard Louma echoed this statement, warning that the plan should not be “simply developed as part of the geostrategic security doctrine of denial of attack by our major partners.”

Tonga's Prime Minister Hu'akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, who hosted the Pif meeting, strongly supported the plan.

He stressed that each country would be “free to decide how it wants to contribute to and benefit from the police program.”

Albanese later said that this was not a weakness of the plan.

Albanese said the discussion among heads of state and government on Wednesday was “very positive”.

He said the proposal was not imposed on the region by Australia but was “something that came from the Pacific itself”.

According to Guardian Australia, Australia only spoke at the end of the discussion to thank Pif members for their support of the plan. Further details are to be worked out in discussions between the region's police commissioners.

Fiji's Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said his country had “always been very, very interested” in the proposal.

Rabuka said he believed “the rest of the world” was “targeting our region” and it was the Pacific's responsibility to develop a regional policing initiative.

Australia's Pacific Minister Pat Conroy, who also attended the talks, had previously said the proposal was in line with Rabuka's concept of “oceans of peace” and also “builds on the very generous offer made by the Papua New Guinea government at Pif last year to become a regional training centre for the Pacific police forces”.

Another diplomatic success for Australia was the announcement of the entry into force of the bilateral climate and security agreement between the country and Tuvalu.

Starting next year, Australia will offer to issue 280 visas to people from Tuvalu who wish to live, work, study or visit the country.

Australia is obliged to respond to requests for assistance if Tuvalu is faced with a major natural disaster, pandemic or military aggression.

In return for this security guarantee, Australia has the right to block Tuvalu's security cooperation with other countries.

After a change of government in Tuvalu in January, doubts arose as to whether the agreement would last, as there were fears that it would violate the country's sovereignty.

But Tuvalu's new Prime Minister, Feleti Teo, said on Wednesday that talks with Australian officials had “given comfort” to his country.