Pacific Islands Forum leaders on Wednesday endorsed an Australia-funded regional policing plan seen by analysts as a move to limit China’s influence over Pacific security.
The Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI), worth 400 million Australian dollars ($271 million), will establish four police training “centers of excellence” in the region and a multicountry “Pacific police support group” to be deployed to manage major events or at times of crisis.
The PPI “development and coordination hub” will be in Brisbane and will include Australian Federal Police facilities for officer training. It will also prepare the new support group — described by one leader as a regional “flying squad” — for deployments.
The formal endorsement by the 18-member forum means that the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police group, which holds its annual meeting next week, can move forward with implementing the plan.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reiterated that the PPI is a Pacific-led initiative, but said that his nation is in a “position to provide leadership.” He stressed that Australia did not conceive the idea for the PPI or convince other countries to support it. “This is something that has come from the Pacific itself,” he said.
China has stepped up its policing efforts in the Pacific, alarming the region’s traditional security partners. Beijing has sent advisers to Vanuatu and Kiribati, while Chinese police officers were operating in Fiji until Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka ordered a review of a decade-old policing agreement with Beijing after being elected. China signed a policing pact with the Solomon Islands in 2023.
Analysts see the PPI as a way to keep China’s policing footprint from growing in the Pacific, which has become a frontline in Beijing’s geopolitical tussle with the U.S. and Washington’s allies.
Asked about the strategic intent, Albanese did not tie the plan directly to Beijing, saying, “This is about the Pacific family looking after Pacific security — this isn’t about any other country.”
Whether the initiative would get the full support of the Pacific Islands Forum leaders had been in question coming into the weeklong meeting. Top Solomon Islands official Colin Beck complained on X earlier this month that the plan was being “steamrolled” through the forum. On Tuesday, Vanuatu’s prime minister expressed concern about the initiative’s geostrategic intent.
Albanese said everyone who had spoken at Wednesday’s PIF leaders plenary session had backed the plan. Following its endorsement, the leaders of Fiji, Palau and Papua New Guinea praised the agreement at a news conference.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape, whose country will host one of the centers for excellence, said the need for the PPI was “obvious,” citing challenges like drug trafficking, cybersecurity and illegal fishing.
“It’s important that the entire Pacific builds up its own interregional capacities so we lend a hand to each other, keeping our region safe,” he said.
The prime minister of the Cook Islands, Mark Brown, told Nikkei Asia that he welcomes the PPI, saying that each country has different needs and can make its own choices.
“As long as the regional initiative can address the issues that each of our members have, which are all different, I don’t see any issues with other countries, like the Solomons, seeking support from elsewhere, such as China, to help support their policing initiatives,” Brown said.
He said the Cook Islands may contribute “one or two” people to the police support group, which “sounds like a flying squad that will be going into trouble hot spots.”
But Brown noted that his country is primarily interested in resources and support, like help running its sole patrol boat. “Machines, equipment, technology, what’s being made available across Australia and New Zealand police forces, we would love to have the same sort of level of technology.”
