Cooperation between Japan and the US lawmakers is the key to support for Pacific Island countries
Dr Rieko Hayakawa, Law School, Doshisha Univeristy (Secretary of Indo-Pacific Studies)
Dr Eileen S Natuzzi, MD, MPH affiliate Georgetown University, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Center for Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Studies
In the early 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, the US disappeared from the Pacific like the tide receding. Care for the region was relegated to Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The remaining Americans, such as Father Hezel of the Microensian Seminer, desperately continued to support the Pacific Island countries. Small groups of volunteer American citizens provided modest medical and education support. With the Obama administration, Secretary of State Clinton and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Campbell went island hopping. It looked like the US was coming back, but the US Congress showed no interest in the Pacific Island countries.
It was the Abe administration's Indo-Pacific initiative that changed that. Pacific island states and maritime security were included. I (Hayakawa) was given the opportunity to speak at the Japan Pacific Island Countries Friendship Parliamentarians' Committee and proposed the idea in 2017. The US reacted to this. In particular, the Indo-Pacific Command, based in Hawaii. However, for Washington DC, the Pacific Island countries still remained incorrectly perceived as a paradise on the other side of the world. In 2022, the Pacific Islands Caucus was established by US Members of Congress. This was a major step forward in educating the US on how to best support the Pacific Islands. The Japan-Pacific Island Countries Parliamentary Friendship League was established in 2014. Currently chaired by Hon. Keiji Furuya, the House of Representatives, the League actively discusses and promotes Japan's policy towards the PICs. Many members of this committee participated in the lecture given by Hon. Daniel Suidani of the Solomon Islands in Parliament Members' Office Building during his visit to Japan in October 2023. Mr Suidani also visited Washington DC and met with some of the US Pacific Caucus members.
Despite years of promises by the US to re-engage it was only after China began actively courting Pacific Island Countries that the US began to act. The Biden administration has hosted 2 Pacific Island Forum Summits and laid in place some structural diplomatic component such as a new USAID Regional Pacific Mission in Suva, Fiji and opening new embassies in Tonga and Solomon Islands. MCC has awarded modest threshold grants to Kiribati and Solomon Island and the US State Department has provided support for clearing explosive remnants of war. While these programs are needed, they are not enough. It is time for the US to take a big step forward in order to commit to a “whole of Pacific approach”, just as Japan Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa visited Samoa and Fiji to commit 24 million USD health project and so on. While addressing straight forward challenges in the Pacific Islands like establishing discretionary funds for regional embassies and US visa reform that invites Pacific Islanders to travel to the US, policymakers must also work on high impact programs that interface with other partners in the region.
Delays in US congress passing appropriations funding for the newly negotiated COFA agreements and funding for wider Pacific Island programs is hindering US relations not only with the territories and freely associated states but throughout the region. US aid to Micronesia has doubled to 7 billion USD over 20 years. Japan's assistance to Okinawa Prefecture continues at 7 billion USD per year for at least the last 20 years.
A coordinated multilateral US and Japan partnership with Pacific Island Countries is an opportunity to counter regional security concerns by addressing improvement of health systems through infrastructure upgrades, something Japan is already doing, with a US committed medical education exchange. By forging complimentary elements of larger programs Japan and the US can ignite the currently dormant Partners in the Blue Pacific into becoming a highly effective entity that has a “whole of regional” approach.
Today, more than 80 years after World War II, it is time for the US and Japan to cooperate over the Pacific island countries where they fought in the past. Pacific island states are small, with vast oceans, numerous ethnic groups and fragile social infrastructures. Australia and New Zealand are making efforts as traditional donor states, but Australia's population is almost the same as Taiwan's. While respecting their efforts, Japan and the US should support education, health care, supporting infrastructure and human resource development.
This year, the Government of Japan will host the 10th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting. The co-hosting organisation is the Pacific Islands Forum, which does not include the United States. The US has territories in the vast Pacific Ocean - the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa and Hawaii - as well as many uninhabited islands. Above all, the three Micronesian countries with which the US has a free association agreement were once Japanese mandated territories. Dialogue between the Japan-Pacific Island Countries Parliamentary Friendship League and the US Pacific Caucus has not yet started. US Pacific engagement can benefit from coordinating its efforts in the region with Japan and other regional partners.
In 2017, one of the authors, Dr Hayakawa, was asked to make lectures at the Japan Pacific Island Countries Friendship Parliamentarians' Committee and Oceans Parliamentarians' Committee. Dr Hayakawa's suggestions were to change Prime Minister Abe's FOIP to focus on PICs and maritime security.
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Dr Eileen Natuzzi has worked on health capacity building in the Solomon Islands for 18 years. She holds an affiliate faculty position at the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service Centre for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies.
She currently serves as Solomon Island’s co-coordinator for the Australia New Zealand Gastrointestinal International Training Association (ANZGITA). ANZGITA provides gastrointestinal and endoscopy program capacity building throughout the Pacific Islands.
Dr Natuzzi’s main focus is on policy as it pertains to health systems and impacts from extreme weather events in Pacific Island Countries. Her work has been published in Oceanic Currents, The Hill, The Diplomat, DevPolicy, Griffith University’s Pacific Outlook and Global Health Governance in addition to publications in medical journals.
A call for medical détente in the Pacific Islands | Lowy Institute
What the US should do in Solomon Islands - Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre
Our health in the Pacific Islands: a deadly storm - Devpolicy Blog from the Development Policy Centre
