Commentary: China in the Maritime Pacific

The Indo-Pacific region faces complex and destabilising maritime security challenges. There are concerns that China’s militarisation of the South China Sea may migrate to other domains, including the Pacific Islands. Yet there is little critical or scholarly analysis of China’s maritime strategy, tactics, and approaches in the South-West Pacific and its implications to the island nations that inhabit that geographic area.

The commentary in this article proposes a new research agenda focused on the following question: how has China used ‘maritime geo-economic’ statecraft in the Pacific and how have Pacific Island states responded? This research agenda should consider three key components:

1. Key elements of China’s maritime geo-economic engagement in the Pacific
2. The risks of this engagement to Pacific Island states’ economic sovereignty in the maritime domain
3. How they have sought to exert agency and seek to protect and preserve their maritime entitlements.

Authors: Rebecca Strating, Douglas Guilfoyle, Steven Ratuva, Joanne Wallis