OCEANIA

OVERVIEW

Geographically vast and sparsely populated, Oceania is a region of strategic importance to major powers. Particularly in recent years, China’s rising interest in the region has prompted the US, Australia, and other major powers to reassess their position and influence in the Pacific.

Apart from Australia and New Zealand, the rest of Oceania’s fourteen countries are considered developing states, and several are listed among the UN’s Least Developed Countries, with a significant subsistence agriculture sector, poor economies, and aid dependency.

The Pacific Islands Forum is the region’s premier political and economic policy organization, and the Pacific Community is the principle international development organization for the region.

Apart from Australia, New Zealand, and a few foreign-controlled territories, the populations of Oceania are predominantly indigenous Pacific islanders. Historically, islands in Oceania have been colonized by the French, Dutch, British, Germans, and the Empire of Japan controlled parts of Oceania after World War I under the South Seas mandate. The region was of strategic importance during World War II for maintaining supply lines, as well as nuclear testing during and after the war, when many territories were given to the Allies.

RELATIONSHIP WITH MAJOR POWERS

The US, France, and Australia— and increasingly China— have a significant presence in Oceania.

The US sends millions of dollars in aid and investment annually to countries of Oceania, especially Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, and has a significant military presence in the region, controlling the territories of American Samoa and Guam, where it has several military bases. Since the 1980s, the US has held a compact of free association with several countries in Oceania (Micronesia, Palau, Marshall Islands), which grants the US operating rights in the region in exchange for economic assistance and defense. The US tested nuclear weapons consistently in the South Pacific from the 1940s to the 1960s, and France tested them in the region up until the 1990s.

Australia is the region’s largest provider of aid, is a top trading partner for many countries of Oceania, and has engaged major infrastructure development projects. In response to China’s growing influence in the region, in 2016 Australia began the Pacific Step-Up, a foreign policy priority to strategically pivot its interests back to the Pacific region.

Although it possesses no territories in Oceania, China has made a distinct imprint on the region in the past fifteen years by increasing aid, lending, and commercial activity. This effort has especially ramped up since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 and began the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive ongoing global infrastructure project. In 2019, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands switched their diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China, (nations can only officially recognize one or the other)— a move which highlights China’s growing influence in the region.

There are different speculations as to China’s ultimate goal in Oceania; the possibility of building a military base in the region would be the most significant. Their aid and lending has raised concerns of “debt-trap diplomacy”— pressuring debtor nations to support the lender nation’s interests.

Australia, US, India, and Japan take part in a diplomatic partnership called the Quad, which collaborates on issues like climate change, security, and emerging technology.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF RECENT HISTORY

BEFORE 20th CENTURY

A collection of British colonies since the 18th century, Australia united and became the self-governing Commonwealth of Australia at the turn of the 20th century. New Zealand became a British colony in the 19th century and gained full autonomy in the 20th century. In both places, relations were poor between the settlers and the native people. A huge percentage of the aboriginal population was massacred by Australian settlers, and there were armed conflicts between New Zealand Maoris and settlers.

Australia industrialized in the 1800s, and grew wealthy from a gold rush in the mid-century.

The US acquired Hawaii in the late 20th century.

WORLD WAR I

ANZAC forces (Australian and New Zealand) fought in World War I, especially in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey.

WORLD WAR II

The Pacific theater of World War II involved Japan’s invasion of many territories in Southeast Asia and Oceania, including Guam and Wake Island; Japan’s surprise attack on US base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and significant battles including the Battle of Coral Sea and Battle of the Midway, in which the US began to push back against Japanese domination and turn the tide of the war.

During the war, the US began testing atomic bombs in the Marshall Islands, particularly at Bikini Atoll. These tests continued for a decade and have had lasting radiation effects on the islands.

REGION BY REGION

There are ten thousand islands in Oceania; the list below includes the fourteen independent countries and some significant territories and dependencies, but is of course not comprehensive.

AUSTRALASIA

AUSTRALIA

NEW ZEALAND

NEW GUINEA

AUSTRALIA

Resource-rich Australia is by far the largest country in Oceania and one of the largest countries in the world by area (slightly smaller than Brazil), with a relatively small population of 25 million (roughly comparable to Texas). A major world power, it has one of the world’s largest economies (by nominal GDP), a high GDP per capita (an indication of standard of living), and is a member of the influential G-20 forum.

Militarily, Australia has served with US and UK forces in many wars. The failed World War I Gallipoli campaign in 1915 was a defining moment for ANZAC forces (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps). Today, the ANZUS Treaty links Australia, New Zealand, and the US in matters of defense, and Australia and New Zealand are both members of the Five Eyes alliance along with the US and Canada, and the Five Power Defense Agreement, along with the UK, Malaysia, and Singapore.

During the Cold War, Australia’s proximity to the Soviet Union made it an important capitalist ally of the West. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has oriented itself more with Eastern countries. Its biggest trading partners today are China, Japan, the US, South Korea, and India.

Australia has a significant mining industry, and is the world’s largest exporter of coal, and a leading supplier of aluminum, natural gas, as well as agricultural products like wool.

The island Tanzania is part of Australia.

ABORIGINAL PEOPLE

Originally inhabited by an aboriginal population of several hundred thousand, Australia was surveyed by Captain James Cook in the 18th century and then settled by the English and turned into a penal colony. The ensuing waves of immigration brought diseases, conflict, and massacres which decimated the Aboriginal population. Today the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up about 3% of the country’s population. In the 20th century, the Australian government adopted a tragic assimilation policy which forcibly removed Aboriginal children from their families, for which former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued an apology to the Stolen Generations in 2008.

NEW ZEALAND

A country slightly larger than the UK, with a relatively small population (4 million; comparable to Los Angeles)— New Zealand is singularly remote (its nearest neighbor Australia is over a thousand miles away) and was the last major land to be settled by humans: the Maori settlers from Polynesia only arrived several hundred years before the first European settlers. Like Australia, the land was surveyed by Captain Cook’s 18th century expedition, but was subsequently settled by UK missionaries and traders, first as a part of Australia, then as a separate colony. It gradually attained full independence from the UK across a series of constitutional changes over the 19th and 20th centuries.

New Zealand has the lowest corruption ranking in the world, per Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, and is a model of gender equality (the country has had three female Prime Ministers.) Unlike Australia’s fraught relationship with the aboriginal people, New Zealand is heralded for having generally good relations between the Maori people and European-descended people, and for having a reputation generally for tolerance. This reputation was challenged by the brutal racially-driven attack against a mosque in Christchurch in 2019 which killed 51 Muslim people. The government’s response— the banning of military-style firearms within weeks of the attack— has been widely praised, and the nation continues to make gun control reforms.

Like Australia’s Pacific Step Up, New Zealand has engaged in a Pacific Reset— refocusing energy on its Pacific neighbors in areas of security, economy, environment, and society.

MICRONESIA

COUNTRIES

MARSHALL ISLANDS

KIRIBATI

PALAU

NAURU

MICRONESIA

The strategic location of the Micronesia region (which includes the country of Micronesia) between North America and Asia has made it a valuable site for military bases and nuclear tests. In 1946 US atomic bombs tested over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Major military engagements in World War II took place in Palau, Guam, and the Marianas, and the Marshalls.

Guam — the first inhabited Pacific island visited by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan— is today a territory of the US. It is of strategic importance to the Department of Defense, and is home to two major US military bases. North Korea has made threats of firing missiles toward Guam.

Since the 1980s, the US has held a compact of free association with several countries in Micronesia, which grants the US operating rights in the region in exchange for economic assistance and defense.

Germany, Spain, UK, US, Japan, and Australia have all had colonial claims in this region, with decolonization taking place in the 1960s.

TERRITORIES & DEPENDENCIES

NORTH MARIANA ISLANDS (US)

GUAM (US)

CAROLINE ISLANDS (KIRIBATI)

Guam is home to important US military bases and serves as a key tactical location. The US acquired Guam from Spain in the Spanish American War in the late 19th century.

MELANESIA

SOLOMON ISLANDS

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

VANUATU

FIJI

NAURU

Melanesia is the most populous region of the Pacific Islands, particularly Papua New Guinea with a population of over 8 million.

Despite coups in the recent past due to ethnic conflicts, Fiji — which has one of the most developed economies in the Pacific region— is politically and economically stable today, and has a strong relationship with China.

Papua New Guinea, which shares an island with Indonesia’s Western New Guinea, is the world’s most linguistically diverse country, and struggles with high poverty and crime rates, with much of the population practicing subsistence farming.

In 2019, the island Bougainville voted for independence from Papua New Guinea, which will make it the world’s newest nation if the separation is executed.

POLYNESIA

TUVALU

SAMOA

TONGA

A vast and sparsely populated region, Polynesia spans from New Zealand to Hawaii to Easter Island.

The US established the Pearl Harbor navy base and annexed Hawaii in the late 1800s, and it became a state in 1959.

French Polynesia is made up of over a hundred islands, including Tahiti and Bora Bora. From the 1960s to 1990s, the area served as a nuclear test site for the French, and became economically dependent on the military presence.