![]() Small island nations are often considered to be pawns in the larger geopolitical debate. Suggestions that they might compromise their sovereignty in exchange for infrastructure development or security partnerships, as seen in Sri Lanka and the Solomon Islands, is a simplified view of regional developments. As geopolitical rivalry in the Indo-Pacific intensifies, island nations continue to underline their agency in choosing partners, agreements, and investments. Many non-island policymakers believe that island nations are overwhelmingly influenced by their development partners’ choices regardless of their own interests and priorities. Her primary research focuses on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific and the role of islands in shaping great power competition. Baruah is a fellow with the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where she directs the Indian Ocean Initiative. He noted that although island nations are vulnerable, “I don’t believe that we are powerless.”ĭarshana M. Abdulla Shahid, the president of the seventy-sixth UN General Assembly session and the foreign affairs minister of Maldives, delivered a powerful speech detailing this very concept. Such developments contributed to discussions at the Islands Dialogue about how islands are often viewed through the lenses of great power competition and strategic rivalry.Ī key message to emerge from the Islands Dialogue was about island nations’ agency. The engagement was understood to be accelerated by an agreement inked between China and the Solomon Islands earlier that year. However, this was Washington’s first initiative to host leaders of Pacific Island nations at the summit level. As a Pacific power, the United States has great stakes and interests in the Pacific Ocean. The second Islands Dialogue took place before the historic U.S.-Pacific Islands summit hosted by the White House in September 2022. This article is based on the conversations, discussions, and themes that emerged from the event. In an effort to better study the perspectives and ideas of leaders and policymakers from island nations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Tokyo hosted “ Ocean Nations: The 2nd Annual Indo-Pacific Islands Dialogue” in September 2022. They are not at the forefront of shaping the Indo-Pacific agenda, despite it being very much about and influenced by them. But these island nations are often ignored. Developments in and around the island nations in these oceans-from Sri Lanka to the Solomon Islands-are therefore important to great power competition in the twenty-first century. The United States, China, India, and others have crafted maritime strategies toward the Indian and Pacific Oceans. In the last decade, governments around the world have determined that the next major geopolitical shift will emerge and be decided in the Indo-Pacific.
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