Australia pushes security tie with Fiji as Beijing sidelines Vanuatu pact

Australia is heading to Fiji this week with a treaty on its mind and a diplomatic smile ready to deploy. Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Pacific affairs minister Pat Conroy land in Suva for a three-day visit aimed at nudging along the so-called Vuvale Union — a security and economic package that Canberra hopes will make it the Pacific’s favourite neighbour.

The timing is part strategy, part reality check. Australia has ramped up Pacific engagement since Labor took office in 2022 amid worries that China has been buying influence with big infrastructure cheques and service deals. This visit will mix the practical (fuel and energy security, supply chain headaches from the war in Iran) with the political (tightening strategic ties).

Wong and Conroy are due to meet Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and other ministers, and will also talk to the Pacific Islands Forum secretary general, Baron Waqa. Fiji is even hosting a pre-COP31 summit in October — the kind of climate choreography that required Australia and Turkey to swap hosting rights earlier this year — so there’s climate diplomacy on the menu as well.

Australia pitches the Vuvale Union as long-term partnership: help with fuel security, coordinated responses to transnational crime, and the reassurance that comes from having an ally who shows up with planning documents and polite small talk. Conroy has been at pains to say that after climate change, organised crime is the big immediate security worry — which sounds like a grim bingo card until you remember smuggling and maritime crime do affect daily life across island states.

But not every island is signing up with a bow. Efforts to lock in a comparable agreement with Vanuatu hit a diplomatic pothole last year when ministers raised questions about Chinese infrastructure promises. A 2022 security pact with Vanuatu was never ratified, and Vanuatu’s leadership has been balancing offers from multiple partners — including China, which is negotiating its own Namele agreement and has paid for government upgrades, including an $86m gift to renovate the prime minister’s office.

That has meant Canberra has had to be nimble: secure formal ties where it can (Tuvalu, Nauru, an upgraded relationship with Papua New Guinea), and press ahead where partners are receptive. The Solomon Islands’ secretive 2022 deal with China remains a cautionary tale for those who prefer surprises in other contexts.

So the picture this week is straightforward: Australia is trying to lock in a visible, cooperative security footprint in Fiji and the wider Pacific, while negotiations with Vanuatu remain a work in progress thanks to competing offers and genuine questions about consultation and alignment. In other words, geopolitics in the Pacific looks a bit like a neighbourhood barbecue where everyone wants to bring a tool box — Australia is offering steak and a security plan, China is turning up with a shiny new kitchen, and island nations are politely taking it all in before deciding whose invitation to accept.