Asian Impact on the Pacific Island States as the External Motivation for Regionalism

Résumé 0

After the Second World War, the Pacific Rim powers started to penetrate Oceania in order to maintain or develop their political and economic influences. The Asian states had used the reluctance and fatigue of the Pacific island countries with the American bilateral cooperation. The Asian tigers therefore introduced the new politics directed to the Pacific region, called “the new regional order” being a response to Washington’s proposition entitled “the new world order”. Diplomatic struggles between Japan, China and Russia in fact made the Pacific microstates to look for cooperation inside their own region, with neighbours at the same level of economic development, (post) colonial struggles and shared values. Since two waves of decolonization in the Pacific, the newly established island states have been constantly tempted by the Asian governments to collaborate with them. Such humanitarian and financial aid is very often understood as the consent to interfere in the Pacific islands’ affairs and their natural resources. Hence, since the turn of 20th and 21st century, Asian influence has become one of the most important motivators for Pacific regionalisation. Establishment of most, not to say all, the regional institutions and organizations were driven by the fear of external imposition of law and policy.