The Frontier of Influence: Pacific Island States in the China-West Rivalry

Introduction:

The Pacific Island countries were considered marginal to international relations for decades. However, in the twenty-first century, they are playing a central role in the increased strategic rivalry between China and the West. Previously regarded as peaceful allies, the states have become the battle lines in a geopolitical war that goes beyond diplomacy, infrastructure, and security and turns the Pacific into an arena of international competition.

Geography as Destiny:

The Pacific Island Countries (PICs), despite their small populations, are in charge of large sea areas which run through major shipping and communications channels. Their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) cover millions of square kilometres of fisheries, seabed minerals and sub-sea cables. According to Sora, Collins, and Keen (2024), only geography gives these states proportionate strategic worth, providing an ability to control the maritime trade, surveillance, and mobility. Domination of these sea areas, therefore, offers economic and geopolitical bargaining power - something that China and the Western powers have realised.

China's Expanding Footprint:

The role of China in the Pacific has been gradually increasing over the last 20 years via aid, investment, and diplomacy. The Belt and Road Initiative has been used to finance stadiums, ports, roads, and government buildings in the region. Lei and Sui (2022) believe that this outreach is a subset of the larger effort by Beijing to reform the regional structure by way of strategic partnerships that interconnect infrastructure with political orientation.

This shifted with the Chinese-Solomon Islands security agreement in 2022, which  was a turning point in Pacific geopolitics, as the grip from the western countries began to weaken and China’s influence began to spread. The agreement, the conditions of which have not been disclosed in full, gives Chinese police or security forces the right to act on the territory of Solomon Islands. This, taken by the Western governments, is feared to become a permanent Chinese naval force. Although Honiara maintains that the deal will improve internal security, the agreement has increased perceptions that China aims to dilute Western influence in the Pacific.

The diplomatic campaign of Beijing has also progressed. In 2019, both the Solomon Islands and Kiribati changed their recognition to China, leaving Taipei with only three allies in the Pacific. Wallis and Tubilewicz (2025) view such actions as being driven by a complex policy on the part of Beijing to force its presence, influence, and interference within the region. China is now having more influence in the governance and discourse of the islands through aid, policing, and communication infrastructure.

Western Countermoves:

The US, Australia and their allies have acted with renewed force. In 2023, Washington took the step of reopening an embassy in Honiara after 30 years of absence and signing a defence cooperation agreement with Papua New Guinea that allows the US to gain access to strategic bases. Australia has increased aid and policing assistance, and New Zealand and Japan reinforced their climate and development aid. Such activities are indicative of what Sora et al. (2024) describe as a state of permanent contest - the acknowledgement that there is a change in the strategic balance in the Pacific.

A large part of this activity is, however, reactive. According to Graham (2021), Western states have only been inclined to re-enter the Pacific after it became evident that it is under the influence of China. This creates of an image of the West that is driven by containment, as opposed to true partnership. To maintain credibility and meaningful influence in the Pacific, Western engagement must prioritise the region’s central concerns - particularly climate change, sustainable development, and social resilience - rather than being driven solely by strategic competition with China.

Development, Debt and Dependency:

The statecraft of the Chinese economy has revolutionised the infrastructure of the Pacific, even though it has been controversial. The large-scale project loans have also raised the unsustainability of debt, especially in Tonga and Samoa. Although critics are threatened by the debt-trap diplomacy, Beijing is trying to frame its financing as win-win cooperation. According to Kabutaulaka and Kabutaulaka (2007), most Pacific leaders receive Chinese funding pragmatically, and they perceive it to be an alternative to Western aid, which in most cases comes with conditions.

According to Tudoroiu (2024), the involvement of China in the Pacific is placed in the framework of dual identity since it is both a territorial empire and wants to influence, as well as a postmodern global actor that develops soft power. This opposition can be seen in the case of the Solomon Islands, where Chinese projects like the national stadium in Honiara strengthen the presence of China, but its training programs and scholarships contribute to the rebuilding of local political culture. Tudoroiu asserts that this multidimensional strategy enables Beijing to integrate complex infrastructure with narrative power and in the process have a lasting impact than the traditional aid.

Island Agency in Great-Power Competition:

Pacific states are not passive, even though they have been dubbed as battlegrounds. The majority of them follow a policy of friends to everyone and enemies to none. According to Sora et al. (2024), they are characterised as diplomatic price-setters who take advantage of competition to gain maximum benefits in the infrastructure, climate finance, and development aid. Puas and D'Arcy (2021) continue by stating that the governments of islands are busy exercising their sovereignty to bring in various partners so that geostrategic value can be translated into economic benefits.

Nonetheless, there is a risk of such manoeuvring. Fraenkel and Smith (2022) warn that cloudy foreign security dealings might damage transparency and cause domestic instability. Oppressed by the China switch, the riots in Honiara in 2021 are a show of how the effects of outside conflicts can fuel the division within. The drift towards fragmentation is posing a threat to the erosion of the Blue Pacific identity that has been a source of strength regionally.

The Path Ahead:

The Pacific strategic rivalry is not nearly military. It is combated by diplomacy, building infrastructures, developmental assistance and stories of collaboration. The power in the Pacific today, as asserted by Wallis and Tubilewicz (2025), is not in the power of coercion but in the power of influencing preference and perception. In the case of China, influence has an aspect of integrating China into its network of developmental needs; in the case of the West, influence is about regaining credibility via regular and respectful interactions.

Conclusion:

The small island states are at a crossroads. The competition has possibilities of investment acquisition, vulnerability to climate, and partnership diversifying, but it also has a danger of being caught in the great-power tussle. The question that Pacific leaders have to contend with is how to utilise competition in the national interest without losing sovereignty and unity in the region.

The situation described by Sora et al. (2024) as the great game of the Pacific will not necessarily involve external actors only, but also external actors negotiating, manoeuvring, and determining where to fit in this new arena. How they will be transformed into pawns or partners will be determined by how they manage to strike the right balance between ambition, autonomy and alliance in a fast-changing Indo-Pacific.