BY JOHN HOUANIHAU
Solomon Islands National University Vice Chancellor, Professor Transform Aqorau has raised concern regarding the challenge of geopolitical pressures and strategic vulnerabilities faced by Pacific Islands countries.
He raised the concern during a two-day workshop titled “Charting a Shared Course: Enhancing Maritime Security Coordination in the Pacific” held at SINU Ranadi campus on Wednesday, July 23, 2025.
The workshop hosted by the Solomon Islands National University (SINU), in collaboration with the University of Adelaide, aims to encourage dialogue and coordination on maritime security among Pacific Island countries and their key partners.
It brought together leading academics and experts from across the region and beyond to discuss priorities, partnerships, and practical strategies for regional maritime cooperation.
“Our blue Pacific has become an arena of intensifying geostrategic interest. Major powers are increasingly looking to the Pacific, seeing not just our fisheries and minerals, but our strategic position astride vital trade routes,” said Aqorau.
He said that while this can bring opportunities, new partnerships, infrastructure and aid, it can also bring significant risks if not managed wisely.
Aqorau expressed that Pacific Islands have witnessed how great power rivalry between the United States and China is playing out across the region, raising concerns about militarisation and the Pacific becoming a chessboard for other strategic ambitions.
“Pacific nations like my own have felt the weight of diplomatic pressure and competing offers of security assistance,” he said.
Aqorau stated that the Solomon Islands government’s decision to sign a security cooperation agreement with the People’s Republic of China in 2022, for instance, introduced new dynamics into the region’s security landscape.
“This agreement, controversial to some, underscored the shifting terrain in which the Pacific states must assert their sovereignty. It is our responsibility to ensure that external engagements serve our interests and values and do not compromise the Pacific’s stability or unity.
“We must guard against becoming pawns in anyone’s great game. This calls for a strong, united Pacific voice about our security priorities. Our region has a proud tradition of declaring what we do not want, making the South Pacific a nuclear-free zone. To our leaders, today we are calling for the Pacific to remain free of military competition,” he said.
Aqorau mentioned that Pacific Islanders must steer their canoe, maintain their solidarity and insist that the Pacific security architecture be shaped by Pacific hands, not by external ambitions.
“That is the bottom line in the face of the current geopolitical,” he said.
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