VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
High-level diplomacy between the Cook Islands and Beijing has sent alarm bells ringing inside the elite US-led Five Eyes intelligence-sharing organisation; a heightening of diplomatic tensions and hostilities has proved easy to observe.
The matter, however, is best assessed in the context of the wider Pacific region and the recent decision by the Trump administration to suspend all foreign aid for at least ninety days.
The official five-day diplomatic visit to Beijing by Cook Island Prime Minister, Mark Brown, in early February has been officially noted as sealing a Joint Action Plan for Strategic Partnership between the two countries. (1) An official media release from the office of the PM, noted, 'This visit is about expanding economic opportunities while ensuring our sovereignty and national interests remain at the forefront … Our approach to foreign policy is clear … we engage openly and transparently to secure the best outcomes for our people'. (2)
While the Cook Islands are self-governing with a population of about 17,000 citizens, they have a 'free association' with New Zealand which provides economic assistance and defence and security; all Cook Islanders are technically New Zealand citizens. The fifteen islands and atolls straddle about 1.9 million square kms in the South West Pacific, centred upon 20 degrees south and 160 degrees west, alongside strategic land-masses controlled or administered by France.
The Cook Islands also have a defence and security co-operation agreement with Australia, signed in 2022; it was officially noted from Canberra that 'the Australian government is cautiously waiting to see the detail of the agreement' between the Cook Islands and China. (3)
The response of the NZ government was more forthright; they warned there had been a failure with official consultation procedures and demanded access to the Joint Action Plan. (4) It was subsequently diplomatically noted that NZ 'did not see eye to eye with the Cook Islands government on a range of issues'. (5)
Both New Zealand and Australia form part of the elite US-led Five Eyes intelligence-sharing organisation, which oversees the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) and rests upon the 'Quad', aimed at containing and encircling China from all sides. (6)
The Cook Islands, furthermore, possess some limited status inside the US-led defence and security provision, being placed upon sensitive islands chains in Oceania. The Cook Islands, in fact, also possess their own intelligence services, which official government publications have noted, 'continually gather intelligence for analysis'. (7) What facilities the Cook Islands use for intelligence-gathering has not been publicised; the Australian government, however, has historically used secret facilities on the Cocos Islands for intelligence-gathering on Indonesia and other parts of the Indian Ocean. (8)
The US, likewise, use facilities on the Marshall Islands in the form of a space surveillance radar system known as the 'Space Fence', with ability to track satellites and space debris. (9)
Using their Echelon system the US can continuously monitor global telecommunications through outlying computer stations directly linked into the National Security Agency. (10) The surveillance exists outside of territorial laws and regulations, high in the sky and inside cyber-space. The fact that both the Marshall Islands and the Cook Islands also swing on the same arc from Pine Gap in Central Australia may not be coincidental.
Silence, with such diplomatic matters, tends to be the order of the day.
The noted response of the Cook Islands government toward their NZ counterparts over the recent diplomatic spat was, nevertheless, both blunt and direct; PM Mark Brown 'dismissed New Zealand's concerns … there is no need for NZ to sit in the room with us … he … declared his government intends to sign a strategic partnership with Beijing regardless of Wellington's objections … following a phone call on Friday in which Mr Peters demanded he reveal the contents of the deal'. (11) He then boarded an international flight to Beijing from Auckland, on the northern island of NZ, 'without further consultation'. (12)
Recent developments with the Cook Islands, however, rest upon decades of relative neglect from the advanced, industrial countries, toward the small island states of the Pacific. They were absorbed into neo-colonial-type relations following political independence during the previous Cold War and expected to be passive recipients of aid packages. Things now, however, are not what they used to be; a changing balance of forces has taken place.
A recent assessment from Canberra has, for example, provided a glimpse of unfolding developments; it was noted there had been 'a fundamental shift in how Pacific nations see themselves. They are no longer content to be passive recipients of great … or even regional … power influence. Instead they actively seek to shape the regional order according to their interests. Beijing has carefully cultivated these aspirations'. (13)
Stronger diplomatic standing and organisation in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) has also had an impact upon traditional hegemonic positions; the US is no longer the dominant power in the Pacific, with China emerging as a serious competitor. (14) Both collectively and independently, the Pacific Islands have questioned their traditional neo-colonial status and now possess stronger bargaining positions; they have acted accordingly with their own diplomatic initiatives.
It is important to note the diplomatic silence from the Trump administration about these developments. It is not difficult to understand why. Buffoonery has taken precedence over
common sense and sound political and diplomatic judgement, for all to see.
The US has had a foreign aid commitment with aid programs to twelve Pacific countries amounting to US$3.4 billion; the recent decision to suspend all the programs globally for at least ninety days has already been assessed as a spectacular 'own goal' by informed observers to the debacle. (15) Recipients of foreign aid now look elsewhere.
In conclusion, the decision, by the Cook Islands, to seek greater support for their economic development from China has shown how US-led diplomacy conducted through Australia and New Zealand has failed to accurately assess the changing balance of forces in the Pacific, despite huge resources used by the Five Eyes for defence and security provision.
The Cook Islands initiative has proved a timely response to matters arising, and, invariably, has far-reaching implications for future diplomatic relations and their outcome elsewhere, across the Pacific:
We need an independent foreign policy!
1. NZ fury as Cook is partners with China, Australian, 7 February 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Cook Islands' Beijing pact triggers strategic waves across Pacific, Australian, 10 February 2025.
4. Australian op.cit., 7 February 2025.
5. Ibid.
6. See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
7. See: Cook Islands – National Security Policy, 2023-2026, page 27.
8. Secret spy station on the Cocos Islands, The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 October 2013.
9. US v. China, Japan Forward: Politics and Security, 14 February 2020.
10. See: Echelon, Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2003), pp. 89-93.
11. Pacific paradox leaves door open to China, Australian, 11 February 2025; and, Australian, op.cit., 10 February 2025.
12. Australian, ibid., 10 February 2025.
13. Australian, op.cit., 11 February 2025..
14. See: Study – US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
15. See: Gift for Beijing: Asia-Pacific analysts warn shock US aid freeze 'an own goal', Australian, 4 February 2025.