United Nations, Sep 26 (SocialNews.XYZ) Island and coastal nations have warned the global community against turning the Indian and Pacific oceans into arenas for military confrontation. Strategic competition must not force smaller countries to choose sides, they asserted.
In statements at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), leaders welcomed trade, investment and international partnerships. But they drew a line between cooperation and pressure. They called for peaceful seas, respect for sovereignty and space to pursue independent foreign policies.
The Maldives delivered the clearest Indian Ocean message.
“The Indian Ocean must remain peaceful,” Vice-President Hussain Mohamed Latheef said.
He said the region must allow trade to flow and states to prosper. Competition among major powers, he added, must not limit the choices of smaller countries.
Fijian President Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu said the Pacific carried memories of decisions made elsewhere but suffered by its people. Fiji welcomed friendship, investment and genuine cooperation, “but our ocean must not become a theatre in which others settle their rivalries.”
Tongan Prime Minister Lord Fakafanua said the region’s Ocean of Peace declaration carried an unambiguous message.
He said the declaration sent “a clear message: the Pacific must not become a staging ground for military escalation or a battleground for major power rivalry.”
Tonga said the declaration meant more than the absence of conflict. It also required regional action against transnational crime, illegal fishing, cyberthreats and the continuing consequences of nuclear testing and radioactive contamination.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Cooper Wale described the pressure on smaller governments as international divisions hardened.
“Neighbours are asked to choose sides. Small States are too often treated as prizes to be won rather than partners to be heard,” he said.
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said geopolitics was too often discussed only in terms of the wishes of superpowers, overlooking the fragile position of countries located between them. She said the effects of distant power struggles were amplified in small, remote economies already struggling with rising fuel and energy costs.
Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. objected to treating the Pacific as unused strategic space.
“Our region must never be treated as an empty expanse for strategic competition or tests of military power,” he said.
He said the Pacific was home to communities, cultures, fisheries and ecosystems. It was the foundation of regional security, not a theatre for geopolitical competition.
Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis said Caribbean countries also recognised the renewed language of spheres of influence, backyards and hemispheres.
Davis said: “We did not win our freedom to once again become somebody's backyard.”
The statements did not reject engagement with major powers. They sought partnerships that protected national agency and allowed smaller states to maintain relationships with several sides.
Australia said its Indo-Pacific partnerships were intended to build sovereign capacity and give countries sovereign choice free from coercion. It said it would work with the United States, China and other partners while supporting a regional order in which no country dominated another.
The Indian and Pacific oceans contain some of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Competition involving China, the United States and their partners has increased the strategic importance of island states, ports and maritime infrastructure across the two regions.
Source: IANS
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