10.

India and the South Pacific: Fiji, PIF, IPIC and the China connection

David Scott

(David Scott (davidscott366@outlook.com) has been a lecturer at Brunel University from 1992-2015, where his interests and teaching focussed on various aspects of Asia-Pacific international relations and the impact of China and India in the international system. He is recently retired from teaching, but is still actively researching and undertaking consultancy. A prolific author, Scott has written three books on China’s international relations, edited one book on India’s international relations, and has written many articles on Chinese and Indian foreign policy, and also on the geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.)

Introduction

In recent years a “strategic imperative” has drawn India into closer involvement with

the South Pacific.1 This represents an extension of India’s Look East policy which was

originally aimed in the 1990s at Southeast Asia, via the Association of Southeast

Asian Nations (ASEAN); but which then developed a wider geographic orbit in a so-

called Look East Phase-2 evident since 2003. This new phase was described in 2003

by the External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha as “characterised by an expanded

definition of ‘East’, extending from Australia to East Asia”,2 though at the time it was

still felt by some Indian observer that “the potential with Australia and the South

Pacific remains to be tapped fully”.3 India’s push into East Asia has brought it into the

Western Pacific.4 Having been thereby extended into Australasia and the West

Pacific, a further extension, in effect a Look East Phase-3, has seen India’s sense of

strategic ‘East’ pushed across still further into the South Pacific. India’s Ministry for

External Affairs highlighted such wider South Pacific arenas in its 2003–04 Annual

Report, It noted that “India continued to pursue closer relations with South East Asia

in keeping with its Look East Policy”, but went on to flag an “expansion of its Look

East Policy ... beyond South East Asia to the Pacific region”.5

India’s involvement in the South Pacific has been primarily economics-

orientated and development aid focussed. In 2006 at the Pacific Island Forum (PIF),

India’s representative the Minister for State for External Affairs, E. Ahamed, unveiled

India's Pacific Island Country Assistance Initiative, to be made up of an annual grant

of US$ 100,000 to each of the 14 island nations. This was subsequently increased to

US$ 125,000 in 2009. Between 2005 and 2012, Indian development assistance to this

region totalled over US$ 50 million in the form of Lines of Credit and over US$ 11

million in grants. This expansion of concerns for India was also reflected in naval

outreach in August 2006 when INS Tabar carrying out cooperative naval exercises in

Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Fiji.

This Indian outreach has received further impetus with Narendra Modi’s Act

East drive, in which he announced “since entering office six months ago, my

government has moved with a great sense of priority and speed to turn our ‘Look

East Policy’ into ‘Act East Policy’”.6 Having delivered this address at the East Asia

Summit meeting in Myanmar, Modi illustrated this eastwards focus by going on to

visit Australia and then Fiji.

This all increasingly reflects an increasing adoption of an Indo-Pacific frame of

reference for Indian strategic discussions, which involves treating the eastern Indian

Ocean and the West/South Pacific as one strategic focus for India.7 Such an eastern

outreach means that the South Pacific has come to be talked of by Indian

governments as an area of interest, “when in the context of India, we talk of our

extended neighborhood, it includes all the countries in the Pacific region”.8 Such an

incorporation of the South Pacific under India’s extended neighbourhood, framework

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means that there are strategic interests there to be gained, maintained and

ultimately defended.9

Consequently, three things are argued in this paper concerning this stronger

Indian drive into the South Pacific. Firstly it argues that bilaterally Fiji is the main

entry point for Indian efforts. Secondly, it argues that multilaterally the Forum for

India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) represents a significant new Indian initiative

for steering its regional presence in the South Pacific. Thirdly it argues there is there

is a China connection in play that helps to explain, in part, why India is now more

actively pushing into the South Pacific.

Fiji

Fiji has been the most important focus point for India in the South Pacific. 10 Indeed,

India has no official diplomatic presence in the South Pacific region except in Fiji,

where it has a High Commission, which covers the other smaller island states.

India-Fiji relations have been primarily shaped through demographic politics

in play through the relative role of the overseas Indian community versus the

indigenous Polynesian Fijians, or iTaukei.11 Table-1 census returns tell a dramatic

story for the period 1881 to 2007. As a British colony, Indian immigration from

British India, to work the sugar plantations, resulted in the Indian population going up

each decade. Various turning points are evident. The 1936 census showed the native

Fijians at less than half of the population (49.2%) while the Indian population had

surged up to a 42.8%. John Coulter’s 1942 book Fiji: Little India of the Pacific

accurately summed up this ongoing process of these dynamics, by the 1946 census

the Indian community at 46.4% having overtaken the Fijian community which had

slipped back to 45.5%. Fiji’s gaining of independence in 1970 had left it in a strange

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position whereby the 1966 census showed the Fijians to be a clear minority, at 42.4%

in their own country, and the Indian community had become the majority community

at 50.8%.

Indira Gandhi’s visit to Fiji in 1981 came to an independent state, whose 1976

census had shown an Indian community at 49.8 larger than the Fijian community at

44.2. Hence her comment that “I feel somewhat like a mother concerned about the

welfare of a married daughter who has set up home far away”.12 The 1986 census

still showed the Fijians’ 46.0% share behind the Indian community’s greater 48.7%

share.

Table-1 Census Population of Fiji by Ethnicity

Source: Fiji Bureau of Statistics

Fijian (1Taukei)

No. %

Indian

No. %

1881 114,748 90.0 588 0.5

1891 105,800 87.3 7,468 0.9

1901 94,397 78.6 17,105 14.2

1911 87,096 62.4 40,286 28.9

1921 84,475 53.7 60,634 38.6

1936 97,651 49.2 85,002 42.8

1946 118,070 45.5 120,414 46.4

1956 148,134 42.8 169,403 49.0

1966 202,176 42.4 240,960 50.5

1976 259,932 44.2 292,896 49.8

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1986 329,305 46.0 348,704 48.7

1996 393,575 50.8 338,818 43.7

2007 475,739 56.8 313,797 37.5

As this growing Indian electorate threatened to translate its numbers into political

power, the next two decades saw repeated military interventions, two in 1987 and a

further one in 2000. Not unsurprisingly, the Indian government responded extremely

negatively to these particular coups. Economic sanctions were put in place, and India

led moves to expel Fiji from the Commonwealth in 1987. The Indian High Commission

was closed down in May 1990 and remained closed for the rest of the decade, amid

Indian criticisms of these coups.13

India-Fiji relations improved again in 1999 as Mahendra Chaudhry from the

Indian community was elected as Prime Minister in 1999, with the Indian High

Commission promptly being reopened. However another coup, with Chaudry led

away at gunpoint, saw relations cool and with further trade sanctions imposed by

India during 2000-2001.

Continuing Indian migration continued to reduce the Indian population. By the

1996 census the Fijian community (393,575 at 50.8%) had overtaken the Indian

community (338,818 at 43.7%), with the gap widening by the 2007 census,with a

Fijian community of 475,739 (56.8%) facing a still diminishing Indian community of

313,798 (37.5%). During those two previous decades many of the Indian community

in Fiji left behind their properties and emigrated to Australia and New Zealand.

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2005 saw diplomatic breakthroughs with the setting up of a joint mechanism

in the shape of the Fiji-India Foreign Office Consultations (FOC), the announcement

by India in August of loans for upgrading Fiji’s sugar mills, and the Fijian Prime

Minister Qarase and Foreign Minister Tavola making a week-long state visit to India in

October. Ahamed’s visit to Fiji in October 2006 brought the signing of a Development

Cooperation Agreement between the two countries. Ironically, a further coup in

December 2006 was not greeted with similar criticisms from India, as the new

Bainimarama regime assured New Delhi that the coup was not aimed against the

Indian community, but instead was aimed at internal corruption.

Nevertheless, faced with continuing criticism from the West (i.e. the US,

Australia, and New Zealand), India was caught in-between; neither joining in the

strong criticisms from the Western bloc, but neither involving itself in the marked

economic assistance that China was able to provide. India was left in the middle with

domestic criticisms over not strongly pushing for democratisation.14

By 2012 the Indian community had shrunk still from its peak of 348,704 in the

1986 census down to an estimated 290,129 in 2012, facing a naturally increased

Fijian community of 511,838. Demographically more reassured, Fiji was able to move

towards restoring civilian government, and with it better links with an India that was

shifting in the early 2000s to a Look East Policy 2 which had moved from the focus on

Southeast Asia in the late 1990s to further outreach to Australasia and the South

Pacific.

During 2014, India-Fiji relations improved as Fiji moved back to prepare

general elections. The visit of Fiji’s Foreign Minister Kubuabola to India in February

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2014 brought comments from the Indian government that it “welcomed the positive

developments initiated by the Fiji authorities for the population of Indian origin in

recent times”, as well as the compliment that “Fiji is an important partner for India in

the region and our Look East Policy”.15 Quiet Indian pressure for a return to civilian

government meant that India also participated in the Multilateral Observer Group

(MOG) for the Fiji elections in September 2014 as co-Chair (with Australia and

Indonesia). This successful return to civilian democracy opened the way for the new

Indian government to engage in dramatic Pacific island diplomacy, as Narendra Modi

made an official state visit in November 2014. This was part of a quickening of the

pace of the previous Look East policy, what the Modi government now called an Act

East focus. Raja Mohan’s sense of the “strategic foray” was that Modi’s “decision to

visit Fiji and the warm welcome he received there are likely to put India into the

geopolitical fray among the major powers in the South Pacific”.16

In his trip to Fiji, Modi brought out the wider regional implications, whereby

“Fiji could serve as a hub for stronger Indian engagement with Pacific Islands”.17 Modi

was measured in his bilateral analysis, “our bilateral relations and international

partnership has been strong. But, we are also aware that the relationship has at

times been adrift; and that our cooperation should be much stronger than it is”, so “I

see this visit as an opportunity to renew an old relationship and lay the foundation for

a strong partnership in the future”.18 Security developments were alluded to, with his

view that “we will also expand our defence and security cooperation, including

assistance in defence training and capacity building”.19 Modi’s address to the Fijian

Parliament was warm.20 He complimented “Fiji as a leader” among South Pacific

island nations, and included this South Pacific outreach as part of an Indo-Pacific

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mental map, “an ocean of opportunity that stretches from the Indian Ocean to the

Pacific Ocean ... Stretching from the Indian Ocean ... into Pacific, this is a region of

enormous dynamism and opportunities, but also a region with many challenges”.21

Amid talk of economic cooperation he also made a point for thanking Fiji for providing

facilities and hospitality for Indian scientists working on India’s successful space

missions.

Institutional links (PIF to FIPIC)

Fiji’s further importance for India is that the Secretariat of the Pacific Islands Forum

(PIF) is based in Suva, an organization with whom India has been an official Dialogue

Partner since 2003.22 PIF is the main Pacific umbrella linking the micro-island states

(Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru,

Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and

Vanuatu) together with Australia and New Zealand. Alongside India are 11 other

dialogue partners namely the EU, Britain, France, the United States, Canada, China,

South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

India’s outreach was well illustrated by the External Affairs Minister

Somanahalli Krishna’s attendance at the Post-Forum Dialogue of Pacific Island Forum

(PIF) in 2009, where “today, we are witnessing a rapid expansion of our engagement

with Australia, New Zealand and the smaller Pacific Island States”.23 The island states

may have been small in size, but their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) held out the

promise of sea resources that India could tap into.

India sees its engagement with the Pacific region as an extension of its Look

East Policy, which was originally conceptualized in the early 1990s to boost

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our engagement with our South East Asian neighborhood, the ASEAN. We

are confident that the ‘Look North’ policy of the Pacific countries and the

‘Look East’ policy of India will dovetail to create new synergies as Pacific

Island countries are rich in natural resources and there is vast potential for

cooperation in diverse spheres.24

However, India is but one of many, thirteen in all, Dialogue Partners for PIF. A

significant development has been India’s setting up of its own unique mechanism,

the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC), which represents a link

between India and the Pacific Island countries of Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall

Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands,

Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. The Ministry of External Affairs was keen to stress how

“India’s relations with the Pacific islands received a major boost ... A new chapter in

our relations with the Pacific region has begun with the launch of the FIPIC

initiative”.25

The spur to FIPIC’s formation was Modi’s above visit to Fiji in November 2014.

Consequently, the first summit of FIPIC was held at the time of Modi’s visit to Fiji.

Amid general training programmes, Modi announced a $1 million Special Adaptation

Fund to provide technical assistance to Pacific islands, and announced an increase in

Grant-in-Aid to each Pacific island country from $125,000 to 2000, 000 per country.

This was no flash in the pan as a second FIPIC summit was held in Jaipur in

August 2015.26 The Indian President Pranab Mukherjee explained it as reflecting how

“we believe our economic linkages and cooperation with your countries are a key

factor in India’s extended ‘Act East’ Policy”.27 Pacific island leaders were clear on

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welcoming a greater Indian role, the Fijian leader telling his Indian audience that

“tonight, we look to the future and the role India is destined to play in forging a

better world for all mankind. And especially the role it can play in the Pacific ... we in

the Pacific look to India to take a greater lead in resolving the great challenges of our

time”.28 Fiji is strongly supporting India’s bid to become a Permanent Member of the

United Nations Security Council.

Modi’s welcome stressed “promoting trade and investment opportunities

between India and Pacific Island countries”.29 He went on to note of the Pacific micro-

states that “some of you have Exclusive Economic Zones that are larger than the

landmass and Exclusive Economic Zone of India taken together”.30 It was significant

that Modi acknowledged that climate change and space collaboration were further

agenda items for cooperation. The geopolitical backdrop for him was Indo-Pacific in

orientation:

In particular, the centre of gravity of global opportunities and challenges

are shifting to the Pacific and Indian Ocean Region. The fortunes of

nations in and around the two oceans are inter-linked. For this reason, the

tides that bear hopes and bring challenges to the shores in India and the

Pacific Islands are the same. That is why some call the region the Indo-

Pacific Region.31

On the diplomatic front, support was sought and gained for India’s quest for a

Permanent Member seat on the Security Council, while India set up a training

programme for diplomats from the Pacific island micro-states. The prime minister’s

offer for the Indian Navy’s support to Pacific Island nations for coastal surveillance

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was a significant widening of India’s readiness to expand its “strategic footprint” in a

region, where the US, Japan and Australia are already competing with China for

geopolitical influence.32

The China Connection

India’s appearance in the South Pacific has got its own India-derived reasons.

Nevertheless, there is a further element of muted competition with China who has

been entering the South Pacific ahead of India.33 T.P. Sreenivasan, India’s High

Commissioner to Fiji and other South Pacific island states from 1986-89 argued in

2014 that “China appears to have plans to build another ‘string of pearls’ in its favour

in the South Pacific, mainly through trade and economic cooperation”, but that “India

can effectively counter these [Chinese] moves if it makes use of its assets in the

region”.34

China’s diplomacy in the South Pacific predates India’s, and to some extent

means that India is now engaged in a catch-up attempt there with China. The

diplomacy by the People’s Republic of China is multi-driven. In part it has been a so

called “cheque-book diplomacy” driven by a need to achieve recognition as the

legitimate Chinese government from the varied micro-states of the Pacific, rather

than such recognition being given to Taiwan. Like India, the PRC has also sought

economic advantages in the large Exclusive Economic Zones of the Pacific states,

and has also space advantages through tracking station facilities at Kiribati that it

enjoyed during the 1990s. This echoes India’s tracking facilities recently gained in

Fiji. Finally there is a degree of strategic competition for the PRC with Japan,

Australia and above all the United States for influence amongst the Pacific

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microstates. In contrast to China, India has significantly strengthened closer bilateral

and trilateral military cooperation in the Pacific with Japan, Australia and the United

States.

Parallel implicit competition has been the order of the day. India was admitted

as a Dialogue Partner of the PIF in 2002, with effect from 2003, but with the PRC

having been a Dialogue Partner since 1989. India’s inauguration of the Forum for

India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) in 2014 was predated by China’s

establishment of the China-Pacific Islands Countries Economic Development and

Cooperation Forum (CPICEDCF) in 2006.35 Narendra Modi’s visit to Fiji in 2014 not only

was predated by Wen Jiabao’s visit in 2006, but was also immediately followed three

days later by President Xi Jinping’s own visit.36 Finally, Modi’s announcement at the

Jaipur FIPIC Summit that “we also look forward to goodwill visits by Indian Navy to

Pacific Islands” was predated by two Chinese warships visiting Papua New Guinea,

Vanuatu, and Tonga in September 2010, and the Harmony Mission 2014 deployment

which saw China’s hospital ship Peace Ark visiting Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, and Papua

New Guinea on its way back from the RIMPAC 2014 exercises held off Hawaii.37

India may have been spurred on by China’s previous outreach into the Pacific,

but China in turn is sensitive to India’s appearance in the Pacific. Modi’s 10 day trip

from Myanmar to Australia to Fiji drew veiled cautions in the Chinese media about

how “India's current active diplomacy suggests the country’s leaders are well aware

it cannot afford to be left behind as a major player in the Pacific”, and that “it has

even reached out to small countries like Fiji because of their geopolitical

positioning”.38 Though “India is not a direct Pacific nation” such Chinese media

12

sources argued that “some Indian strategists tried to create a new identity through

advocating the geopolitical concept of the "Indo-Pacific”.39

Conclusions: the future

India’s outreach to the South Pacific micro-states is likely to be maintained with

increased momentum under Modi’s Act East/Indo-Pacific focus, as further facilitated

by strategic convergence with Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand acts as a

particularly useful bridge for India between Australasia and the South Pacific.

Whereas the established powers like the US, Japan and Australia have tangible

worries over a greater Chinese appearance in the South Pacific, in contrast these

particular Pacific powers welcome India’s arrival in the Pacific. It is significant that

bilateral and trilateral naval cooperation by India with these similarly China-

concerned countries in the Western Pacific, could lead to similar cooperation by them

in South Pacific waters. India’s decision in July 2014 to send its new stealth guided-

missile frigate INS Sahyadri to join in the RIMPAC naval exercises held by the US at

Hawaii was not only a decision by India taken in competition with China’s similar

participation, but also a further sign of India naval operational capability in the Pacific

basin

Modi’s initiative in setting up the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation

(FIPIC) is likely to become a key plank in India’s push into closer relations with the

South Pacific micro-states, and will enable India to get away from just having a South

Pacific focus shaped by its bilateral relations with Fiji. The sub-regional groups

represented by the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), the Micronesian Challenge

(MC), and the Polynesian Leaders Group (PLG) present further opportunities for India.

13

In particular, the Melanesian Spearhead Group (made up of Fiji, Papua New Guinea,

Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front of

New Caledonia) represents the nearest sub-regional grouping for India, but where

China has already established close relations, including building the MSG secretariat

in Vanuatu. India will need to increase its overall level of economic help and financial

investment in the South Pacific, in order to match China’s greater level.

____________

1. Tevita Motulalo, ‘India’s strategic imperative in the South Pacific’, Gateway House Report, October 2013; Kailash Prasad, ‘India looks Far East. A growing presence in the Pacific Islands could have significant benefits for India’, The Diplomat, April 28, 2014, http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/india-looks-far-east/.

2. Yashwant Sinha, ‘Resurgent India in Asia’ (Speech at Harvard University), September 29, 2003, http://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/4744/.

3. C. Raja Mohan, ‘Look East Policy: Phase Two’, The Hindu, October 29, 2003. Also Kumar Sunil, ‘India’s Look East policy: In its second phase’, Academicia, 3.9, 2013, pp. 209–221.

4. Raja Mohan, ‘Is India an East Asian power? Explaining New Delhi’s security politics in the Western Pacific, ISAS Working Papers, 81, August 11, 2009.

5. Ministry of External Affairs, Annual Report. 1 January 2003–31 March 2004 (New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, 2004), p. 38.

6. Narendra Modi, ‘Prime Minister’s remarks at the 9th East Asia Summit’, November 13, 2014, http://mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/24238/. Also Rahul Mishra, ‘From Look East to Act East: Transitions in India’s eastward engagement’, Special Forum (ASAN Forum), December 1, 2014.

7. Patrick Cronin and Darshana Baruah, ‘The Modi Doctrine for the Indo-Pacific maritime region’, The Diplomat, December 2, 2014 http://thediplomat.com/2014/12/the-modi-doctrine-for-the-indo-pacific-maritime-region/.

8. Somanahalli Krishna, ‘Statement by EAM at Post-Forum Dialogue of Pacific Island Forum’, August 7, 2009, http://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/1191/.

9. David Scott, India’s “Extended Neighborhood” Concept: Power projection for a rising power’, India Review, 8.2, pp. 107–143.

10. Shankari Sundaraman, ‘Fiji in Asia: India’s “New” Look East Policy - Looking beyond Southeast Asia at the South Pacific, Fijian Studies, 4.2, 2006, pp. 96-110; Balaji Chandramohan, ‘China-India Relations: New Delhi needs to reach into South Pacific through Fiji’, Future Directions, June 13, 2012, http://www.futuredirections.org.au/publications/indian-ocean/29-indian-ocean-swa/570; Manish Chand, ‘India & Fiji: A Pacific bonding’, In Focus (Ministry of External Affairs), November 18, 2014, http://www.mea.gov.in/in-focus-article.htm?24270/.

11. Carmen Voigt-Graf, ‘Transnationalism and the Indo-Fijian diaspora: The relationship of Indo-Fijians to India and its people”, Journal of Intercultural Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1, February 2008, pp. 81–109; Amba Pande, ‘India and its diaspora in Fiji’, Diaspora Studies, 4.2, 2011, pp. 125–138.

12. Indira Gandhi, September 1981, cited in R. Thakur, ‘India and Overseas Indians: The case of Fiji’, Asian Survey, 25.3, 1985, p. 356.

13. Ganeshwar Chand, ‘Race and Regionalism in Fiji, Pacific and India’, Economic and

14

Political Weekly, 25.3, January 20, 1990, pp. 167–174.14. Balaji Chandramohan, ‘Political Crisis in Fiji and India’s Concerns’, IDSA Comment,

August 19, 2010, http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/PoliticalCrisisinFijiandIndiasConcerns_bchandramohan_190810.html.

15. Salman Khurshid, ‘Media Statement by External Affairs Minister during the visit of Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Fiji to India’, February 12, 2014, http://www.mea.gov.in/incoming-visit-detail.htm?22866/.

16. Raja Mohan, ‘PM Modi in Fiji: India’s strategic foray in the South Pacific’, RSIS Commentary, 233, November 24, 2014. Also Shubha Singh, ‘Why PM Modi’s voyage to Fiji matters’, India Writes, October 27, 2014, http://www.indiawrites.org/diplomacy/why-pm-modis-voyage-to-fiji-matters/.

17. Modi, ‘Remarks by Prime Minister to the Media after meeting with Prime Minister of Fiji’, November 19, 2014, http://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/24277/.

18. Ibid.19. Ibid.20. Modi, ‘Text of Prime Minister’s Address to the Fiji Parliament’, November 19, 2014,

http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=111545.21. Ibid.22. Shubha Singh, ‘Reaching out to the South Pacific’, Frontline, 19.20, October 12-25,

2002, http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl1920/stories/20021011008305900.htm; ‘India and Pacific Island Forum—Economic linkages build strong ties’, Business Line (The Hindu), February 10, 2003; idem., ‘Pacific Connection’, Frontline, 22.25, November 19-December 2, 2005, http://www.frontline.in/navigation/?type=static&page=flonnet&rdurl=fl2224/stories/20051202001205600.htm.

23. Krishna, ‘Statement by EAM at Post-Forum Dialogue of Pacific Island Forum’.24. Ibid.25. Annual Report 2014-15, New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs, p. 34.26. Karan Nagpal, ‘A Pacific beyond Fiji’, Indian Express, August 26, 2015,

http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/a-pacific-beyond-fiji/.27. Pranab Mukherjee, ‘Address by the President of India’, Press Information Bureau,

August 20, 2015, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=12618828. Josaia Bainimarama, ‘Speech at the Forum for India-Pacific Island Cooperation’, August

31, 2015, http://bainimarama.org/speech-hon-prime-minister-josaia-voreqe-bainimaramas-speech-forum-india-pacific-island-cooperation-fipic/.

29. Modi, ‘Opening Remarks’ (Summit of Forum for India Pacific Island Countries), August 21, 2015, 2015, http://www.mea.gov.in/Speeches-Statements.htm?dtl/25746.

30. Modi, ‘Opening Remarks’.31. Modi, ‘Opening Remarks’. Also Aniket Bhavthankar, ‘India broadens strategic canvas,

establishes role in Indo-Pacific’, South Asia Monitor, August 27, 2015, http://southasiamonitor.org/detail.php?type=sl&nid=13237; ‘Second FIPIC and the Indo-Pacific: a successful Kautilyan exercise’, Tonga Herald, September 23, http://tongaherald.com/second-fipic-and-realization-of-the-indo-pacific-a-successful-kautilyan-exercise/.

32. Anirban Bhaumik, ‘Modi offers Navy help to Pacific Island nations’, Deccan Herald, August 22, 2014.

33. Tamara Shie, ‘China woos the South Pacific’, PacNet (CSIS), 10A, March 17, 2006; Jian Yang, ‘China in the South Pacific: Hegemon on the horizon’, Pacific Review, 22.2, May 2009, pp. 139-58.

34. T.P. Srinivasan, ‘Countering another string of pearls, The Hindu, November 19, 2014.35. Aditi Phadnis, ‘India reaches out to small Pacific island nations to counter China’,

Business Standard, August 21, 2015.36. PM Modi woos Fiji days ahead of Xi’s visit’, Times of India, November 20, 2014; Monika

Chansoria, ‘India-China chase now extends to Fiji with Modi and Xi’s Visits’, CLAWS

15

(Centre for Land Warfare Studies), 1288, November 21, 2014, http://www.claws.in/1288.

37. Modi, ‘Text of PM’s closing remarks at Forum for India Pacific Island Countries (FIPIC) Summit, Jaipur’, August 21, 2015, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=126259.

38. Liu Siwei, ‘India seeks clear role in future Asia-Pacific’, Global Times, December 18, 2014.

39. Ibid.

*****

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