Pacific citizens: Though 50 years ago there was not much contact ...

Pacific Cooperation Foundation: Just as the Asia 2000 Foundation was ...

Tackling Pacific Island problems from within the Parliament: Strategic thinking about ...

The agenda: THEN: Social issues were important ...

Improving partnership: There is a need to revive the Pacific Islands ...

Tackling blindness among Pacific peoples: Tongan public health specialist ...

HIV AIDS - moral and medical solutions: Public health and other policy planners...

Tongan job solution: Managed employment is a Tongan New Zealander's private ...

The new tertiary landscape - what's in it for Pacific peoples?: Education is ...

Making good citizens: In our Pacific region, and elsewhere in the world ...

Involving Pacific peoples in local decisionmaking: The question all New Zealand ...

Tangata Pasifika? Michael Powles, who has worked ...

Endorsing good governance: Former New Zealand career diplomat Gordon Schroff ...

Need not be conflict: Issues in Pacific governance - where one size does not ...

Cooperation wins: Greater regional cooperation on common issues might ...

APEC and PECC: Though New Zealand seeks to be a good international ...

Advocacy on market access: The Pacific Islands Trade and Investment ...

Being Pa'alagi: The Being Pa'alagi programme, in which I looked back ...

Collaboration key to achieving vision: The vision of the Ministry of ...

Talk to all pacific cultures with one voice:
Ethnic Communications

APEC and PECC

Gary Hawke is head of the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington, and chair of the board of NZPECC

In the last 15 years New Zealand has given far more attention to its place in the Asia-Pacific Region.

While our trading strategy remains global, economic integration in the Asia-Pacific Region is vastly more important than it was in earlier years. The Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation community, APEC, is the most important regional institution.

New Zealand seeks to be a good international citizen on the whole range of global issues. However, on issues of security, including the newer security issues such as environmental challenges, the Pacific is at the centre of our attention.

Notice how the first reference is to “Asia-Pacific”, while the second is to “Pacific”.

“ Asia-Pacific” was a construct which emerged from Asia, especially Japan, rather than the more usual source of international influences on our thinking, North America and Europe. In Japanese thinking, it refers to the Pacific edge of Asia plus North America. Over time, it has come to refer to the Pacific Rim, including the Pacific coast of South America.

The instinctive thinking we inherited from Britain put India at the centre of Asia. Relations with India have come to be more important in “Asia Pacific”, partly to avoid domination by the sheer size of China, and our own New Zealand Asia 2000 Foundation has always regarded India as among the foci of its activities, but India has not been central to most Asia-Pacific institutions. They have been built around the Pacific Rim.

Pacific Islands can disappear

The Pacific Islands have sometimes seemed to disappear into a black hole surrounded by the Asia Pacific region. Efforts are sometimes made to give them an enhanced economic significance to New Zealand. Adding all the Pacific Island Nations together (including Papua New Guinea which dwarfs the others) produces assertions such as the Pacific jointly is New Zealand’s nth largest market. Such efforts are unconvincing. Bilateral markets do not deserve such emphasis anyway, but adding any markets together will move them up a list of markets by size. Individual markets are determined by distinctive customer requirements, not by the whims of geopolitical strategists or advocates, and the individual Pacific Island Nations have different customer requirements.

There is more weight to the idea that the Pacific Island nations are important within New Zealand’s Asia-Pacific strategy when we turn to security issues, including environmental issues. The international community expects us to demonstrate the credibility of our claims to international citizenship in what it regards as our region, often with little understanding of how distant from us much of that region is. We have ties of history and family relations to the Pacific Island nations.

And yet there is a major economic reason for seeing the Pacific island Nations as important to our place in the Asia Pacific region. Economic integration goes far beyond trade, and the use of tariffs to regulate access to individual national markets. It involves the use of resources to generate consumer satisfaction with fewer constraints imposed by requiring that the resources of one country be used to satisfy the demands of its own consumers. By allocating resources across wider regions, total output can be greater and all can benefit although issues of distribution are not trivial. The process of economic integration, like economic growth in general, challenges establishes positions of privilege.

Facilitating balance

This is the process by which Asia Pacific has built itself into a major component of the world economy. Pacific Island nations want to share in the prosperity this makes possible. The positions of privilege which are challenged include traditional governance structures.

New Zealand has an interest in facilitating Pacific decisions about the balance to be struck between participating in Asia-Pacific economic integration and preserving traditional societies. The tension between globalisation and local identity is a universal one; it is especially strong in the Pacific island nations.
The Pacific Economic Co-operation Council, PECC, was one of the progenitors of APEC. It involves researchers, the business community, and officials in their private capacity, working together to promote regional understanding of development issues. It seeks a Pacific Partnership, joining the economies around the Pacific Rim – and extending to the Pacific Island nations.

PECC has a Pacific Island Nations taskforce, led from Japan but including participation by NZPECC, the New Zealand arm of PECC, to facilitate Pacific Island participation in Asia Pacific economic integration to the extent and at the pace chosen by the Pacific Island nations themselves. The particular focus is on the use of modern information and telecommunications technologies to enhance access to modern education and health services – and to respond to issues of governance.

Monopolies challenged

ICT permits participation in national, regional and local government across small and dispersed islands just as it enhances access in those circumstances to education and health services. But ICT is inconsistent with monopoly control of broadcasting facilities and in many Pacific Island nations broadcasting facilities are a government monopoly. This is a small but significant example of the conflict between participation in economic integration and maintenance of traditional social structures.

Published 3rd qtr, 2003

Conflict between participation and tradition
New Zealand’s Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (NZPECC) says information and communication technologies are inconsistent with monopoly control of broadcasting facilities. In many Pacific Island nations broadcasting facilities are a government monopoly.

Gary Hawke, head of the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington and chair of the board of NZPECC., says this is a small but significant example of the conflict between participation in economic integration and maintenance of traditional social structures.

PECC has a Pacific Islands Nations taskforce whose focus is on the use of modern information and telecommunications technologies to enhance access to modern education and health services – and to respond to issues of governance.

Affiliated programs Sitemap Privacy Accessibility Terms of use

Search powered by

Copyright © 2006 Asia Pacific Economic News Ltd. All rights reserved. Users of the Guide are free to make copies or entire pages for personal or educational use, but not for commercial purposes. Copies of individual photos or ilustrations may not be made without the permission of the copyright holders. Use of this website signifies your agreement to the Terms of Use.