Monday’s signing of the Vanuatu-Australia Nakamal Agreement is being hailed as a diplomatic win for Australia in its ‘permanent contest’ with China in the Pacific Islands region. But is it as substantive as it is symbolic?
Vanuatu has agreed that it will ‘not permit its territory to be used for any foreign military base or infrastructure’. Vanuatu will also ‘prioritise any policing request to Pacific Islands Forum members’, and has further agreed that ‘its critical infrastructure shall remain free from militarisation, any form of foreign interference or unauthorised access’. Vanuatu has also undertaken that it will ‘consult Australia on proposed third-party engagement in Vanuatu’s critical infrastructure’. At first blush, these undertakings appear to satisfy Australia’s concerns about Vanuatu’s growing security relationship with China, especially with respect to policing. They also seem to further Australia’s ‘strategy of denial’, particularly given Australian anxieties about rumours which surfaced in 2018 that China was in talks with Vanuatu to build a military base.
Look beyond these headline items, and the Nakamal Agreement is the latest example of Australia’s ‘sugar-rush’ diplomacy: its recent series of bilateral security agreements and treaties with Pacific Island countries to deter them from developing closer relations with China. These arrangements are more symbolic than substantive: in the short-term, they give the Australian government a bold announcement; in the long-term, they may give Australians a false sense of security regarding our relationships and strategic interests in the Pacific.
Transactionalism
Elements of the Nakamal Agreement are laudable. The recognition of the ‘enduring cultural connections’ between Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Australian South Sea Islanders, and Ni-Vanuatu, is long overdue. The plan to create a Nakamal Committee that will ‘emphasise storian as our way of building common understanding’, represents an exciting potential model for Australia engagement in the Pacific rooted in locally resonant dialogue and consensus-building. Improved ‘mobility arrangements’ have long been a Vanuatu priority.
However, these nods towards ‘mutual respect’ and sensitivity to Vanuatu’s values and priorities are undermined by the transactional nature of the agreement. Australia has extracted Vanuatu’s agreement to concessions that are intended to limit its foreign and development policy autonomy. In exchange, Australia will provide unspecified ‘budget support to assist Vanuatu’s economic and fiscal certainty’, ‘digital infrastructure and software’, ‘elevate[d]’ policing assistance’, and support for ‘Vanuatu’s economic transformation’.
As Jack Corbett and I argue in our new book, transnactionalism is not the genuine partnership of a good neighbour. A genuine partner would support Vanuatu’s right to access development finance from multiple sources, including China, and respect the Vanuatu government’s ability to make prudent borrowing decisions. A genuine partner would accept that Vanuatu, like other Pacific Island countries, should be free to pursue relationships with multiple partners, and trust that it can shrewdly assess its national interest and the regional security implications of its actions. This is not the fault of the Australian officials who have worked tirelessly to secure this agreement. Instead, it reflects that Australians have been so conditioned to see the Pacific primarily through the lens of the ‘China threat’, that it has become politically untenable for the Australian government to announce big commitments in the region that do not simultaneously seek to deny China a foothold.
China & Enforcement
But even though the Nakamal Agreement purports to do this, it is unenforceable in practice. The treaty has a toothless dispute resolution procedure. If Vanuatu breaches the treaty, such as by accepting Chinese infrastructure funding without consulting Australia, there is little Australia can do. If Australia retaliated by suspending its support, that could encourage Vanuatu to draw closer to China – exactly what the treaty is intended to avoid.
In fact, Australia has already tried this: after Vanuatu refused to sign the original version of the Nakamal Agreement that placed greater restrictions on its ability to seek Chinese investments in its critical infrastructure, Vanuatu was excluded from Australia’s Pacific Engagement Visa scheme and Australia withdrew its promised A$500 million in development assistance. Vanuatu subsequently entered negotiations with China on the Namele Agreement, and the limitations on China’s critical infrastructure investment are watered down in the new version of the Nakamal Agreement.
The transactionalism of the Nakamal Agreement also means that Australia has essentially signed a blank cheque. The Vanuatu government is well-aware of the political pressure in Australia to secure the agreement following the humiliation of Prime Minister Albanese’s failed September 2025 visit to sign the original version. It also knows that the Australian government will face political blow-back if China establishes a strategic presence in Vanuatu. Afterall, when in opposition, Penny Wong described the China-Solomon Islands security agreement as Australia’s ‘worst foreign policy blunder since the end of World War Two’.
As a result, the Vanuatu government’s expectations of Australian spending under the agreement will – justifiably – be high. But what happens if Vanuatu needs infrastructure financing that Australia cannot, or will not, provide? What happens if Australia’s priorities shift – as they have repeatedly throughout the past century – and its attention shifts away from Vanuatu?
To be a good neighbour, Australia must recognise that while its strategic preoccupations will fluctuate, its geography will not change. We need to build long-term respectful and trusting relationships with Vanuatu and our Pacific neighbours that are ‘more important than might and money’, rather than seek the sugar-rush of a short-term political windfall.
Joanne Wallis is Professor of International Security in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Adelaide. Joanne is a leading academic voice within the Australian strategic and foreign affairs policy community. She has been a delegate to the Australia-America Leadership Dialogue, has been invited to participate in strategic dialogues in Washington, Wellington, Canberra, Taipei and Port Moresby, and has appeared before the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. Joanne is the author or editor of seven books, including Constitution making during State building (CUP 2014) and Pacific Power? Australia’s Strategy in the Pacific Islands (MUP 2017).
This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.
