Not many people have heard of the Cook Islands, a Pacific island nation so small that it is a protectorate of New Zealand. But it will garner significant attention this weekend when United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flies in to attend meetings of the largest regional organization, the Pacific Islands Forum.
Visiting Raratonga, the main island in the archipelago nation with a population is not more than 12,000 people, Clinton will become the most senior U.S. official to have attended the annual summit, in Raratonga or anywhere else.
Local media has reported the tiny nation is in a state of high expectation for Clinton’s arrival; the secretary has been forced to cut down the numbers in her official party, so short is accommodation.
Her visit is seen as an effort to reaffirm America’s commitment to the region as part of the Obama administration’s pivot to the Asia Pacific.
“Sometimes when we talk about the Asia Pacific, the A is the capital and P is small,” a State Department official said in a press briefing. “Our attempt here is to underscore that we have very strong, enduring, strategic, moral, political, humanitarian interests across the region.”
Renewed focus on the Pacific is partly to counter China’s increasing influence in the region, evident in the growth of Chinese aid to Pacific countries.
Australian think tank, the Lowy Institute, while conceding the lack of transparency in China’s aid program, reported in 2011 that China had pledged to its knowledge over $600 million in soft loans to Pacific countries over the preceding seven years.
China is now the third largest donor to the Pacific, behind Australia and the United States.
The Pacific Island Forum brings together 16 member states: Australia, New Zealand, and 14 developing countries.
During her stay, Clinton will meet island leaders and offer assistance to challenges they face, particularly rising sea levels, disease, and violence against women.
She was also due to meet Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, but that meeting has since been canceled. Gillard was forced to cut her stay short on the news that five Australian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in Australia’s worst day in combat since the Vietnam War.
Following Cook Islands, Clinton will travel to Indonesia, China, East Timor, and Brunei before attending the trade forum Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leadership meeting, this year in Russia’s Pacific port, Vladivostok.
In Indonesia, Clinton will meet with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, highlighting the leadership role both officials have played in strengthening the regional forums, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the East Asia Summit.
ASEAN members failed to release a communiqué at the conclusion of their annual meeting this year. The stumbling block largely China’s insistence that measures to deal with territorial disputes in the South China Sea as a community, be excluded. China has been insisting on only addressing disputes on a bilateral basis.
“It is absolutely manifest that these countries must find a way to deal with China,” a State Department official said, adding that ASEAN was critical to that process.
“It is in our interest to see ASEAN centrality, ASEAN unity, and a purposeful ASEAN that works not only to draw other partners in, but makes clear that certain rules of the road need to be observed in terms of the conduct of diplomacy and commerce going forward,” the official said.
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