Luxon leaves Pacific Islands Forum with assurances on peace, dialogue partner framework

Analysis: An imposing range of hills and ridges loom over Honiara.

While tranquil and sparsely populated, they were once the site of one of the most famous military campaigns of World War II.

The Guadalcanal Campaign saw the Allies push back against Japan, and is seen as a turning point in the Pacific frontier of the war.

The Battle of Bloody Ridge, in particular, resulted in heavy losses for Japan against the United States.

It is now the site of the Solomon Islands' first national park.

But some scars have been left behind.

The Halo Trust works to pinpoint and clear 'unexploded ordnance' around the world. It has recently expanded to the Solomon Islands, its work funded by the US State Department.

These mostly American and Japanese artillery shells and grenades are still found by unsuspecting farmers, gardeners, and fishermen.

Despite being 80 years old, they still have the potential to cause damage, and still serve as reminders of a battle between major powers on an island far beyond their borders.

Friday marks 83 years since the start of the Battle of Bloody Ridge, while this year marks 80 years since the Japanese surrender at the end of the war.

Both anniversaries were on Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele's mind as he introduced a session to sign the Ocean of Peace declaration at this year's Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting.

"This declaration is a call for the Pacific to control its destiny," he said.

Manele, who served as this year's forum chair, said the declaration was forged by the hardship sustained by the region eight decades ago.

The declaration, introduced by Fiji's Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, was signed by the leaders of the forum's 18 members.

Its effectiveness depends on how it is interpreted.

Christopher Luxon sees the declaration as a framework for more unity, a call for challenges or disagreements to be resolved in a Pacific way, as a Pacific family.

The future partner framework

The phrase 'Pacific family' comes up a lot at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).

It is usually a more casual and friendly affair than other summits, with leaders dipping out of plenary sessions for one-on-ones and spending time at a private retreat to thrash through the major issues.

The buildup to this year's summit was dominated by commentary around who was not here.

The host decided to exclude what are known as 'dialogue partners' - nations or entities which are not part of PIF, but contribute to development in the region.

The Solomon Islands has stressed China, its significant diplomatic partner, did not pressure it to exclude Taiwan from the summit.

It instead arrived at the solution to exclude all partners, China included, while discussions on the future of how the forum engages with its partners could be concluded.

Its exclusion from the meeting has not stopped China from reminding PIF of its contributions, with the Facebook page for the Chinese Embassy in the Solomon Islands posting regular reminders of its investment.

While the official communiqué will reveal exactly what came out of the discussions on the forum's regional architecture, and the rest of the agenda, it is certain that partners will be put into two tiers, split depending on their level of engagement.

Tier 1 partners will be those who have development co-operation or investments that cut across all areas of the forum's strategy.

Tier 2 will be reserved for partners whose contribution relates to a specific programme.

Luxon's vision for the future of the framework is to plead for partners to respect PIF's 'centrality' - for PIF to decide what it wants and needs, and then talk to its partners to see if they can offer it, rather than the dialogue partners calling the shots.

Next year's host, Palau - one of only a few countries that recognises Taiwan - has already indicated all will be welcome.

After that, it is New Zealand's turn, with Luxon confirming New Zealand's bid for 2027 has been accepted.

A closed affair

Throughout Honiara, you can see the evidence of development opportunities every few metres.

Infrastructure projects carry the name of the country contributing to its development.

An Irish education building here, an Australian road there.

A fleet of Hyundai cars with Republic of Korea decals sat outside the new national stadium, the sign outside bearing a huge Chinese emblem, the signs inside all Chinese-first.

Inside the adjacent futsal hall, funded by Indonesia, Manele and PIF Secretary General Baron Waqa alluded to the geostrategic competition in the region in their opening remarks.

Media were ushered away to the other side of the hall before Waqa could finish speaking.

It immediately became apparent a curtain between the two halves did little to block out what were supposed to be candid conversations between the leaders, and media were swiftly booted out of the hall entirely.

Organisers need not have worried - the acoustics meant it was impossible to tell who was speaking or what they were saying.

Regardless, it spoke to the tensions surrounding this year's meeting.

The rest of the day played out in similar overly bureaucratic fashion, with a mix of 'Island time' thrown in.

Events were delayed, locations moved, with little in the way of an explanation why.

Blowouts throughout the day meant the time and location of the group photo changed a number of times.

Eventually it was moved to the evening at the leaders' hotel, even then it missed nature's deadline.

As leaders arrived from the Ocean of Peace declaration signing, they were visibly exhausted after a long day.

The heat, humidity, and nausea from the antimalarial pills would not have helped.

By then the sun had set, the moment had passed, and the chairs remained empty.

Instead, the leaders ratified the Pacific Resilience Facility, a fund to administer climate funding for the region, to which New Zealand is contributing $20 million.

That signing was originally supposed to take place six hours earlier.

Stoushes kicked to officials

Luxon managed to make the most of being stuck in a holding pattern, squeezing in a bilateral with Kiribati president Taneti Maamau.

The announcement of the bilateral was so sudden, it prompted a mad dash across the hotel grounds, and into a tiny room behind the hotel spa.

Four small desks shoved together was a far cry from Luxon's bilaterals in places like Beijing's Great Hall of the People, or New Delhi's Hyderabad House.

Luxon said the meeting was a catch-up, a first chance for the two to sit down together.

He has clearly decided to stay out of the spat between his foreign affairs minister and Maamau.

Earlier this year, Winston Peters said New Zealand would review its aid funding to Kiribati over a perceived snub from Maamau, who Peters said had cancelled a visit from him.

Kiribati remains the only PIF member Peters is yet to visit.

At the forum, Maamau told RNZ Pacific it was "unfair" that Peters had made a fuss over not being able to visit.

Luxon has kicked that matter back to Peters and foreign affairs officials.

He said there "might" be an opportunity for Peters and Maamau to meet at the United Nations General Assembly later this month in New York.

Similarly, Luxon spoke of a civil and friendly chat with Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown, leaving the matter of that dispute to officials.

New Zealand has paused development funding for the Cook Islands after Brown signed a partnership agreement with China, without informing New Zealand.

The two caught up at the rugby last weekend and were seen speaking casually and collegially a number of times at the forum.

But that leader-to-leader engagement will not have solved the impasse.

On Thursday morning, the group photo was the only item on the agenda before the leaders flew out to their retreat, and even then it was delayed.

Leaders were in good spirits, talking and joking with each other as their counterparts trickled in.

Luxon, doing anything to stoke up more trans-Tasman rivalry, niggled at Australia's Anthony Albanese for wearing the wrong shirt at the Pacific Resilience Facility signing, turning up in red while everyone else wore matching blue (he later ducked out to retrieve the correct uniform).

It seems like Albanese got his revenge on everyone else - for the second year in a row he kept everyone else waiting for the group photo.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.