Transcript
John Morrell: Welcome to the Democracy That Delivers podcast. This is John Morrell, the Asia Pacific director at CIPE. And today’s episode is part of a special podcast series: Business and Politics in Today’s Pacific Islands. Today, we’ll have a conversation with Andrew Harding of the Heritage Foundation. And we’ll be talking about some of the geopolitical factors of U.S. engagement in the Pacific region.
Andrew is the senior associate for National Security Coalitions at Heritage. And he’s the author of “The Pacific Pivot: An American Strategy for the Pacific Islands,” which is Heritage’s first-ever publication outlining a long-term strategy for American leadership in the Pacific. The link to this article is in the episode description, and it’s a must-read for anyone working in or looking to learn more about the Pacific. Andrew served on the National Security Council, and he’s widely published on national security topics and topics related to China, so he has unique insights here.
Now, CIPE has well over a decade of experience designing and implementing programs to strengthen the economic and democratic resilience of Pacific Island countries, helping them to combat the risks of economic coercion and corrosive capital from abroad. That’s how I came across Andrew’s work. His Pacific Pivot article doesn’t just lay out what the U.S. strategy in the Pacific should consist of — it also lays out how to build bipartisan support for U.S. engagement in the Pacific.
So Andrew, I’d love to hear from you, given your background and your work at Heritage. What drew your attention to the Pacific and what was your motivation for writing the Pacific Pivot article?
Andrew Harding: Well, first of all, thanks for having me on the podcast, John. This is such an important series. And I think it’s really great to see more content coming out about this important region of the world, the Pacific Islands. They’re becoming far more important. And when we’re talking about re-engagement in the region, it’s an emerging issue that’s only going to continue. It’s only going to become more important over time. So I really appreciate you running the series.
To the first question about purpose, a few things come to mind. First, for me, the key question I was thinking about is how can Heritage keep momentum on Pacific Island content? The context for this is we just finished working on educational and policy materials about the importance of renewing key provisions of the Compact of Free Association agreements. These are three agreements the United States has with Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia that grant exclusive military privileges and access in return and exchange for economic programs and federal privileges and access to federal programs. Every 20 years, these agreements have to be renewed. And it just so happened in 2023, as I was starting to get into this region, the Asian Studies Center at Heritage wanted to redouble its efforts and policy work on this topic. It just so happened that the compact started its renewal that year.
So from there, we worked very diligently to provide the right materials and to see things get over the line. And so I wanted to say, what’s next? I don’t want us — I don’t want the United States to be in a situation where now that the compacts are done, we dust our hands and then 20 years later we start talking about the Pacific again. I wanted to think about what can be done to really sustain this re-engagement, sustain this new interest and make it a more permanent discussion in U.S. Indo-Pacific policy. So that’s where the Pacific Pivot paper — that’s where the idea really came from. And trying to channel this energy and momentum into a publication that could have a long-lasting implication and really influence the debate and start a debate about, what is America’s long-term interest in the region? If we’re going to re-engage, what are we pursuing? What does good U.S.-Pacific engagement look like in the region? What are good outcomes? What do we need to avoid? What are the threats? Where do we have common interests? Do we have common values? Which parties are potentially at risk of hurting the United States and the American people?
So I wanted to really work on that momentum, publish this work, create a long-term strategy or focus, a framework for how the U.S. should understand and look at its engagements in the region, and ensure that the Pacific Islands remain relevant for the years ahead and that we don’t just revisit it every few years because something comes up Congress has to address, but something we can really integrate into everyday decision-making and political calculus when we have policymakers and staff thinking about U.S. security interests in the region.
John Morrell: Something in your paper that you do a fascinating job of is balancing interests in the region and a cold hard look at U.S. politics. As I mentioned in the intro, CIPE’s worked in the Pacific for a long time. We’ve had a presence there for over a decade. Folks in the Pacific are nobody’s fool. They know what’s going on. What they say is that they want options. They don’t like being exclusively reliant on anyone, whether it’s Australia, United States, China — they want options.
And a fascinating argument that you make, Andrew, is how to have bipartisan support in the United States, reflecting U.S. politics, U.S. interests, and balancing that with what the interests are in the region. Folks in the region, they know what’s going on with China’s growing presence, why the United States is more interested in the Pacific now. And they want this engagement. They welcome U.S. engagement. Under successive presidential administrations, there’s been a move toward more engagement in the region, which was welcomed. What folks are a little leery of are the geopolitics of being caught in the middle of two gigantic powers.
But your paper does an excellent job of balancing that. Again, a cold hard look at what U.S. politics are, how to sell this sort of engagement in U.S. politics, while also respecting the views, the interests of our friends in the region. Can you speak to that, Andrew?
Andrew Harding: Absolutely. And I appreciate your kind words, John, in highlighting that important element of this paper. Certainly, when thinking about how this paper would come across, I workshopped this paper for multiple months with various internal and external reviewers, wanting to make sure that the arguments were tested, that I could also then understand what the different perspectives are when it comes to U.S. engagement in the region. And that certainly was, I think, the most consistent critique, perhaps, or at least counter-response: an overemphasis in their opinion on, say, competition in U.S.-China, the bluntness of U.S.-China competition guiding this strategy could ultimately harm its effectiveness for the reasons you say — Pacific Island countries not wanting to have geopolitics be the primary defining factor of their relationships with any country, but certainly the United States.
And so when I thought about that, I knew A, I had to respond to that in the paper. I needed to make sure that that conversation was discussed and that I listened to the fair points and made sure that I presented a counter. And so for me, that answer looks at pragmatism. And as you noted, as you were speaking there, for me it boils down to the domestic politics in the United States to where, and as you mentioned, it’s no secret — that’s something this paper also talks about — China’s engagement in the Pacific has been the primary instigator for U.S. re-engagement in the region. But that also includes to certain degrees Australia, New Zealand and other countries as well — a wake-up moment. I think in particular the Solomon Islands deal that became public and leaked a few years ago, that to me was the moment of, “oh no, we need to really refocus and re-engage.”
So when I try to evaluate the realities of this, my argument is, as you mentioned, to keep a bipartisan interest, a long-term bipartisan interest in the Pacific, at least for now, it has to focus on competition. That’s rooted in American interests, thinking about what makes Americans safer, stronger, more prosperous. It’s framing that Secretary of State Rubio uses — some of the language he uses to understand U.S. foreign policy and the world at the State Department. I kind of thought about that before it was worded in that language. I think he does a great job with that. But that type of thinking is what’s going to sustain American interests there, and competition is part of it.
When, for example, and as the paper cites, when it came to the compact renewals — and this was a big motivating factor for me to write this paper — a bipartisan group of senators, I believe 26, just over a quarter of the Senate on a bipartisan basis, wrote a letter indicating that they wanted to see the compacts renewed because they allow the United States to maintain strategic control over a large portion of the Pacific. That to me says that’s the type of language that’s going to sell the American people and American policymakers to really want to be involved in the Pacific Islands.
The alternative — and this is under the previous administration, which, as you noted and as my paper notes, they absolutely were doing a good thing of getting the U.S. re-engaged into the region. That’s a good thing that needed to be done. I took a critique, however, with the emphasis on climate change that was guiding most of the documents at the time — the Pacific Partnership Strategy, some other initiatives there. While in good faith, I believe that that approach is not going to meet American interests to the degree that it ought to. But then B, it’s also not going to be sustained across multiple administrations.
So for me, as you said, to have America re-engaged — and I think that meets the interest and needs of the region, having America there is good — but the way to do that from consistent administrations, whether it’s Republican, Democrat, anything in between, is to really focus on the competition front. That politically for the United States is going to get you interest. It’s going to get the policymakers to buy in. If you focus more, say, on a climate angle, independent of how different members of Congress may feel or if they agree with the threats or not, you’re not going to get the full Congress to buy in. And ultimately, say, in a conservative-aligned government, that’s effectively dead on arrival if that is going to be your main message from the Pacific coming into the United States to get the U.S. involved.
The last thing I’ll note here, and as you said, we can’t just come in from a U.S. perspective and say China, China, China. That won’t work. It’s not just how the U.S. wants to advance its interests. The Pacific Islands, absolutely, like any other country, have their own interests as well. And that includes elements of, say, countering climate change and the effects of it or wanting to see progress made in the area that is suitable to them. Looking at economic development, the integration of those two concepts.
And so the point that I also made clear in the paper is then kind of pivoting to the U.S. audience, saying, look, you can talk about China. Let’s be honest. Everyone knows why the U.S. is here. Let’s be honest about it. We don’t have to hide from that, but let’s also not let that dominate the conversation. Let’s also be receptive to say climate change is a security threat from the Pacific’s perspective, but see how we can work together on infrastructure that tackles those shared interests. Are there different policies and programs that can bring us together on that? That to me is part of that debate that I try to walk that line on. And I think very understandably, there’s a variety of perspectives.
John Morrell: And how much these issues are intertwined, because folks who are motivated by climate change issues versus those who may be motivated by national security issues — one overarching issue that links these two is physical infrastructure financing. Building large-scale infrastructure is inherently expensive. There’s no cheap way to build an airport or a seaport. But with the BRI, the Belt and Road Initiative out of China, one of the many hallmarks, but it’s one of them, is how fast they move, oftentimes because they intentionally skip things like environmental impact assessments. When things are built by the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank, they ask all these annoying questions about environmental impact and human rights violations and anti-corruption. BRI projects don’t care about that. In fact, they actively try to skip those things.
And so whatever the motivation is, increased U.S. engagement in the Pacific, increased U.S. engagement in things like infrastructure financing will have positive spillover effects on the environment. Because American contractors, the ADB, the World Bank — they don’t skip environmental impact assessments as BRI projects so often do.
Another aspect of your paper, Andrew, that makes it — one of the many reasons why it’s a great read — is the focus on history. You invoke history as part of the rationale for U.S. engagement in the region. Can you speak to that?
Andrew Harding: Absolutely. After the introduction, the very first large section of the paper tries to define the role of Pacific Islands in U.S. national security strategy. And I felt like that was important because I needed to make clear: why does it matter? Why does actually incorporating the Pacific Islands into U.S. security thinking make sense?
And so I lean on history because A, it’s what most Americans will think about when it comes to the Pacific Islands. They think about the island-hopping campaign, World War II.
John Morrell: Guadalcanal.
Andrew Harding: Absolutely. Those are the types of things that most Americans and those that maybe aren’t read in on some of the nuances of U.S. Pacific policy will think about. So I wanted to immediately try to find or articulate a common understanding, something that people can relate to, regardless of how educated or how in the weeds they are in some of these policy issues.
The second thing then is I take that understanding to say, well, guess what? We fought Imperial Japan in World War II. Those same types of conversations, the same types of thinking that Japan had at the time for what they were doing in the Pacific and the different battles that occurred, the different targets they had — the argument I try to take or I argue is to say 80 years later, we are in a very similar boat, that this competition remains over territory, it remains over access. It remains not only for countries in the United States to access territory and waters, but also to deny, say, China access. And it’s very much pulling from what happened in World War II. Of course, there are many hundreds of years of Pacific history and thousands that are relevant, but that’s where this paper really wanted to center on — thinking about, we’ve seen this playbook before, that Americans can relate to this. And if you’re trying to think, why should I, as an American citizen, care about the Pacific Islands? A, refer back to your high school U.S. history course on World War II and think, well, everything you learned from it.
John Morrell: And by the way, sorry to interrupt — speaking of exactly that, I misspoke a moment ago when I said Marshall. I meant to say MacArthur, island-hopping and Guadalcanal MacArthur, not Marshall. Sorry about that. For those who are motivated by history, need to fact-check myself. Sorry to interrupt, Andrew.
Andrew Harding: No problem at all. But it’s taking what you learned there and saying 80 years later, we’re back. It’s the same type of concerns with Chinese advances in the region, what their ultimate ambitions and intentions are, and what the U.S. needs to do in response, in coordination with Pacific Island partners and countries alike.
So that to me is a key importance of history, but it also then sets the stage for the policy relevance to what it means today to say which areas of geography matter, the importance that yes, they’re small islands, but they play a more important role than I think people realize related to ports, related to airports, seaports, the ability to transfer supplies, the ability to — instead of going from Hawaii, say over to Taiwan, you just look at the geography of, say, Palau and how central it is in relation to, say, Japan, Guam, down to Australia, even other areas, say the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, which they themselves are in an act of independence process and ongoing deliberations there. Imagine if Bougainville becomes a new country. What that means just geographically, the geography of it and what that airspace and waterways look like.
So I mention all this because that history forms the basis for today’s policy debates and what we’re thinking about not only today, but also what could happen down the road. Those same fundamental things from the past are relevant today. That’s driving competition, that is driving some of this re-engagement and driving part of what I argue in this paper — what the competition’s about between the United States and China. It’s ultimately about access to territory and the international commons. That’s where that history forms that foundation.
John Morrell: Well, now that we’ve laid out how to sell this message to the U.S. audience, how to make U.S. engagement in the Pacific resonate given U.S. political interests, let’s get to the heart of the subject, which is what you believe the U.S. engagement strategy should be. Can you summarize that for us? Not just how to sell it and how to justify it, but if we assume that’s done, the public is supportive of U.S. engagement in the Pacific — what should that engagement look like in your view?
Andrew Harding: Sure. I think U.S. engagement — a few things I’ll rehash from the paper a bit and some of our prior points on the podcast here. First, it needs to understand: how does U.S. Pacific policy make Americans safer, stronger, more prosperous? There’s the broader national interest of the United States. So the idea is how does regional engagement with the Pacific Islands meet those national interests?
So that includes maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific. It means expanding economic cooperation and different either emerging technologies or supporting current industries that the American people benefit from, but also the region. It means countering Chinese influence, meaning reducing, mitigating China’s ability to penetrate elected officials, being able to have — some of those Belt and Road Initiative projects that are poorly designed. And while they may look good on paper, the dollar sign may look good on paper, we all know there is a hidden cost for what ultimately can come with those projects you put in place.
And it also ensures that we’re able to have different people-to-people cultural exchanges. I think that is a very important element. Certainly, there’s, I think, a really important emphasis on relationship building that needs to be there. Whether that’s U.S. personnel — certainly it’s a part of it — but also ensuring that our peoples are able to exchange with one another different stories, education, policies, problems, solutions. That to me forms a part of that.
So U.S. engagement should hit those four different buckets, but it’s all directed toward the broader national interest of making Americans safer, stronger, more prosperous. The idea being safer, meaning am I able to wake up feeling safer from a threat because we’re able to work with Pacific Island partners, make sure we have strong defense, security arrangements and agreements that prevent threats from getting to the homeland. Are we stronger? Is our collaboration with these Pacific Island countries ensuring that we have a better military? Are we able to respond to crises at a faster rate, able to mitigate them more quickly? Are we more prosperous? It doesn’t mean that our engagements in the region are putting more money in the pockets of Americans — it’s ensuring that Pacific Islanders are able to help build their own communities, ensuring that we have regional trade that is beneficial to all parties.
Those are the types of things that if we can quantitatively measure that or qualitatively measure that, that to me is what successful U.S. engagement looks like. Then as we discuss, OK, how do we sell it? That’s where you get the China angle. It has been a competition with the People’s Republic of China over the territories and waters that help make all that possible, the territories that impact U.S. safety, U.S. strength and U.S. prosperity.
Certainly, and I know in my paper I include over 30 recommendations ranging from domestic activities, but also what U.S. bilateral engagements look like, multilateral engagements look like, but also how U.S. allies and partners play a role as well. So there’s a variety of different specifics, but as long as the policy is advancing safety, strength and prosperity, I think Pacific Island policy can be guided by those levels of engagement.
John Morrell: Yeah, Andrew, you mentioned just a moment ago the importance of person-to-person exchanges, and you mentioned that also in the article. In CIPE’s experience, in my personal experience, few things are more impactful than that. After all, the countries of the Pacific are democracies. They tend to be quite religious. And so the role of churches in the United States — the Adventist Church in particular — that is not something that China in any way can capitalize on, but the United States could. These are countries that have a lot in common with the United States, culturally, religiously. And so the person-to-person exchanges, the community-to-community exchanges are potentially the most influential long-term.
Which brings me to my next question, Andrew, which is how your article has been received. It’s been about a year. And so I’m curious, what has the reception been like? Not only necessarily to the outside audience, but also within Heritage. Heritage is a conservative organization, definitely a point of view. What has the reception been like within Heritage’s audience, but also in the broader audience, the policymaking community in Washington, D.C.? What’s the reception been like?
Andrew Harding: I think overall the reception’s been fairly positive on a few different levels. One, if nothing else, just starting the conversation. As mentioned, this is the first time this type of paper has been made publicly available from a U.S.-based think tank. And that was part of my thinking in writing this — wanting to get this type of conversation happening now, given the more re-engagement, more just overall money going into the region. At the very least, U.S. interests are being impacted. And so my idea was let’s be proactive and start this debate. So at the very least, that was part of the idea there. And that’s what I think has been positively received.
I think the substance has also been received fairly well. I think when it comes to just being open upfront about the role that competition plays in U.S. engagement in the region, but also I think most importantly has been the substance of the recommendations to where even if some folks maybe disagree — let’s say my emphasis on competition, which that has been the main critique, has been, as we mentioned at the very start, the risk of overplaying too much into geopolitics from some counter-perspectives. But even with those that hold that opinion, the idea is that the recommendations are fairly useful. Certainly some folks who maybe have different ideas for some things or different tactical ways to implement it, but the broad meat of that paper is looking at how do we re-engage or how do we support economic development? How do we make sure Japan, Australia, New Zealand, India, Taiwan, our allies and partners are more engaged in the region? How do we make sure that we can support medical services? How do we make sure we provide sports diplomacy, journalism, countering misinformation? How do we fund or look to fund INDOPACOM and making sure their priorities are met? The Coast Guard, being able to counter illegal fishing, looking at having the right embassy personnel and embassies open throughout the region.
These are things to where I think have been positively received. And from what I’ve been able to assess, I think elements of the paper have been adopted or at least appreciated at a U.S. government level, foreign government levels. I think it’s been appreciated. The argument that’s been presented has been warmly received to understand, as you mentioned, conservative thinking on the region.
And then to your point about, well, what about within Heritage? Well, I think that’s the beauty of this being the first time a paper like this has been pieced together. Multiple reviewers were part of this paper. It’s a team effort. My name is on the paper, but both inside Heritage and also those outside very much view this as a team effort of thinking of what can we do that advances the country’s national interest? It’s a conservative take on things, but it’s very much intended for what is good for the country, what’s good for the American people.
And so I think from a Heritage perspective, there’s been an appreciation of looking at Pacific Island policy, an area that in decades past has probably been, A, an afterthought, frankly, or B, maybe focused more on the development side of things rather than more integrated into more daily conversations and conventional conversations about national security and economic security. This paper tries to incorporate that conversation and give some guidance as U.S. engagement continues to be an important part of, or growing part of, Indo-Pacific policy. This provides a vision, a framework. And I know it certainly has made an impact at a congressional level, at the administration, and also with our foreign partners and allies, as well as those in the Pacific Islands as well, having this paper circulated, receiving feedback there too. So overall, fairly pleased. And I always appreciate the feedback, whatever it may be.
John Morrell: And that is ultimately, I think, the best part of your piece — exactly what you just said. It’s attracting interest. When CIPE — it was the year 2013 — is when I made my first trip to the Pacific and CIPE has been engaged there since. Back then, over 10 years ago, when I was in Washington, I couldn’t get people to take meetings with me to talk about the Pacific. It was a complete afterthought. Whereas now, people are hungry for content and information on the region. But because historically there hasn’t been much emphasis on it, there isn’t much content, which is when I came across your article, not only is your article extremely well done, but it shows that the Heritage Foundation, an institution with that sort of heft, is engaging in the region. I think it’s fantastic. The more engagement, the more interest in the Pacific, in my view, the better.
Which I think brings us to a logical last question to ask, Andrew, before we let you get on with your day: what comes next?
Andrew Harding: Well, I think one area that I’m really interested in monitoring is deep sea mining. This has been — when it comes to the administration, this was announced, I believe, over the summer in partnership with the Cook Islands, looking at U.S. business exchanges, Cook Island business exchanges on deep sea mining and exploration. And that to me is interesting because it goes along the lines of thinking about what are some mutual partnerships that make sense for American interests, but also, say, Cook Islands interests and other Pacific countries that are interested in this issue. It ties into conversations about rare earth minerals. And certainly when it comes to U.S.-China policy, there’s a strong major concern about Chinese export control rules over rare earths and as well as how China can weaponize the supply chain.
This is an area of potential opportunity and where the Pacific Islands can become a core player in an emerging area that can power renewable energy sources, but also helps the United States and other partners break away from reliance on China. So there’s, I think, some interesting opportunities there. So that’s something that I’m looking forward to that’ll be coming next — to see how those relationships develop. But of course, part of why it’s also interesting is because the region is divided on that. Deep sea mining is not universally viewed positively in the region. And so that to me, I’ll be curious to see how the region assesses deep sea mining just broadly, having these types of investments occurring, but also, you know, the countries that want to get involved in it to see what that means for the United States and its partners to ensure countries are safer, but also there’s a prosperity element there as well.
I’m also very interested to see what comes next when it comes to perhaps countering narcotics. This has been a big priority of the administration when it comes to countering fentanyl in particular that we know originates from Chinese sources, but also just broader drug trafficking coming into the United States. There’s been a lot of focus, say, on the Western Hemisphere, primarily Latin America. I think this is an area where we’re looking for more cooperation. We know that this is an area where there can be aligned interests to where we know that Chinese narcotics are smuggled through and supply routes go through the Pacific Islands. And we know that Pacific Islanders are dying to these things, that Chinese-source narcotics and other source narcotics are killing innocent people that we never want to see go down that path.
So I think there’s a common interest there of wanting to beef up, whether it’s Coast Guard, counter-illegal fishing, but just law enforcement, policing. That to me is an area where it’s not only the United States, but Australia, New Zealand, other regional countries that I think we can make a lot of progress on. And I think there’s good appetite for what engagement could look like with this administration. So I’m optimistic. I know there’s certainly been a lot of developments throughout the year that some are in favor of, some have not been in favor of. So it’s not to say everything’s all peachy keen, but I do think there are areas of opportunity that I’m optimistic about. And I think in 2026 and beyond, we can see some serious progress that makes Americans happy, but the region happy and hopefully makes a positive impact.
John Morrell: That’s fantastic, Andrew. And for those, again, looking for content on the Pacific, as always, I encourage people to go to cipe.org to read about the work that CIPE has been doing on economic sovereignty, economic and democratic resilience in the Pacific that we’ve been working on for over 10 years. And of course, check out “The Pacific Pivot: An American Strategy for the Pacific Islands,” the first-ever Heritage Foundation publication on U.S. engagement in the Pacific, authored by Andrew Harding, who has been so generous with his time and speaking with us.
Andrew, thank you so much, not only for your time here today, but for the work that you do. Thank you so much. And we’d love to talk with you again soon, because it’s an exciting part of the world.
Andrew Harding: Thank you very much, John. It’s been a privilege to join you today. And once again, really excited about this content. It’s really important, a great time to do it and looking forward to staying in touch and hopefully being back soon.
John Morrell: Wonderful. Thank you, Andrew.
Andrew Harding: Thank you.
