Pacific island leaders have agreed to back a sweeping regional policing plan after Australia and other supporters overcame last-minute concerns the proposal was part of a geopolitical play to exclude China.
But each Pacific nation will decide whether to contribute to the proposed new multinational police unit, which will provide a rapid response to disasters or other major security challenges.
Under the terms of the consensus reached at the Pacific Islands Forum (Pif) talks in Tonga on Wednesday, no country will be forced to accept its assistance either.
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the agreement showed the Pacific family was now “closer than it’s ever been before”.
The Pacific Policing Initiative will see up to four police training centres of excellence established in the Pacific, with Australia providing about $400m in funding over five years towards the infrastructure costs.
The Australian government will set up a police development and coordination hub in Brisbane, giving Pacific police officers access to Australian federal police facilities for training and to prepare for deployments.
Without directly mentioning China, Albanese said the plan would allow the Pacific to look after its own security “ourselves”.
Pif is a regional grouping of Australia, New Zealand and 16 other countries and territories in the Pacific. It does not include China or the US, which are vying for influence in the region.
Asked whether the deal meant no Pacific island nation had to turn to China for security help, Albanese said: “This is about the Pacific family looking after Pacific security. This isn’t about any other country.”
But hours before the deal was announced, the prime minister of Vanuatu, Charlot Salwai, and the regional sub-grouping to which Vanuatu belongs went public with concerns the plan may be intended to serve western strategic interests.
Salwai described the Pacific policing initiative as “important” but indicated the region should ensure the plan was “framed to fit our purposes and not developed to suit the geostrategic interests and geostrategic denial security postures of our big partners”.
This “denial” language is a clear reference to excluding China. Australia has repeatedly registered its concerns about China’s attempts to reach security and policing agreements with Pacific island countries, including the 2022 deal with Solomon Islands.
Salwai is the chair of the Melanesian spearhead group (MSG), a regional subgrouping that includes Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
He raised the concerns in an opening statement to an MSG caucus meeting in Tonga.
His language was echoed by the MSG director general, Leonard Louma, who cautioned that the plan must not be “conveniently developed as part of the geostrategic denial security doctrine of our big partners”.
The prime minister of Tonga, Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, who hosted the Pif meeting, strongly supported the plan.
He highlighted each country “would have the discretion to choose how they would contribute to and benefit from” the policing scheme.
Albanese later said this was not a weakness of the plan.
Albanese said the discussion among leaders on Wednesday was “very positive”.
He said the proposal was not foisted on the region by Australia, but was “something that has come from the Pacific itself”.
Guardian Australia understands Australia spoke only at the end of the discussion, to thank Pif members for endorsing the plan. Further details are expected to be fleshed out in talks among the region’s police commissioners.
The prime minister of Fiji, Sitiveni Rabuka, said his country had “always been very, very interested” in the proposal.
Rabuka said he believed “the rest of the world” was “targeting our region” and it was the Pacific’s own responsibility to develop a regional policing initiative.
The Australian minister for the Pacific, Pat Conroy, who also attended the talks, said earlier that the proposal was aligned with Rabuka’s “oceans of peace” concept and also “builds on the very generous offer from the Papua New Guinea government at the Pif last year to be a regional training hub for Pacific police forces”.
In another diplomatic win for Australia, it and Tuvalu announced their bilateral climate and security agreement had entered into force.
From next year, Australia is offering to issue 280 visas to people from Tuvalu who wish to live, work, study or visit the country.
Australia is obliged to respond to requests for help if Tuvalu has to deal with a major natural disaster, a pandemic or military aggression.
In return for this security guarantee, Australia has the right to veto Tuvalu’s security cooperation with other countries.
After a change of government in Tuvalu in January, doubts were raised about whether the deal would survive amid concerns over the country’s sovereignty being infringed.
But the new prime minister of Tuvalu, Feleti Teo, said on Wednesday his country had “taken comfort” from discussions with Australian officials.
