KEY POINTS:
Beneath the swaying palms of the Pacific a new power struggle is emerging. It is the best kind of power play, revolving as it does around the provision of billions of dollars to improve the lives of some of the poorest people on the planet.
But altruism is
more than matched by national self-interest and a range of ambitions for a region that can provide real value to much larger players. This is competitive diplomatic sport.
And there is the flip side that all regional governments recognise: allow poverty and corruption to flourish, and open the doors to transnational crime, terrorism, and a long list of other evils that will spill across the ocean to the prosperous nations on its rim.
In March the French Government flew senior officials of the Pacific Islands Forum to Paris for consultations on its aid programme - the third-largest after Australia and the United States - and to seek inclusion in a number of forum working groups. It already has a seat at the post-Forum dialogue plenary session and the Pacific Countries Partners Meeting.
Last week it was Washington, and America's declaration of 2007 as its "Year of the Pacific". Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Pacific Island Conference of Leaders that the US State Department was opening a new regional office in Suva, Fiji, to co-ordinate Washington's diplomacy in the island states.
She also announced increased educational exchanges; more grants to promote democracy, civil rights and the rule of law; more places for Pacific leaders on the international visitor leadership programme; and greater duty-free access for Pacific exports.
"The US has a special kinship with its Pacific neighbours," Rice said.
This week it was Australia's turn. Treasurer Peter Costello's 12th budget lifted total aid spending to A$3.15 billion ($3.6 billion), with the bulk of it now focused on the immediate neighbourhood.
Although increases in aid to Indonesia have pushed East Asia ahead of the Pacific, development spending on the island states has risen by 18 per cent in the past four years to A$872.5 million.
"Per capita growth in much of the Pacific has stalled," Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said. "Many people who continue to live in poverty are in areas where growth has not reached. They are vulnerable to many potential shocks.
"Security, stability and improved governance are among the most important preconditions for sustained growth and poverty reduction, but are lacking in some weaker states in the region. Corruption is also a major challenge which damages development prospects in many countries."
Canberra's Pacific includes Papua New Guinea and the Solomons - the two greatest regional recipients of Australian aid, and exceeded only by aid to Indonesia.
The three states demonstrate Canberra's practical and policy priorities, despite the fact that the more than A$2 billion pumped into PNG and the Solomons in the past four years has failed to prevent sour and even bitter relations developing between Port Moresby, Honiara and Canberra.
In the coming 12 months PNG will receive a further A$355.9 million, and the Solomons A$223.9 million, driven by the need to rebuild the tiny state almost from scratch. The remaining island states will between them gain A$292.7 million, a rise of 50 per cent in four years.
Next week New Zealand will reveal its Pacific aid budget. Although much smaller than those of Australia, the US and France, Wellington's contribution remains significant. The most recent OECD figures, for 2004, show that Australian aid accounted for 48 per cent of the total, the US 15 per cent, France 12 per cent and New Zealand 11 per cent.
But in terms of aid to the Pacific as a share of total national development budgets, New Zealand placed first with 55.9 per cent, ahead of Australia's 45.5 per cent. For the other major donors to the region, Pacific aid represented less than 2 per cent of their totals.
All donors have the same broad goals: eradication of poverty and hunger, accelerated but sustainable economic growth, better education, promotion of gender equity and the role of women, lower child mortality and better maternal health, campaigns against HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases, and environmental protection.
In Washington this week the US State Department hosted a "core partners" meeting to discuss regional issues and improve policy co-ordination.
But there is also jostling for position and influence. Pacific states may be small but they still have votes and voices in important international forums. Their surrounding territorial waters hold potential resources wealth.
Australia regards itself as the natural regional leader - not infrequently to New Zealand's irritation - and has at times resented Wellington's own Pacific policies and ambitions. The US is keen to maintain its influence, and equally as keen to restrain Chinese diplomacy. China is competing with Taiwan in a bidding war that worries everybody else in the region.
Canberra's increasing Pacific focus relates as much to its perception of an "arc of instability" to its north and west as much humanitarianism. Australia has a clear and forceful vision of what Pacific states should be - and that is largely in its own image.
It ties aid to strict performance criteria, and unashamedly inserts as many of its own people as possible into key Pacific posts: Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Greg Urwin, for example; former Solomons police chief Shane Castles; and 43 Australians serving in the PNG bureaucracy.
The budget aid statement repeats the message Prime Minister John Howard delivered to the last Forum leaders' meeting: Australia is tired of corruption, inefficiency and waste, and will provide aid only to states which adhere to its rules. Aid to Fiji has been pruned because of its recent coup, and is confined to programmes benefiting "ordinary Fijians", mainly in health and education.
Not everyone is pleased. Canberra has been accused of paternalism and neo-colonialism and Tuesday's budget drew a warning from the Australian Council for International Development, the umbrella organisation for the nation's non-government aid organisations.
"With our immediate regional neighbours we need to approach this programme with great care," said council executive director Paul O'Callaghan.
The aid-monitoring organisation Aidwatch is further worried that Canberra appears more concerned with its own interests than those of the people its aid programme is designed to help.
