A COLUMN WRITTEN BY KALIOPATE TAVOLA, PUBLISHED IN ISLANDS BUSINESS, DATE UNKNOWN

My article published in this magazine in January 2023 was titled: ‘Rules-based Order: Whose Order?’ It was indeed a rhetorical question. The drama so created was that notwithstanding the obvious attributes and proprietorship of the so-called ‘rules-based international order’ – also referred to as the ‘Western order’ – under US hegemony – it made the points, inter alia, that there was disunity amongst its adherents regarding the order’s advocacy, and consistency of application. It thus intimated, to some extent, impediments to alignment to such ‘order’.

This article advances this same argument but asserts the point that, given recent geopolitical advances – reconfiguration of the globe from bipolarity to multipolarity, such alignment is becoming nightmarish. Note that multipolarity is advanced and claimed as a result of the enlargement of the BRICS’ group of countries.

The authenticity of the ‘Western order’ as being what is generally referred to as the ‘liberal international order’ (LIO), also known as the ‘rules-based international order’ (RBIO) or the ‘rules-based order’ (RBO) cannot be denied. What my January 2023 article highlighted was the problem of aligning to the order by Western allies given the US hegemony under the Western Alliance and given its undue advocacy of the RBIO through its gratuitous propaganda. A representative of the French Government had highlighted such inconvenience.

The question of RBIO’s utility, as a basis for alignment, however, was pointed out by DefenseNews.Com much earlier. This was in relation to the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States (IPSUS) and its implied RBO.  This led me to pen an earlier article: ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States: Too Anodyne to be Utilitarian’ (published in April 2022).  

IPSUS then gave birth to ‘Declaration on U.S.-Pacific Partnership’ (DUSPP) – framed obviously by the norms of RBIO. My January 2023 article also referred to this and underlined the RBIO’s deficiencies that would disincentivize any country considering alignment to the order.

The first was what appeared to be the order’s inconsistency and what may even appear as discriminatory. The signing of the DUSPP was in Washington. Prior to that, the Solomon Islands Government (SIG) had just signed a bilateral security agreement with China. In all the diplomatic exchanges leading up to the signing, the US delegates bombastically decried the bilateral agreement, even though the terms of the DUSPP clearly provides for due respect and honour for any bilateral pacts signed on the basis of each country’s sovereignty.

SIG’s refusal to sign the DUSPP was only reversed when the US dropped all references to China in the agreement.

Another discrepancy of the DUSPP was what appeared to be undue influences of Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) in the planned implementation of the Declaration. Whether this was part of the design cannot be determined. Whilst ANZ are members of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), references to which are inserted in the text of the Declaration, they are not signatories of the Declaration that is directed specifically at the 16 Pacific Island Countries (PICs), members of PIF.

From the perspective of the PICs’ brain’s trust, such undue intervention was considered an ‘initiative (that) rides roughshod over established regional process.’

This does raise the question whether there is a need for a specific RBO to be framed around the specificities and eccentricity of the Pacific region. Ben Scott of The Lowy Institute explored this issue in his article: ‘Rules-based order. What’s in the name?’ last June. He advocated a shift in emphasis away from defending the RBO towards building one – ‘especially in this region.’ ‘The development of a more RBO for the Indo-Pacific,’ he further justified, ‘remains a daunting challenge.’

The assumption of course is that once a RBO for the region is devised, alignment to it by regional governments would be best facilitated. However, apprehension remains. Author Alfred W. McCoy in his 2021 publication: ‘To Govern the Globe – World Orders and Catastrophic Change’, posed the question: ‘Can this liberal international system survive the ongoing erosion of US global power and the potentially catastrophic heating of the planet?’

Note that climate change issues are added to the mix dominated essentially by geopolitical issues. This is not done in vain. This reflects the regional and global reality with which any RBO has to contend. In Pacific regionalism, under the Boe Declaration, climate change is the region’s existential security threat. This thus places great significance in Ben Scott’s impression above regarding building a RBO specifically for the region.

The region of course has been under the spell of US-China bipolarity for some time. This presents desperate obstacles to alignment for PICs, when many of them are guided by the diplomatic model of ‘friends to all and enemies to none’. Their preference comes down to not wanting to choose between China and the US, if they can help it. Given their relative social and economic status and their degrees of integration into the global economy, they see critical benefits in aligning to both world powers.

Taking note of China’s presence in the Pacific, in any building of any RBO specific for the region would obviously meet Ben Scott’s proposition above. Furthermore, it would also meet that which was earlier proposed by the French spokesperson referred to earlier. The latter is down on record having said: “….that the West should work with other countries in the Global South…..on an equal basis in order to find a compromise with other interests…..West must try to see the world from Beijing.”

In a bipolar setting, such as that existed earlier, any compromise would obviously aid alignment by both bilateral and multilateral partners. Such compromise, however, is not easy. But it can be done.

Graham Allison of Goldman Sachs has been reflecting on this situation recently. He acknowledged that both superpowers are aware of the consequences of the Cold War escalating to a Hot War. That the situation to date has not seen such an escalation is credit to the astuteness of both sides and their respective advisors and strategists. There is realization that the status quo calls for ‘strategic imagination to stretch our minds beyond history as usual.’

Alison concludes that both sides ‘must find their way to a strategic concept that combines competition and cooperation. One possibility is a ‘rivalry partnership’.

This, however, will be put into question in the context of multipolarity, recently configured by the enlarged BRICS group of countries. Any ‘rivalry partnership’ to be worked out will be complicated by the sheer numbers of actors involved.

Therefore, the prospects of alignment of PICs, for instance, to members of BRICS – individually or collectively – will be a task whose dividends cannot be easily appraised.

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© Kaliopate Tavola and kaidravuni.com, 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kaliopate Tavola, kaidravuni.com and Islands Business with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.