Comments

This is serious!

Good piece James, thank you. Australia’s current political landscape is driving dynamics in the Pacific. Inauspicious govt policies, big brother lip service, indigenous people abuse, racist undertones re Asian/Subcontinent asylum seekers in contrast to Afrikaaner predicament, deporting Pacific islanders and other human rights abuses predictably provide fertile breeding for non-European influence. Indonesia will be the next friend of Pacific nations by the looks of things. Australia and its current right wing undertone projects colonialist past and certainly not lost on Pacific states leadership. Despite toothy smiles all around, at the end of the day – those leaders understand the power of economic commercial trade and Mao’s barrel of a gun politics. No amount of political interference in local Pacific elections can change these current Pacific suspicions. New generational leadership will continue to look at Australia and NZ as colonial masters desperate to hold on its Pacific power with the help of US and UK. The way forward is not to throw money at the Pacific states in competition with China. That is what China expects. Who has deeper pockets? No, the way forward is to demonstrate to Pacific states that Australia is worthy of being the leader of the region. That means responsible government that respects national and international laws, and return to lifelong friend to regional Pacific states. Reciprocal respect equals return to lifelong friendship.

Beware the overwhelming use of cultural factors of tolerance's explanations. It is too reductive of the Thai population. Please, note more carefully the ban of meetings of more than five people, for example, and close cyber surveillance of the Thais.

Very interesting study. How can you support replication in other towns/ provinces ? And support and enable local organisations to undertake the research and participate in the analysis?

The Customs Recognition Act has been partly repealed by the Underlying Law Act 2000, although the extent of the implied repeal is a matter of debate.

Informative and balanced analysis indeed.

Not sure if depreciating the exchange rate is going to boost imports...but spending does need to be reigned in. let's not forget about the terms for Papua LNG, important for future revenue growth.

Ironic that Mr Downer opposed any help to aid the Royal Solomon Islands Police in 1999, when requested, and when early intervention with a short-term transfer of military personnel and assets could easily have prevented the so called 'ethic tension' becoming the lengthy civil conflict that it became and which brought the Solomons to its knees, resulting in a total collapse of the economy, the loss of lives and the collapse of the SIAC government. The eventual intervention of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) which Mr Downer reportedly now has hailed, cost the Australian taxpayer many millions of dollars and the loss of two Australian lives needlessly. With Australian assistance to the local police force in early 1999 the uprising could have been quickly put down and the SIAC government have continued in office to carry out the reform programme it had begun to introduce before the internal conflict was initiated. "Policing a Clash of Cultures' (Amazon Kindle Book shelf)

My apologies. The original reference hyperlinks did not survive the paste into the Devpolicy site. Here are the references and links - World Bank - Agricultural factor markets in Sub-Saharan Africa : an updated view with formal tests for market failure. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/294231468193490027/Agricultural-factor-markets-in-Sub-Saharan-Africa-an-updated-view-with-formal-tests-for-market-failure Yi Wen - The Making of an Economic Superpower ―Unlocking China’s Secret of Rapid Industrialization https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2015/2015-006.pdf Keun Lee - The Art of Economic Catch-up: Barriers, Detours and Leap http://www.nse.pku.edu.cn/en/articles/content.aspx?nodeid=87&page=ContentPage&contentid=1076 Vailala

Thank you Stephen for an interesting blog-post. I think that there is much to be commended in what you say here. The idea of ‘good governance’ in the context of aid and development has always been somewhat unanchored, lacking a measure of its applicatory relevance. Broadly speaking the institutional focus of the ‘good governance’ concept has been based on an identification of the institutions which are assumed to be supportive of the Pareto-efficient allocation of resources as found in the advanced economies, especially that of the USA. One example of this line of thought in the development context is this World Bank paper discussing the minimal role of labor market contracting among African farmers. The authors assume that because the idealised (market-driven hire and fire) model is not realised in African family-based subsistence farming practice the developmental remedy to the situation is ‘institutional strengthening’ of a ‘good governance’ character - that the institutional and legal framework of labor contract law be improved, thereby bringing actual practices into better alignment with the idealised economic model. You are correct when you describe the Chinese approach to infrastructure development and aid as pragmatic. To understand Chinese pragmatism I think it useful to examine Chinese analysis of the China transformation and the extent to which Chinese analysts see relevance in the China experience to the development issues and problems of low-income countries. In addition to the writings of Wen Tiejun and his associates the analysis of Yi Wen is instructive. Yi Wen proposes a multi-stage model of development with interesting features, including non-linearity. Among the topics Yi Wen discusses is the role of corruption and political patron-clientelism during the early stages of the economic and political transformation process. Yi Wen makes the important point that the elimination of corruption can only be a late development stage issue (as in the UK and USA) because comprehensive political/legal control of corruption carries a very high transaction cost that an early stage developing state simply cannot afford. The implication that ‘corruption’ and ‘clientelism’ is a necessary feature of early development stages is left open. To a considerable extent Yi Wen’s discussion of China’s development mirrors the discussion that took place in the late soviet period among Russian economists. This discussion concerned the ‘system-forming character of capitalism’ in the economies of Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam, Lao and Japan (see N.A. Simoniya and V. Sheinis). The discussion focused on the diverse ‘multistructurality’ characteristic of low-income countries. That there isn’t a single path, runway and take off to development is also underscored by the Korean economist Keun Lee. Here is a topology-based path analysis that can be contrasted with the standard linear regression analysis found in neoclassical economics. China’s BRI (and the AIIB) will enable the Pacific Island countries to achieve at least some of their development goals, as they choose to conceptualise them and in accordance with their political and fiscal capabilities and capacities. Vailala

Let's keep ABC alive as it has been a foreign policy information platform whilst also airing its own take on foreign policy subtleties.

I agree. We are in the Pacific but what good is our commenting when bigger viewpoints are bound by traditional sentiments and alliances.