U.S., Soviets Vie in S. Pacific : ‘Fishing Expeditions’ by Moscow Cause Concern

The power that rules the Pacific . . . is the power that rules the world. --Sen. Albert J. Beveridge, 1900

After a long period as the exclusive domain of Western powers, the South Pacific has caught the interest of the Soviet Union and is being drawn into the East-West rivalry.

The Soviets thus far have limited themselves to making diplomatic and commercial contacts, apparently in an attempt to make themselves acceptable on the small, remote and vulnerable island nations of the Pacific.

But given the fact that no Russians live on the islands, almost none has ever set foot on them and no Soviet warships have access to South Pacific ports, Moscow’s sudden attention has caused concern from Canberra to Washington.

Political analysts here and elsewhere in the Pacific believe that Moscow’s game plan has two dimensions: in the short term, to secure a presence in the strategically important islands from which it historically has been excluded; and in the long term, to change the political climate in the South Pacific, where the U.S. Navy enjoys freedom of navigation and wide-ranging port-call rights and the United States has always been able to take for granted the friendship of 6.4 million Melanesian and Polynesian islanders.

‘Low-Risk Investment’

“I’d be surprised if Moscow attaches great importance to the South Pacific at this point,” a Western diplomat in Honolulu said. “But this is an area that the Soviets seem to think they can make gains in for a very modest, low-risk investment. A fishing agreement here and there, perhaps an embassy or two, and the door starts opening. Remember, this is a region that never even had diplomatic relations with Moscow. It’s virgin territory.”

The Soviets’ first success came in late 1985 when they paid Kiribati, a former British colony, $2.4 million for fishing rights. Western observers noted that there was little consumer demand in the Soviet Union for Pacific tuna and considered the payment wildly excessive--unless Moscow was looking for more than fish.

When the Kiribati agreement expired last year, the Soviets moved south. They gave Vanuatu, in Melanesia, $1.5 million in January for fishing rights and the privilege of making shore visits. Again Western intelligence officers were suspicious: fish are not particularly plentiful in Vanuatu’s waters, and, although only one Soviet trawler has stopped so far in Port Vila, the capital, speculation has been raised that the Soviet fishing boats might be planting sonar devices in the Pacific Ocean to monitor the movements of American ships.

Australian Leader Worried

Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke said he made it clear to Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze during an official visit last March “that we acknowledge that the Soviet Union, with a Pacific border, has a legitimate interest in the Pacific.”

“But we strongly put it to Mr. Shevardnadze that if they are going to negotiate fisheries agreements, our interest is that they be fisheries agreements and not the cover for anything else,” Hawke added.

Moscow has also sent a trade delegation to Fiji to discuss a sugar-cane deal and has offered a fishing agreement to Tuvalu, in Polynesia, intelligence sources said.

In addition, Vanuatu, which a year ago became the first Pacific island country to establish diplomatic relations with Moscow, is considering giving landing rights to Aeroflot, the Soviet airline--something of an oddity since the passenger demand for a Moscow-Port Vila route is nonexistent.

U.S. Policy of Benign Neglect

Traditionally, the United States’ relationship with the South Pacific has been characterized by benign neglect, with Washington content to let Australia and New Zealand play the major regional role. This was an area with a democratic, Christian heritage, stable governments that had never known a coup d’etat and an overwhelming fondness for the United States dating back to World War II.

The United States has no permanent naval presence in the South Pacific (the Soviet presence is limited to an occasional submarine), and its annual aid budget for the region is only $6 million--about what Australia gives to Vanuatu alone.

Outside of Canberra and Wellington, there are only two U.S. embassies, in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and no mainland American newspaper has a full-time correspondent based in Australia, Hawaii or the South Pacific. The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times were the only two U.S. dailies represented here; both closed their Sydney bureaus in the mid-1970s.

“When I first came here,” said a British diplomat posted on one of the island nations, “I assumed that given your association with the South Pacific--World War II, James Michener, John Wayne movies and all that--I’d find Americans everywhere. What I found, though, was no Americans and not much American interest. I was astonished. For an outlay of a relatively few dollars, I think the United States could have sewn this region up.”

But Moscow’s courtship of the island governments, combined with a coup in Fiji last month and the first signs of Libyan meddling in various liberation movements, has piqued the interest of the United States and other Western powers.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger, who were in Sydney last week, called attention to “diplomatic, commercial and intelligence initiatives” that the Soviet Union has undertaken in the region and made it clear that the United States and Australia must respond.

Shultz, in a statement, said, “We can assume that the Soviet Union will go on taking diplomatic, commercial, intelligence and other initiatives in the region aimed in part at undercutting vital alliance interests in the Pacific.

“What are they fishing for?” Shultz added, referring to the activities in the area by Soviet trawlers. Like other U.S. and Australian officials, he declined to specify what measures will be taken to counter the Soviet moves.

Australia cut back on its aid budget this year to every region except the South Pacific. A senior Japanese delegation has recently toured the islands as a prelude to increased Japanese aid and diplomatic representation.

France to Increase Role

Gaston Flosse, France’s minister for the South Pacific, a position created 15 months ago, said in New Caledonia in May that “France . . . is going to become a major and recognized force in the development of the South Pacific.”

Robert Kiste, director of the Pacific Islands Studies Program at the University of Hawaii, said recently: “Unless we show more wisdom and understanding and give more financial help, the monopoly the West has enjoyed in the South Pacific could be eroded. Not lost, but eroded. I’ve had very sophisticated friends tell me, ‘You send the Peace Corps to win our hearts and minds, and you send a Navy ship to show the flag. But that’s all you do.’ ”

Indeed, many Pacific political observers believe that French and American policies in the region are largely responsible for providing the Soviet Union and Libya with an opening.

For instance, France’s reluctance to leave the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in 1980 and the support offered white extremists there by the U.S. right-wing Phoenix organization helped create a radical, or at least nonaligned, government that has struck up a friendship with Libya. France’s unwillingness to yield to independence sentiments in New Caledonia could be laying the foundation for a similar scenario there.

Kiribati and Vanuatu probably never would have signed fishing agreements with the Soviet Union, most diplomats believe, had American tuna fishermen not been taking huge catches inside what other nations recognize as those countries’ territorial waters. “The American Tuna Boat Assn. is the best friend the Soviet Union has ever had in the South Pacific,” a U.S. diplomat said.

New Agreement

Washington had made a unique interpretation of international laws, refusing to recognize the island states’ jurisdiction over migratory fish within 200 miles of their coastlines.

However, in an attempt to end a major source of tension, the United States signed an agreement in Papua New Guinea in April under which U.S. fishermen will pay $2 million to 10 Pacific governments for licensing fees and Washington will contribute $10 million for fisheries assistance. Congress has not yet ratified the treaty, and last month Kiribati seized a U.S. tuna boat, accusing its crew of poaching.

“There can be little doubt that the Soviet interest in doing fishing deals with South Pacific nations is connected to clumsy attempts by private American interests to exploit fishing areas,” Australian Foreign Minister Bill Hayden told journalists in Sydney recently.

The nuclear policies of France and the United States also have caused serious problems. Last summer, New Zealand’s decision to prohibit port calls by U.S. nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed warships led to the rupture of a treaty between the two nations and harsh criticism from Washington--even though New Zealand had proved itself a staunch U.S. ally and had even sent troops to South Vietnam in support of American efforts there.

Then, last August, the South Pacific Forum--a Fiji-based alliance of 15 member states, including Australia and New Zealand--declared the South Pacific a nuclear-free zone. To accommodate the United States, Fiji and Australia had led a successful effort to permit each nation to decide individually whether it would allow port calls by ships armed with nuclear weapons or nuclear powered.

Senior U.S. naval commanders in Hawaii had said the ban would not hinder their mission. But in February the Reagan Administration announced that it could not accept the conditions of the prohibition, although it had earlier agreed not to dump nuclear waste in the South Pacific. France, which carries out an active nuclear testing program on Mururoa atoll, also rejected the forum’s request. Britain later did likewise.

‘Propaganda Bonanza’

“It (the rejection) provides the Soviets with a serious propaganda bonanza in the South Pacific,” said Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asian and Pacific affairs. “It will dismay our friends in the region. It does not provide an obstacle to anything we do now and would have been a way for us to demonstrate our sensitivity on the nuclear issue.”

Still, the South Pacific remains one of the most pro-Western regions in the developing world, and some islanders think they will reap benefits from U.S. policy failures that have given the Soviet Union the first steps toward modest access. Their reasoning is that if Moscow is interested, then the United States will be forced to get active and will end its era of neglect toward the struggling, poor Pacific nations.