CSIS Maps 56 Security Deals as US, China Contest Pacific Island Nations

A new data tool from a Washington think tank illustrates how the competition for Pacific security partnerships has expanded well beyond traditional US alliance structures, creating new pressure...

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, released an interactive mapping tool this week documenting 56 security arrangements involving 14 Pacific island countries and competing external powers, including the United States, its allies, and China. The tool provides the most detailed public accounting to date of how security partnerships in the region have multiplied in recent years, according to South China Morning Post reporting on the CSIS release.

The CSIS data shows that both Washington and Beijing have been actively pursuing new security agreements across the Pacific island region, with each side seeking to expand its footprint among a group of nations that collectively control vast maritime exclusive economic zones and strategically significant sea lanes.

The competition is not limited to formal military agreements. It also encompasses policing partnerships, coast guard cooperation, infrastructure-linked security provisions, and agreements governing access to ports and airfields, all categories captured in the CSIS mapping tool.

The release of the CSIS data coincides with remarks by Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society and a former prime minister of Australia, who described US-China strategic competition as operating across every dimension of national power. Speaking at a Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics event on Friday, Rudd said the competition covers military, economic, trade, investment, technology, and foreign policy domains, according to South China Morning Post coverage of the event. Rudd said the competition will continue to escalate.

The Pacific island theater has drawn particular attention since 2022, when the Solomon Islands concluded a security agreement with China, the terms of which were leaked publicly. That agreement alarmed Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, prompting a round of renewed diplomatic and security engagement with island governments across the region.

Since then, the United States has concluded new compacts and security memoranda with Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands. Australia has signed policing and security cooperation deals with Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, and other nations. The CSIS mapping tool organizes all such arrangements in a single searchable format, enabling comparison of the scale and scope of each power's commitments.

For the Pacific island nations themselves, the proliferation of competing security offers has created both leverage and risk. Several governments have explicitly used the interest of one major power to extract better terms from another. Tuvalu's 2023 security treaty with Australia, for example, included provisions granting Tuvaluans a pathway to Australian residency, a concession that analysts have described as unusual in the context of a security agreement.

The geographic importance of the Pacific island region is partly a function of its position between the US mainland, Hawaii, Guam, and Australia. Guam hosts major US Air Force and Navy installations, and any shift in the access or basing arrangements available in nearby island nations has direct implications for US force projection in a potential conflict scenario involving Taiwan or the South China Sea.

China's engagement in the region has expanded beyond security into port development, fisheries agreements, and budget support for island governments facing fiscal stress. Critics of this approach, including several members of the US Congress, have argued that economic assistance is being used to create conditions for future security access. Chinese officials have consistently described their engagement as development cooperation with no military intent.

The CSIS tool does not itself assign intent or evaluate the strategic weight of individual agreements, but its aggregation of the data makes plain that the number of active security arrangements in the Pacific has grown significantly over the past four years. What the tool does not reveal is which of the 56 arrangements includes provisions for basing, pre-positioning of equipment, or port access in a conflict scenario. Declassified treaty texts or formal congressional notifications would be required to answer those questions fully.

Rudd, whose remarks at Harvard were made in his capacity as Asia Society president rather than as a representative of any government, said the trajectory of US-China competition will be watched closely by countries that do not wish to be forced into a binary choice between the two powers. That concern is shared by many Pacific island governments, whose leaders have repeatedly stated publicly that they do not want to choose sides.