The video of James Marape, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, bending down to touch Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s feet has gone viral online. The incident happened after the Prime Minister of India landed in Port Moresby on his first visit to the country. The visit is also the first by an Indian Prime Minister.
Indo-Pacific Islands Cooperation Summit (FIPIC).
In November 2014, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Fiji, the Forum for Indo-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) was launched.
The Indo-Pacific Cooperation Forum comprises 14 island nations. These include Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa, Palau, Niue, Micronesia, Kiribati and the Cook Islands. They are located northeast of Australia in the Pacific Ocean.
FIPIC Summit, 2023
The islands mentioned above are small in size. Moreover, they are very far from India. However, most of these island countries have exclusive economic zones.
An exclusive economic zone or EEZ is really the distance a coastal state has jurisdiction over the waters. Both non-living and biotic resources can be included in the jurisdiction. In general, exclusive economic zones go 200 nautical miles outside a country’s territorial sea.
According to the group’s website, India’s big focus is the Indian Ocean. Here, the state plays an important role and protects commercial, strategic and other interests. In this sense, the Forum for Indo-Pacific Cooperation (FIPIC) really expands India’s engagement in the Pacific. After the summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Sydney, Australia on May 23 and 24.
The event refers to “evolutions in the Indo-Pacific region”. Furthermore, a “vision of a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific” was also discussed.
The Prime Minister of India also made a statement at the FIPIC summit on Monday that “a friend in trouble is a true friend”. He also told the leaders of fourteen countries that the people they considered trustworthy were not really with them in times of crisis. This statement is said to refer to China.
The Prime Minister of India will meet with Prime Minister Albanese on 24 May 2023. There will also be interactions with business leaders and CEOs from Australia.
As of 2021-22, $570 million is the value of total annual trade between India and the Pacific island nations. Trade in products such as drugs, mineral fuels, sugar, ores and plastics is substantial. Out of all these 14 countries, Papua New Guinea is the largest trading partner by value.
FIPIC Summit – EXPLAINED
FIPIC 2023 is the third such summit to be held.
In 2014, the first FIPIC summit was held in the Fijian capital, Suva. At this summit, India announced a multitude of development aid initiatives. Many cooperation projects in the fields of trade, climate change, distance education, distance health, informatics, economy… were also discussed.
The second such summit, FIPIC-II, was held in Jaipur in 2015. At this summit, India announced the same initiatives as at the first summit. The special thing this time is that India called for “a seat dedicated to small island developing states in the UN Security Council to be expanded and reformed in both categories”.
In 2019, the Conference of Leaders of Small Island Developing States in the Indo-Pacific (PSIDS) was held in New York on September 24. The meeting included leaders from other countries. 14 but 12 pacific island nations.
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Source: vcmp.edu.vn