The islands of Fiji, a tourist haven and a paradigm for successful coups has been in the news cycle since 2006, mostly for all the wrong reasons. We have had 4 coups in the last 23 years, 3 of which were successful – a pleasing 75% success rate. The second coup some 23 years earlier was a coup within a coup and surprisingly by the same army colonel – perhaps in an effort to better his first attempt.But being a resilient society oriented towards economic prosperity; Fiji has time and again climbed back and joined the international democratic community within very short periods after being declared a pariah state. Suffice to say, these declarations of being a pariah state were mostly by the governments of Australia and New Zealand.
However we in Fiji are pretty smart. Our concern wasn’t Australia and New Zealand. It was what does the only superpower of the world thinks of us. To directly gauge Americas stance on Fiji, we checked Wikipedia. And thank God we were not listed among the pariah or rogue states on it. What a relief that was.
And then we looked up for some reasoning behind this stance and assumed that the Americans like us because we happen to be the source of the absurdly high-priced Fiji Water. But that assumption was debunked after a survey showed that more than half of the American drinkers thought that Fiji Water comes from Mt Fuji, in Japan. We had one glorious and amazing product coming out of Fiji and Japan took half of the credit for it. What a disappointment that churned out to be.
But we are a supple society living on hope and reasoning. So we brainstormed and concluded that it had to do with Fiji being a champion team in rugby – the abbreviated 7s code. After all, we did win the World Cup twice and beat the USA Rugby 7s team on numerous occasions. Perhaps the Americans just loved the way we play and for that reason turned a blind eye towards the state of our political affairs.
And then the Wiki leaks happened. Surprisingly we were pretty much on target with the latter reasoning – but only the part about Americans turning a blind eye towards whatever was happening in Fiji - Rugby and Fiji Water had nothing to do with it. And not only did it reveal what we already knew - that the Australia and New Zealand government were actively trying to oust Fiji from Commonwealth, the Pacific Forum, UN Peacekeeping missions and handicap our nation through economic sanctions but that we barely mattered to the Americans.
Understandably so, the revelations by Wiki Leaks were a cause of utter embarrassment for Fiji. Much to our dismay the Wiki Leaks released cables revealed that Americans didn’t discuss much about Fiji. Was that how much attention we deserved for giving Americans Fiji Water – which even President Obama drinks. Such mortification for our hearty effort!
But we had a different perception a few months earlier when the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton toured the Pacific. Unlike Australia and New Zealand diplomats, her tone was more diplomatic towards Fiji. Even her harshest words were like a gentle tap on our shoulders. She mentioned ‘Fiji’ so many times in her speeches. We were so smitten by her – I actually thought that we would be building a new positively dynamic relationship of epic proportions with America.
We were also quietly hoping for her to rub off the new American foreign policy of engaging with rogue states. That didn’t turn out to be the case. Once she went back, Australia and New Zealand went back to their anti-Fiji rhetoric.
But Fiji is a country that wants economic prosperity more than anything else. Democracy is secondary to us. So we turned to China – a country that has a penchant for welcoming rogue nations. And we joined a club that already comprised of North Korea and Myanmar. With its affluent status in this new world order, China was not a bad bet for us. China is good. They are very helpful. But it has a terrible record on human rights and freedom of speech – something we are well aware of.
But we never gave up on our hope for American attention even though we were actively courting China. So two weeks ago our incandescent Prime Minister decided to expel the CEO of Fiji Water and a week earlier raised taxes exclusive to Fiji Water forcing it to go into a daily torpor or shutdown as the Fiji Water executives initially called it – perhaps an effort to gain America’s attention after all Fiji Water is an American owned company.
Deep down, Fiji wants to leap into the Americans lap, but a lack of indication from them leaves us with the only alternative – the Chinese. And with Fiji being the hub of the South Pacific, China couldn’t have found a much better ally to spread its influence in the region.
