NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga — As leaders of Pacific nations arrived for their annual meeting in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, on Monday, they were greeted first by torrential rain and then by an earthquake.

The magnitude 6.9 quake was deep enough to cause no damage, but the prolonged shaking and ankle-deep water were a reminder of the natural vulnerability of many Pacific Islands Forum member countries, which are locked in an existential struggle for their economic and environmental survival.

It also underscored the tension at the heart of an event that once barely captured the world’s attention and now draws delegations from dozens of countries around the world: the way in which a bitter struggle for geopolitical influence in the South Pacific between major powers further afield threatens to overshadow local concerns, often to the chagrin of island leaders.

“We don’t want them fighting here in our backyard. They can do that somewhere else,” Baron Waqa, the forum’s secretary general and former president of Nauru, told reporters last month.

Nevertheless, this year’s meeting of Pacific member states will bring together more than 1,500 delegates from over 40 countries, all hoping to advance their goals in a region where seas, resources and strategic power are increasingly contested.

Founded in 1971, the Pacific Islands Forum brings together 18 member states to discuss and coordinate the issues facing a remote and diverse region. Members know that their countries – with a population of just 1,500 – will attract more attention on the world stage if they speak with one voice. Leaders of Pacific island nations, some of which are among the world’s most vulnerable to rising sea levels, as well as Australia and New Zealand, have long been at the forefront of calling for action on climate change.

In its first decades of existence, the annual leaders’ meetings went largely unnoticed. In recent years, that has changed, say regular forum attendees: China’s campaign of aid, diplomacy and security agreements with leaders across the Pacific has led to a rapid enlargement and expansion of the organization and its meetings.

This week’s summit will include the largest delegation from China ever to attend the forum, as well as a sizeable delegation from the United States led by Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.

Both countries are among the forum’s 21 “dialogue partners” – a group of nations with an interest in the region. There is a waiting list for inclusion, but applications are currently closed while the forum reviews its structure. Observers said on Monday that a tiered system – reflecting the true interests and commitment of partners in the Pacific – was a possibility.

“We have recognised for a number of years that our region is of great interest from a geopolitical perspective,” Mark Brown, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands and outgoing chair of the forum, told Islands Business this month. “But the security issues that our larger development partners see are not the same security issues that we see as important.”

While major powers attend the forum to exert their influence while undermining the influence of others, the focus of the region’s leaders is clearly where it has always been: on the dangers of climate change and rapid sea level rise.

In Tonga’s capital, Nuku’alofa, reminders are everywhere: metal water bottles given to delegates as souvenirs are printed with the words “One less plastic bottle,” but plastic bottles of water are distributed at every meeting and meal. Rising sea levels and natural disasters have, as in many Pacific island countries, made rainwater and groundwater contaminated and undrinkable.

This year, the issue has another champion: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. In a speech at the opening ceremony on Monday, he condemned “humanity’s treatment of the sea like a sewer” and praised Pacific leaders and young people for declaring a climate emergency and calling for action.

Some politicians tried to focus on pressing problems in their own country: Tonga’s Prime Minister and future chair of the forum, Siaosi Sovaleni, spoke on Monday about the health and education challenges facing his country – an echo throughout the Pacific.

Other issues include the legacy of nuclear horror in the region, cost of living and debt, and regional security – including the construction of a Pacific Police training center in Brisbane, Australia, which is seen as a direct challenge to China’s eagerness to equip the law enforcement agencies of some island states.

In June, Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka described the confluence of these problems – which he said included cross-border drug trafficking – as a “polycrisis” in which each challenge exacerbates the others.

But the most sensitive issue at the forum is likely to be the ongoing unrest in New Caledonia. Deadly violence erupted in French territory in May over a long-standing independence movement and Paris’ efforts to suppress it. A failed attempt by Pacific leaders to visit the capital Noumea ahead of the summit has further fuelled tensions.

Longtime observers of the forum say the event will be a test of the major powers’ ability to pursue the “Pacific way,” a kind of modest consensus politics built on relationships and centered on the idea of ​​the so-called “blue Pacific family” – island nations linked by a common culture and heritage, distinct from the larger Indo-Pacific region, whose interests are seen as more diverse and farther apart.

Summit participants who are loud, pushy or overzealous in their attempts to vie for influence will be greeted with raised eyebrows. “There is a way in which Pacific countries do business with each other and we want the rest of the world to recognise that kind of trade,” Brown, the Cook Islands’ chief minister, told Islands Business.

But politicians are aware that global interest in the Pacific will continue to exist.

“It has to be something the world pays attention to. It’s not what it used to be,” New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told the Associated Press last week. “We’ve been lucky and lucky as a theater. We have to do everything we can to secure that for the long term.”

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