India & Pacific Islands

Story hook

It is 22 May 2023, Port Moresby. Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape bends down and touches the feet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a gesture that startles even the Indian delegation. "India is a leader of the Global South. We will follow your lead at the global forums," Marape tells reporters. The occasion is the 3rd Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC-III) Summit, attended by leaders of 14 Pacific Island Countries (PICs). Within months, China's Wang Yi — fresh from signing a controversial 2022 security pact with the Solomon Islands and pitching a region-wide security framework rejected by 10 island nations — finds his own visits met with growing scepticism.

That same year, in November 2023, the world watches Tuvalu's Foreign Minister Simon Kofe address the COP28 Dubai in a suit and tie — knee-deep in seawater. Tuvalu's highest point is 5 metres. By 2100, 50% of the country's land mass could be permanently submerged. India, hosting the G20 Presidency that year, secures Pacific Island climate adaptation funds and positions itself as the bridge between G7 finance and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) demands.

Spread across 30 million square kilometres of ocean — roughly the size of Africa — 14 sovereign PICs plus 8 dependent territories are the world's smallest states by population but its largest by Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). They control critical SLOCs, fisheries, deep-sea minerals, and votes at the UN. India's FIPIC, born in November 2014 in Suva, Fiji, is Modi-era India's most ambitious attempt to project influence beyond the Indian Ocean Region into the Pacific theatre of the Indo-Pacific.

Why this matters for UPSC

The Pacific Islands cluster has emerged as a quiet but high-stakes domain of Indo-Pacific great-power competition. Mains GS-II has asked questions on FIPIC, India-Pacific climate cooperation, and SIDS-bloc diplomacy at COP and UN. Prelims testing is light — limited to the 14 PIC list, FIPIC summits dates, and Forum members. Interview boards probe analytical trade-offs (China-displacement, climate-financing, Quad-PIF coordination).