Jim Sanday is former chief of staff of the Royal Fiji Military Forces and a retired public servant of the Australian Department of Defence. He recently led the Fiji National Security & Defence Review 2024 and co-authored the Fiji National Security Strategy 2025–2029
For Fiji, hedging is not just survival, but a way of shaping its role as a confident, independent actor in the Blue Pacific. By engaging everyone while committing to no one, Fiji extracts maximum benefit, minimises dependence and diversifies risk.
Fiji, under the leadership of Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka, has embraced a policy of constructive engagement to navigate the shifting landscape of Indo-Pacific geopolitics. The prime minister announced this at the launch of Fiji’s National Security Strategy 2025–2029 on 14 August.
At first glance, constructive engagement appears to be a diplomatic strategy of building bridges across diverse partners. Yet on closer examination, it is best understood as a deliberate form of hedging as Fiji navigates strategic uncertainty.
International politics is no longer defined by neat alliances or simple loyalties. States have always hedged, but today these behaviours are more visible, decisive and unapologetic.
Flexibility matters more than loyalty in an era of great-power competition, fractured supply chains and technological disruption. The politics of convenience has become the dominant currency through which small and middle powers survive.
Rabuka’s policy of constructive engagement fits this pattern. By refusing to be locked into any single camp, Fiji can adapt to circumstances as they evolve and extract value from multiple relationships.
As a small island developing state with vast ocean resources and limited economic capacity, Fiji’s vulnerability to climate change, illegal fishing and external shocks compels it to look outward. Yet it faces the dilemma of being pigeonholed in the great-power rivalry of the region.
Constructive engagement offers a way forward. Rather than choosing one partner over another, Fiji maintains strong ties with traditional allies such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States while also engaging with such emerging powers as India and China. This balancing act allows Fiji to maximise trade, tourism, development aid, investment, climate finance and security partnerships—all while minimising risks.
Fiji’s policy of constructive engagement is evident in how it manages relations with both the US and China by seeking cooperation that aligns with its national interests without being drawn into great-power rivalry.
With the US, Fiji works closely on security and defence. The two countries engage in joint military exercises, the US supports Fiji in maritime surveillance and Fiji participates in US-led regional forums such as the Partners in the Blue Pacific.
At the same time, Fiji engages China through infrastructure development, concessional loans and scholarships under the Belt and Road Initiative, while also welcoming Chinese investment in key sectors such as roads, ports and renewable energy.
By keeping doors open to both Washington and Beijing, Fiji balances strategic ties, maximises development opportunities and demonstrates that its foreign policy is driven by pragmatic partnerships rather than alignment with one side.
This also helps explain Fiji’s September opening of an embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. Beyond its symbolism, this move reflects Fiji’s willingness to seek out new development partners aligned with its national interests.
For more than 40 years, more than 1000 Fijian peacekeepers have served at any one time in Israel, underlining Fiji’s long-standing presence and sacrifice in the region. In this context, the establishment of an embassy is long-overdue recognition of this history and a pragmatic extension of Fiji’s diplomatic reach.
Fiji’s constructive engagement is a calculated hedge against uncertainty. In a fragmented world order, the ability to adapt, diversify and engage across divides is not weakness—it is foresight.
Its refusal to be boxed in also helps Fiji position itself as the diplomatic hub of the Pacific Islands Forum, allowing it, for example, to advance its vision of an Ocean of Peace at the forum. Hedging ensures Fiji is not anyone’s pawn in the Indo-Pacific rivalry.
Fiji is not alone. India aligns itself with the West through its strategic embrace of the US and membership of the Quad, yet it continues defence and energy partnerships with Russia and manages its economic ties with China. This is not contradiction but calculation—and wise counsel for smaller nations.
India extracts value from multiple camps, maximises its options and preserves its independence. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar calls working with competing powers to maximise national advantage ‘multi-alignment’.
Across Southeast Asia, countries including Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore pursue similar strategies. They maintain security ties with the US while deepening trade with China. The logic is that survival and leverage in a multipolar world demand flexibility, not blind loyalty. By following these examples, Fiji ensures no single power dictates its future.
Fiji’s hedging isn’t opportunism; it’s smart adaptation of a global playbook pioneered by others in the Indo-Pacific.
Just as New Delhi refuses to be boxed in by Washington, Moscow or Beijing, Suva refuses to be anyone’s pawn in the Pacific. Whether it’s India’s ‘multi-alignment’ or Fiji’s ‘constructive engagement’, the objectives are the same.
Hedging is about foresight, leverage and, ultimately, survival.
This article was first published by The Strategist on 8th October. It is the online journal of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
