My Take | Emmanuel Macron and the new imperialism in the South Pacific
- Besides countering China, France’s immediate interest is in exploiting New Caledonia’s nickel deposits as the EU fights Indonesia’s export ban
It’s funny to hear Emmanuel Macron warning the people of French New Caledonia against the dangers of foreign domination. It’s not just a matter of the colonisers telling the colonised about the dangers of imperialism. Rather, it’s more to do with what the French president is doing specifically in the tiny South Pacific territory at this time.
“If independence means that tomorrow you’ll decide to have a Chinese base here, or to be dependent on another maritime fleet, good luck with that – that’s no independence,” he said in Noumea, the New Caledonian capital, this week.
He then travelled to neighbouring Vanuatu where he warned explicitly against the “new imperialism”; as opposed to the old – and current – imperialism?
The conventional explanation is that Macron has been part of an entourage of top Western officials travelling to the region to counter growing Chinese influence. Well, there is an element of that. But there is also a much simpler explanation. In a word: nickel.
Well, maybe not so simple. 1) You have to understand why the French have a particularly keen interest in nickel deposits in New Caledonia, which is estimated to hold, unbelievably, up to a quarter of nickel reserves in the world.
2) The European Union (EU) has been strong-arming Indonesia, which also has some of the world’s richest mineral deposits, to provide nickel supplies unhindered, instead of trying to add value to its production by processing deposits in the country.
3) 1 and 2 are intricately related.
