On July 6, China said one of its navy’s nuclear submarines launched a “strategic missile” carrying a dummy warhead towards “relevant high seas of the Pacific Ocean”, describing the test as routine annual military training that complied with international law and was “not directed at any specific country or target”.

Beijing said it had notified relevant countries in advance. Still, the move did little to ease the concerns of Pacific governments and partners, with some criticising the short warning period.

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The missile appeared to have landed near the exclusive economic zones of Tuvalu and Kiribati, 1,000km (621 miles) northeast of the Solomon Islands.

The Pacific region has for decades been cautious of missile tests as a result of the hundreds of nuclear tests carried out by the US, UK and France in the second half of the 20th century.

While leaders from Tuvalu, Palau and the Solomon Islands have strongly criticised the Chinese missile test, the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) held in Suva, Fiji, on Wednesday failed to draft a united statement against it.

Member states are expected to reconsider the issue during a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Suva and a meeting of its leaders in Palau from August 30 to September 4.

Bernard Singu Yegiora, an international relations lecturer at Divine Word University in Papua New Guinea, said many PIF countries maintained strong bilateral ties with China.

Papua New Guinea initially criticised China’s missile test but later closed the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in Port Moresby, reaffirming its adherence to the one-China principle.

“Although there is no direct evidence linking these two developments, the timing may indicate the influence that China’s bilateral relationships can exert on the policy calculations of Papua New Guinea and other member states,” Yegiora said.

“These differing national interests will make it difficult for the PIF to reach a common position.”

Beijing strictly requires countries establishing diplomatic relations with it to recognise the one-China principle stating that Taiwan is part of China and forbid them from having any formal ties with the island.

Previous US missile tests in the Pacific had also not drawn a collective response from the PIF, said Yegiora, who noted that Washington and Beijing were aware of the long-standing opposition of Pacific island nations to nuclear weapons testing in the region.

Between 1946 and 1996, the US, UK and France conducted over 300 nuclear tests in the Pacific, particularly in French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands, resulting in radioactive contamination, mass displacement, high cancer rates and a generational trauma among the region’s residents.

Created in response to these tests, the 1985 Treaty of Rarotonga prohibits nuclear testing, dumping of radioactive waste and toxic matter at sea and commits member nations to non-proliferation and encourages nuclear powers to respect the region as a nuclear-free zone.

Comprising mostly South Pacific nations, the treaty includes five nuclear-power signatories – France, the UK, the US, China and Russia.

Oliver Nobetau, director of the Pacific Islands Programme at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, said the absence of a statement by the PIF over Beijing’s missile test arose from the region’s diversity, with consensus limited to issues such as climate change and fisheries.

These nations do not have a common position on regional security, according to Nobetau. As such, there were doubts about whether a regional security treaty proposed by the Solomon Islands could succeed, he added.

Last month, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale, who took over from pro-China Jeremiah Manele in May, proposed a Pacific-wide security agreement centred on a “Pacific-led security architecture”.

The treaty aims to ensure that regional security challenges are primarily addressed by Pacific island nations and is seen as a plan to curb China’s security role in the region.

These nations had a different experience from past nuclear tests among themselves, and their diverse economic partnerships with China were a factor to consider, Nobetau said.

For instance, French Polynesia suffered the most detonations and was still dealing with generational health effects, while Papua New Guinea was not as significantly affected, Nobetau said.

“It is difficult to reach consensus when not all parties share the same historical reality,” he added.

Hideyuki Shiozawa, director of the island nations’ division at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said Chinese embassies in Pacific countries had likely detailed explanations on the launch despite giving short notice.

“The incident did not appear to pose a problem under international law, as the missile landed in international waters,” Shiozawa said.

Although the missile was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, it did not contain nuclear materials and was not a violation of the Treaty of Rarotonga, Shiozawa said.

Some Pacific island countries chose not to issue a strong statement to avoid provoking China even though the launch had fuelled their perception that they could become “targets within China’s strategic calculations”, Shiozawa said.

The test was a warning by Beijing against the growing security ties between Pacific island nations and Western powers, according to analysts. It occurred just hours after Australia and Fiji signed a landmark mutual defence agreement called the Ocean of Peace Alliance.

“For some Pacific island countries, this event likely served as a wake-up call, highlighting the direct security implications of intensifying great-power competition in the region,” Shiozawa said.

China has strengthened military and security ties with Pacific island countries in recent years, including signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands and expanding law enforcement cooperation with Fiji and Kiribati.

On the economic front, China trades with Pacific island countries primarily in resources, such as seafood, timber, and minerals. It has also invested in the region’s infrastructure, ranging from ports to hydropower stations, and provided financial support, including grants and concessional loans.

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Tokyo would work with Indonesia and the Philippines to chart their respective straits, the foreign ministry told the Yomiuri newspaper, as it stepped up efforts to mitigate disruption to global trade arising from the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.

The project is designed to give commercial shipping more confidence in alternative passages – with the latest data on depths, hazards and navigational aids – if ships need to avoid the heavily used route through the Strait of Malacca after they sail beyond the Strait of Hormuz.

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The strategic waters off several Malaysian states are increasingly at risk from geopolitical tensions, raising concerns in Tokyo about the resilience of current maritime routes that carry much of Japan’s trade, ranging from energy to electronic goods.

As much as 90 per cent of all Japanese crude oil imports come from Gulf states, typically shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. The region is also a key source of natural gas and fertilisers.

Since the initial US attacks on Iran in March, Japan has moved quickly to seek alternative energy sources, and new supply chains linking to the US, Latin America, Central Asia and Africa have been established.

Analysts say the project will deepen cooperation between Japan and Southeast Asian countries concerned by China’s expanding maritime activities in the western Pacific.

“This appears to be a win-win for all concerned: Japan, its regional partners, and indeed anyone interested in safe and secure sea lines of communication in Southeast Asia,” said Paul Chamberlain, a research fellow for Indo-Pacific sea power with the Yokosuka Council in Asia-Pacific Studies.

“Such charts – if publicly available or given to responsible maritime actors, such as shipping and civilian mariners – would contribute to ‘good order at sea’ in the region and serve as a public good in the maritime order,” he said.

Using the maritime security environment as a basis for peaceful collaboration with key regional partners was typical of Japanese statecraft, providing an opportunity to foster stronger ties with their key naval and civilian maritime institutions, Chamberlain added.

According to the foreign ministry in Tokyo, the maritime charts will aim to safeguard maritime transport routes that support the Japanese economy. Tokyo will finance 2 billion yen (US$12.3 million) for the project through its official development help scheme for Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor.

The five sectors that Japan intends to map are the Maluku Passage and Ombai Strait in eastern Indonesia, the Sunda Strait in western Indonesia and the Surigao Strait and Balabac Strait in the Philippines.

If the project is successful, ships can avoid the South China Sea and pass between the islands of Indonesia and the Philippines before turning north for Japan. The work will include detailed hydrographic surveys, seabed exploration and installation of navigational aids.

Japan will make the finalised charts available to countries surrounding the sea areas.

“Sea lanes are absolutely vital to Japan, which relies on maritime trade for exports and critical imports such as energy, raw materials and food,” said Joseph Kristanto, a maritime security analyst at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“If these sea lanes were blocked for an extended period, the impact would be far more than just shipping delays. Energy prices would rise, factories would struggle to maintain production levels, food and input costs would increase, and the national economy could face a major strategic shock,” he added.

In the event of a major geopolitical crisis affecting the region, the areas deemed dangerous for ships to travel could extend to waters around Taiwan, Kristanto added.

Other routes that Japan could consider are via the Lombok Strait and the Makassar Strait, and across the Pacific from North and South America, which would be less risky than the Indian Ocean-South China Sea route at a time of crisis, according to Kristanto.

“However, re-routing is costly and only partially mitigates the risk. They add distance, time and fuel use. Studies show that large-scale diversions could raise global shipping costs by tens of billions of dollars each year.”

Japan would also face the risks of a broader conflict as the Chinese navy continued to extend its reach beyond the first island chain and stepped up operations deep into the Western Pacific, with vessels ultimately having to approach Japan through waters that could become contested, Kristanto said.

“No matter where the supplies come from, ships still have to reach Japan via the Western Pacific, bringing them close to the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait,” he said.

“While using different suppliers and routes can reduce risk in some respects, the main vulnerability remains. In the end, ships still have to run the gauntlet to reach Northeast Asia.”

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While the South Pacific nation has deepened its ties with China over the past few years, particularly following the signing of a secret security pact in 2022, Wale’s visit underscored efforts to strengthen maritime cooperation with the US.

Wale, who took office in May pledging change for the Solomon Islands, met with the US Coast Guard’s vice commandant, Admiral Thomas Allan, while in America on Monday.

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A US State Department readout stated Wale also met with Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau to discuss the two countries’ evolving ties.

“Deputy Secretary Landau and Prime Minister Wale signed a Letter of Intent to return Peace Corps to Solomon Islands,” the readout said.

In 2019, the Solomon Islands established a diplomatic relationship with Beijing, after it cut ties with Taipei.

Three years later, in 2022, China signed a closely watched security agreement with the Solomon Islands. Beijing said the pact was intended to promote peace and stability in the region, but it sparked concern in the US and among its allies Australia and New Zealand.

More recently, in July 2026, Beijing reaffirmed its commitment to Honiara, pledging to deepen ties after China conducted a missile test over international waters in the South Pacific Ocean, prompting diplomatic protests from the region.

“China maintains continuity and stability in its policy toward the Solomon Islands and has always supported the Solomon Islands in safeguarding its national sovereignty, independence and legitimate rights and interests, as well as in pursuing a development path of its own choosing,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last week, when he met with his Solomon Islands counterpart Rick Houenipwela.

Wang’s comments came after Wale lodged a “strong protest” with Chinese diplomats on behalf of Pacific nations over the July 6 missile test.

Against the backdrop of regional tensions, the Solomon Islands announced that the “ship rider agreement” will be signed in its capital Honiara next week, in a readout that added it would strengthen maritime enforcement and surveillance with Washington.

“Prime Minister Wale highlighted the urgent need to enhance security across the Pacific region, noting the increasing threats of drug trafficking, human trafficking, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing,” the Solomon Islands’ readout stated.

When asked about the new agreement, Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told a Tuesday press briefing that China and the Solomon Islands are comprehensive strategic partners featuring “mutual respect and common development for a new era”.

“China supports efforts by the international community to help Pacific island countries realise sustainable development. At the same time, in developing relations with Pacific island countries, all parties should respect their independence, put development first, and uphold openness and inclusiveness,” he said, adding that relevant cooperation should not be targeted at any third party.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington described the matter as “a bilateral issue between the Solomon Islands and the United States”, adding: “I am in no position to comment.”

In recent years, the US Coast Guard has expanded patrols of the South Pacific.

Local Pacific police officers participating as “ship riders” have increasingly partnered with US Coast Guard patrols, helping inspect fishing fleets suspected of operating illegally across millions of square kilometres of ocean.

In 2024, so-called “ship riders” on a US vessel boarded Chinese fishing boats in Vanuatu and Kiribati.

The inspections drew protests from Chinese officials after some boats were found to have violated fishing laws.

There is a 1.5 million sq km (580,000 square mile) exclusive economic zone surrounding the Solomon Islands, a nation that counts tuna fishing as a major industry, alongside several other South Pacific countries.

The meeting between Wale and Landau also included talks about potential investment, including in Bina Harbour.

The Solomon Islands aims to develop a tuna processing factory at the harbour, with previously reported Chinese interest in the development sparking concern from Australia about it being used for dual purposes.

Landau also announced the State Department is providing US$6 million in new funding to expand its unexploded ordnance removal programme in the Solomon Islands.

“Deputy Secretary Landau expressed his hope to visit Solomon Islands and to see the reminders of our shared sacrifices during World War II,” the readout said.

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Prime Group, the Indonesian company that took over operatorship from Britain’s Harbour Energy, told This Week in Asia that “activities associated with the Tuna PSC have resumed in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements”. The PSC – production-sharing contract – is the agreement governing development of the gas field, named Tuna after the licensed offshore area in which the project sits.

The Tuna field lies within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in waters where Beijing has previously objected to Jakarta’s drilling activity. Its revival also depends on a Russian state-owned partner, at a time when sanctions and compliance concerns have complicated energy investment.

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Analysts said the revived project would test whether President Prabowo Subianto’s government could advance Indonesia’s resource rights without triggering a public sovereignty contest with China.

Jakarta is expected to try keeping the project low profile, but Russia’s involvement, commercial doubts and uncertainty over Prabowo’s China policy could prove as consequential as any response from Beijing.

Job notices posted by Prime Group via its subsidiaries on oil and gas recruitment sites offer a clue to the project’s next steps. They show the company has been recruiting for several Tuna-related roles linked to early engineering work for offshore production facilities, with that work planned for September. The notices do not indicate whether any work has resumed at sea.

Indonesia’s energy ministry said in June that Russian state-owned oil company Zarubezhneft, which holds the remaining 50 per cent through ZN Asia, was ready to continue the delayed project with government support.

This Week in Asia has contacted the energy ministry for comment.

Indonesia approved a US$3.07 billion development plan for the Tuna field in late 2022, with regulators then projecting peak output of 115 million standard cubic feet (3.26 million cubic metres) of gas per day in 2027.

That timetable has since been overtaken by delays and the change of operator, but the Tuna field retains its potential as Jakarta pushes for greater energy self-sufficiency and tries to reverse a long decline in domestic oil and gas production.

Aristyo Rizka Darmawan, an international law lecturer at the University of Indonesia specialising in the law of the sea and Indonesia’s maritime disputes, said the project mattered first for practical reasons. “Energy self-reliance is very important,” he said.

But the Tuna field also carries political weight far beyond its projected output. The field lies close to Indonesia’s maritime boundary with Vietnam, in an area where Jakarta says it has sovereign rights over seabed resources under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

China’s expansive South China Sea claim, represented on its maps by the nine-dash line, cuts into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone around the Natuna Islands.

A 2016 international arbitral tribunal found no legal basis for China’s claim to historic rights within the nine-dash line beyond what Unclos permits. Beijing rejects the ruling and says its sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea are grounded in history and law.

Indonesia has already felt the backlash from pursuing energy exploration in contested waters. During a months-long stand-off in 2021, Chinese diplomats demanded Jakarta halt drilling of two appraisal wells at Tuna, claiming the activity took place in Chinese territory. Indonesia refused, maintaining that exploration there was its sovereign right, while Chinese and Indonesian ships shadowed one another around the drilling rig.

In October 2024, days after Prabowo took office, Indonesia said it had repeatedly driven away a Chinese coastguard vessel that disrupted a seismic survey for state-owned energy company Pertamina elsewhere in the North Natuna Sea. China said the vessel had been operating in waters under its jurisdiction.

Aristyo said the long-standing friction over Natuna limited how far Jakarta could go in trusting Beijing on security matters, despite their strong economic ties.

“We can’t really have a full-trust security relationship with Beijing when we still have the North Natuna issue,” he said.

Still, he expected Indonesia to press ahead with the gas project even if China objected, while trying to avoid elevating the issue publicly. “They want to keep it silent,” he said.

Such a low profile approach will be familiar to other Southeast Asian nations.

Malaysia and Vietnam had continued offshore energy activity in waters also claimed by China without letting the dispute badly strain ties, said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“We can expect Beijing to register its protest, as it routinely does, usually through the diplomatic backchannels,” Koh said.

Chinese maritime forces might also maintain a presence to monitor activities and signal Beijing’s position without necessarily attempting to halt the work, he added.

Indonesia appears to be following “Malaysia’s blueprint” of avoiding a politically explosive fight over sovereignty while concentrating on areas where cooperation with China remained possible, according to Yohanes Sulaiman, an associate professor of international relations at General Achmad Yani University who studies Indonesian foreign policy and security issues.

But Prabowo’s own diplomacy has complicated that balancing act.

A joint statement issued during his visit to Beijing in November 2024 referenced cooperation and joint development in “areas of overlapping claims” – wording China treated as tacit recognition of its position.

Jakarta’s foreign ministry later insisted otherwise, maintaining that it did not recognise China’s nine-dash line and that the agreement did not affect Indonesia’s sovereignty, sovereign rights or jurisdiction in the North Natuna Sea.

“They know that the ‘overlapping claims’ [wording] was a blunder and thus they pretended it didn’t happen,” Yohanes said.

Resumed activity at the Tuna field gives Jakarta a chance to show that it still regards North Natuna energy development as a matter of Indonesian resource rights, despite the 2024 joint statement.

Beijing could invoke the “overlapping claims” language if it wished to press its position, but Koh said the question was “whether it’s politically wise to do that”.

China would have to weigh whether opposing the project more aggressively was “worth imperilling the generally cordial and lucrative relations with Indonesia”, he said.

Zarubezhneft’s continued involvement adds another layer of uncertainty.

The Russian company acquired its Tuna interest in 2020, but became an increasingly awkward partner for Harbour Energy after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered an expansion of Western sanctions.

Indonesia’s regulator said in 2023 that Zarubezhneft was preparing to sell its stake, but ultimately it was Harbour that left, completing a US$215 million sale of its stake and operatorship to Indonesia’s Prime Group on May 26.

Koh said Russia’s presence might actually work in Indonesia’s favour, as the deepening alignment between Moscow and Beijing over what both have called US-led “global hegemony” likely outweighed any incentive China could have to disrupt “a single offshore energy project”.

Yohanes was more sceptical of any grand strategic reading, however, describing Indonesia’s approach as more opportunistic.

“It just looks for countries willing to invest,” he said, adding that Prabowo on the whole appeared to be making “ad hoc decisions on specific issues” rather than deliberately playing Washington, Moscow and Beijing off against each other.

Aristyo agreed, contrasting the current “incoherence” with the clearer line adopted by Prabowo’s predecessor Joko Widodo, who pursued economic cooperation with Beijing while refusing to negotiate on sovereignty.

The real test will come if and when the early engineering and paperwork surrounding the Tuna field turns into visible activity at sea, according to Koh, who questioned whether Beijing “wants to open up new ‘trouble fronts’ in the South China Sea beyond its existing preoccupation” with the Philippines.

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Six months on, Jakarta’s investment chief argues the real story is not about whether the country can earn investors’ trust.

“For Indonesia, this is not about short-term market status,” Investment Minister Rosan Roeslani told This Week in Asia in written replies to questions. “It is about building a deeper, more credible, and more investible capital market.”

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MSCI’s warning centred on what it characterised as opaque shareholding structures and suspicions of coordinated trading, giving Indonesia until May to show sufficient progress or face a weighting reduction – and possibly a downgrade after consultation.

Rosan said progress had been made through direct talks with MSCI, pointing to efforts by Indonesian authorities to tighten market transparency rules.

Regulator the Financial Services Authority (OJK), the Indonesia Stock Exchange and securities depository KSEI all now require public disclosure of shareholders holding stakes above 1 per cent, alongside more detailed investor classifications, a system to flag highly concentrated ownership and plans to lift the minimum free-float threshold to 15 per cent.

In June, MSCI acknowledged that reform steps had been taken but withheld judgment, saying it would continue to assess the scope, consistency and effectiveness of the measures before its next index review in November.

In addition to the technical fixes, Indonesia is also tightening beneficial ownership rules – identifying who really owns a company – as well as improving public disclosure of corporate structures more broadly, according to Rosan, who doubles as CEO of Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund Danantara.

The push comes as Indonesia seeks to reassure sceptical investors that its markets are governed by clear, consistent rules at a time when President Prabowo Subianto has set a target of nearly doubling economic growth, from around 5 per cent to 8 per cent, by 2029.

Danantara, which controls more than 1,000 state-owned enterprises and upwards of a trillion US dollars in assets, is central to that ambition, but it has not been a straightforward sell.

Since its launch in February last year, Danantara has attracted criticism over transparency, the risks of concentrating so much of the country’s wealth under one fund and concerns that political interference could compromise its commercial mandate.

Rosan emphasised that Danantara’s role was not to replace regulators, “but to help anchor confidence as a long-term institutional investor that deploys capital prudently.”

He said the fund aimed to build investor confidence through disciplined investment processes, clear mandates and transparent reporting, among other measures.

In practice, that often means acting as an anchor investor – deploying capital to minimise risks for major projects and attract foreign co-investors, from renewable energy projects to bauxite and aluminium processing plants.

A recent “governance milestone” came on Thursday last week when Danantara Investment Management joined the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds as an associate member, Rosan said, allowing the fund to “benchmark” itself against global peers.

He said the move would also help Danantara align with the Santiago Principles, a set of voluntary governance standards that many of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds observe.

“For investors, these are the foundations of trust,” Rosan said. “Danantara is not only managing national assets; we are building an institution that meets international expectations for professionalism, transparency and accountability.”

This investor courtship can clearly be seen in Bali, where Danantara recently broke ground on the country’s first waste-to-energy facility – part of a broader programme that has, within months, attracted partners and investments from China, France, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, India and within Indonesia itself.

“The strong participation in WtE [waste-to-energy projects] shows that global investors see Indonesia as a serious destination for infrastructure, technology transfer, and green investment,” Rosan said.

In addition to helping address Indonesia’s mounting landfill crisis, the plants also promise to provide a steady supply of baseload power.

Meanwhile, the fund is also looking into a wide array of other projects.

“We are advancing more than 20 strategic downstream projects across minerals, energy, food, and agriculture, while strengthening our long-term social impact commitment,” Rosan said, adding that Danantara was focusing on sectors that would strengthen Indonesia’s competitiveness, support its industrial transformation and create jobs.

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On July 6, China said one of its navy’s nuclear submarines launched a "strategic missile” carrying a dummy warhead towards "relevant high seas of the Pacific Ocean”, describing the test as routine annual military training that complied with international law and was "not directed at any specific country or target”.

Beijing said it had notified relevant countries in advance. Still, the move did little to ease the concerns of Pacific governments and partners, with some criticising the short warning period.

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The missile appeared to have landed near the exclusive economic zones of Tuvalu and Kiribati, 1,000km (621 miles) northeast of the Solomon Islands.

The Pacific region has for decades been cautious of missile tests as a result of the hundreds of nuclear tests carried out by the US, UK and France in the second half of the 20th century.

While leaders from Tuvalu, Palau and the Solomon Islands have strongly criticised the Chinese missile test, the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) held in Suva, Fiji, on Wednesday failed to draft a united statement against it.

Member states are expected to reconsider the issue during a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Suva and a meeting of its leaders in Palau from August 30 to September 4.

Bernard Singu Yegiora, an international relations lecturer at Divine Word University in Papua New Guinea, said many PIF countries maintained strong bilateral ties with China.

Papua New Guinea initially criticised China’s missile test but later closed the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in Port Moresby, reaffirming its adherence to the one-China principle.

"Although there is no direct evidence linking these two developments, the timing may indicate the influence that China’s bilateral relationships can exert on the policy calculations of Papua New Guinea and other member states,” Yegiora said.

"These differing national interests will make it difficult for the PIF to reach a common position.”

Beijing strictly requires countries establishing diplomatic relations with it to recognise the one-China principle stating that Taiwan is part of China and forbid them from having any formal ties with the island.

Previous US missile tests in the Pacific had also not drawn a collective response from the PIF, said Yegiora, who noted that Washington and Beijing were aware of the long-standing opposition of Pacific island nations to nuclear weapons testing in the region.

Between 1946 and 1996, the US, UK and France conducted over 300 nuclear tests in the Pacific, particularly in French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands, resulting in radioactive contamination, mass displacement, high cancer rates and a generational trauma among the region’s residents.

Created in response to these tests, the 1985 Treaty of Rarotonga prohibits nuclear testing, dumping of radioactive waste and toxic matter at sea and commits member nations to non-proliferation and encourages nuclear powers to respect the region as a nuclear-free zone.

Comprising mostly South Pacific nations, the treaty includes five nuclear-power signatories – France, the UK, the US, China and Russia.

Oliver Nobetau, director of the Pacific Islands Programme at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, said the absence of a statement by the PIF over Beijing’s missile test arose from the region’s diversity, with consensus limited to issues such as climate change and fisheries.

These nations do not have a common position on regional security, according to Nobetau. As such, there were doubts about whether a regional security treaty proposed by the Solomon Islands could succeed, he added.

Last month, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale, who took over from pro-China Jeremiah Manele in May, proposed a Pacific-wide security agreement centred on a "Pacific-led security architecture”.

The treaty aims to ensure that regional security challenges are primarily addressed by Pacific island nations and is seen as a plan to curb China’s security role in the region.

These nations had a different experience from past nuclear tests among themselves, and their diverse economic partnerships with China were a factor to consider, Nobetau said.

For instance, French Polynesia suffered the most detonations and was still dealing with generational health effects, while Papua New Guinea was not as significantly affected, Nobetau said.

"It is difficult to reach consensus when not all parties share the same historical reality,” he added.

Hideyuki Shiozawa, director of the island nations’ division at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said Chinese embassies in Pacific countries had likely detailed explanations on the launch despite giving short notice.

"The incident did not appear to pose a problem under international law, as the missile landed in international waters,” Shiozawa said.

Although the missile was capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, it did not contain nuclear materials and was not a violation of the Treaty of Rarotonga, Shiozawa said.

Some Pacific island countries chose not to issue a strong statement to avoid provoking China even though the launch had fuelled their perception that they could become "targets within China’s strategic calculations”, Shiozawa said.

The test was a warning by Beijing against the growing security ties between Pacific island nations and Western powers, according to analysts. It occurred just hours after Australia and Fiji signed a landmark mutual defence agreement called the Ocean of Peace Alliance.

"For some Pacific island countries, this event likely served as a wake-up call, highlighting the direct security implications of intensifying great-power competition in the region,” Shiozawa said.

China has strengthened military and security ties with Pacific island countries in recent years, including signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands and expanding law enforcement cooperation with Fiji and Kiribati.

On the economic front, China trades with Pacific island countries primarily in resources, such as seafood, timber, and minerals. It has also invested in the region’s infrastructure, ranging from ports to hydropower stations, and provided financial support, including grants and concessional loans.

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Tokyo would work with Indonesia and the Philippines to chart their respective straits, the foreign ministry told the Yomiuri newspaper, as it stepped up efforts to mitigate disruption to global trade arising from the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz.

The project is designed to give commercial shipping more confidence in alternative passages – with the latest data on depths, hazards and navigational aids – if ships need to avoid the heavily used route through the Strait of Malacca after they sail beyond the Strait of Hormuz.

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The strategic waters off several Malaysian states are increasingly at risk from geopolitical tensions, raising concerns in Tokyo about the resilience of current maritime routes that carry much of Japan’s trade, ranging from energy to electronic goods.

As much as 90 per cent of all Japanese crude oil imports come from Gulf states, typically shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. The region is also a key source of natural gas and fertilisers.

Since the initial US attacks on Iran in March, Japan has moved quickly to seek alternative energy sources, and new supply chains linking to the US, Latin America, Central Asia and Africa have been established.

Analysts say the project will deepen cooperation between Japan and Southeast Asian countries concerned by China’s expanding maritime activities in the western Pacific.

"This appears to be a win-win for all concerned: Japan, its regional partners, and indeed anyone interested in safe and secure sea lines of communication in Southeast Asia,” said Paul Chamberlain, a research fellow for Indo-Pacific sea power with the Yokosuka Council in Asia-Pacific Studies.

"Such charts – if publicly available or given to responsible maritime actors, such as shipping and civilian mariners – would contribute to ‘good order at sea’ in the region and serve as a public good in the maritime order,” he said.

Using the maritime security environment as a basis for peaceful collaboration with key regional partners was typical of Japanese statecraft, providing an opportunity to foster stronger ties with their key naval and civilian maritime institutions, Chamberlain added.

According to the foreign ministry in Tokyo, the maritime charts will aim to safeguard maritime transport routes that support the Japanese economy. Tokyo will finance 2 billion yen (US$12.3 million) for the project through its official development help scheme for Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor.

The five sectors that Japan intends to map are the Maluku Passage and Ombai Strait in eastern Indonesia, the Sunda Strait in western Indonesia and the Surigao Strait and Balabac Strait in the Philippines.

If the project is successful, ships can avoid the South China Sea and pass between the islands of Indonesia and the Philippines before turning north for Japan. The work will include detailed hydrographic surveys, seabed exploration and installation of navigational aids.

Japan will make the finalised charts available to countries surrounding the sea areas.

"Sea lanes are absolutely vital to Japan, which relies on maritime trade for exports and critical imports such as energy, raw materials and food,” said Joseph Kristanto, a maritime security analyst at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

"If these sea lanes were blocked for an extended period, the impact would be far more than just shipping delays. Energy prices would rise, factories would struggle to maintain production levels, food and input costs would increase, and the national economy could face a major strategic shock,” he added.

In the event of a major geopolitical crisis affecting the region, the areas deemed dangerous for ships to travel could extend to waters around Taiwan, Kristanto added.

Other routes that Japan could consider are via the Lombok Strait and the Makassar Strait, and across the Pacific from North and South America, which would be less risky than the Indian Ocean-South China Sea route at a time of crisis, according to Kristanto.

"However, re-routing is costly and only partially mitigates the risk. They add distance, time and fuel use. Studies show that large-scale diversions could raise global shipping costs by tens of billions of dollars each year.”

Japan would also face the risks of a broader conflict as the Chinese navy continued to extend its reach beyond the first island chain and stepped up operations deep into the Western Pacific, with vessels ultimately having to approach Japan through waters that could become contested, Kristanto said.

"No matter where the supplies come from, ships still have to reach Japan via the Western Pacific, bringing them close to the East China Sea and the Taiwan Strait,” he said.

"While using different suppliers and routes can reduce risk in some respects, the main vulnerability remains. In the end, ships still have to run the gauntlet to reach Northeast Asia.”

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While the South Pacific nation has deepened its ties with China over the past few years, particularly following the signing of a secret security pact in 2022, Wale’s visit underscored efforts to strengthen maritime cooperation with the US.

Wale, who took office in May pledging change for the Solomon Islands, met with the US Coast Guard’s vice commandant, Admiral Thomas Allan, while in America on Monday.

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A US State Department readout stated Wale also met with Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau to discuss the two countries’ evolving ties.

"Deputy Secretary Landau and Prime Minister Wale signed a Letter of Intent to return Peace Corps to Solomon Islands,” the readout said.

In 2019, the Solomon Islands established a diplomatic relationship with Beijing, after it cut ties with Taipei.

Three years later, in 2022, China signed a closely watched security agreement with the Solomon Islands. Beijing said the pact was intended to promote peace and stability in the region, but it sparked concern in the US and among its allies Australia and New Zealand.

More recently, in July 2026, Beijing reaffirmed its commitment to Honiara, pledging to deepen ties after China conducted a missile test over international waters in the South Pacific Ocean, prompting diplomatic protests from the region.

"China maintains continuity and stability in its policy toward the Solomon Islands and has always supported the Solomon Islands in safeguarding its national sovereignty, independence and legitimate rights and interests, as well as in pursuing a development path of its own choosing,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last week, when he met with his Solomon Islands counterpart Rick Houenipwela.

Wang’s comments came after Wale lodged a "strong protest” with Chinese diplomats on behalf of Pacific nations over the July 6 missile test.

Against the backdrop of regional tensions, the Solomon Islands announced that the "ship rider agreement” will be signed in its capital Honiara next week, in a readout that added it would strengthen maritime enforcement and surveillance with Washington.

"Prime Minister Wale highlighted the urgent need to enhance security across the Pacific region, noting the increasing threats of drug trafficking, human trafficking, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing,” the Solomon Islands’ readout stated.

When asked about the new agreement, Lin Jian, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told a Tuesday press briefing that China and the Solomon Islands are comprehensive strategic partners featuring "mutual respect and common development for a new era”.

"China supports efforts by the international community to help Pacific island countries realise sustainable development. At the same time, in developing relations with Pacific island countries, all parties should respect their independence, put development first, and uphold openness and inclusiveness,” he said, adding that relevant cooperation should not be targeted at any third party.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington described the matter as "a bilateral issue between the Solomon Islands and the United States”, adding: "I am in no position to comment.”

In recent years, the US Coast Guard has expanded patrols of the South Pacific.

Local Pacific police officers participating as "ship riders” have increasingly partnered with US Coast Guard patrols, helping inspect fishing fleets suspected of operating illegally across millions of square kilometres of ocean.

In 2024, so-called "ship riders” on a US vessel boarded Chinese fishing boats in Vanuatu and Kiribati.

The inspections drew protests from Chinese officials after some boats were found to have violated fishing laws.

There is a 1.5 million sq km (580,000 square mile) exclusive economic zone surrounding the Solomon Islands, a nation that counts tuna fishing as a major industry, alongside several other South Pacific countries.

The meeting between Wale and Landau also included talks about potential investment, including in Bina Harbour.

The Solomon Islands aims to develop a tuna processing factory at the harbour, with previously reported Chinese interest in the development sparking concern from Australia about it being used for dual purposes.

Landau also announced the State Department is providing US$6 million in new funding to expand its unexploded ordnance removal programme in the Solomon Islands.

"Deputy Secretary Landau expressed his hope to visit Solomon Islands and to see the reminders of our shared sacrifices during World War II,” the readout said.

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Prime Group, the Indonesian company that took over operatorship from Britain’s Harbour Energy, told This Week in Asia that "activities associated with the Tuna PSC have resumed in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements”. The PSC – production-sharing contract – is the agreement governing development of the gas field, named Tuna after the licensed offshore area in which the project sits.

The Tuna field lies within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in waters where Beijing has previously objected to Jakarta’s drilling activity. Its revival also depends on a Russian state-owned partner, at a time when sanctions and compliance concerns have complicated energy investment.

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Analysts said the revived project would test whether President Prabowo Subianto’s government could advance Indonesia’s resource rights without triggering a public sovereignty contest with China.

Jakarta is expected to try keeping the project low profile, but Russia’s involvement, commercial doubts and uncertainty over Prabowo’s China policy could prove as consequential as any response from Beijing.

Job notices posted by Prime Group via its subsidiaries on oil and gas recruitment sites offer a clue to the project’s next steps. They show the company has been recruiting for several Tuna-related roles linked to early engineering work for offshore production facilities, with that work planned for September. The notices do not indicate whether any work has resumed at sea.

Indonesia’s energy ministry said in June that Russian state-owned oil company Zarubezhneft, which holds the remaining 50 per cent through ZN Asia, was ready to continue the delayed project with government support.

This Week in Asia has contacted the energy ministry for comment.

Indonesia approved a US$3.07 billion development plan for the Tuna field in late 2022, with regulators then projecting peak output of 115 million standard cubic feet (3.26 million cubic metres) of gas per day in 2027.

That timetable has since been overtaken by delays and the change of operator, but the Tuna field retains its potential as Jakarta pushes for greater energy self-sufficiency and tries to reverse a long decline in domestic oil and gas production.

Aristyo Rizka Darmawan, an international law lecturer at the University of Indonesia specialising in the law of the sea and Indonesia’s maritime disputes, said the project mattered first for practical reasons. "Energy self-reliance is very important,” he said.

But the Tuna field also carries political weight far beyond its projected output. The field lies close to Indonesia’s maritime boundary with Vietnam, in an area where Jakarta says it has sovereign rights over seabed resources under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

China’s expansive South China Sea claim, represented on its maps by the nine-dash line, cuts into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone around the Natuna Islands.

A 2016 international arbitral tribunal found no legal basis for China’s claim to historic rights within the nine-dash line beyond what Unclos permits. Beijing rejects the ruling and says its sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea are grounded in history and law.

Indonesia has already felt the backlash from pursuing energy exploration in contested waters. During a months-long stand-off in 2021, Chinese diplomats demanded Jakarta halt drilling of two appraisal wells at Tuna, claiming the activity took place in Chinese territory. Indonesia refused, maintaining that exploration there was its sovereign right, while Chinese and Indonesian ships shadowed one another around the drilling rig.

In October 2024, days after Prabowo took office, Indonesia said it had repeatedly driven away a Chinese coastguard vessel that disrupted a seismic survey for state-owned energy company Pertamina elsewhere in the North Natuna Sea. China said the vessel had been operating in waters under its jurisdiction.

Aristyo said the long-standing friction over Natuna limited how far Jakarta could go in trusting Beijing on security matters, despite their strong economic ties.

"We can’t really have a full-trust security relationship with Beijing when we still have the North Natuna issue,” he said.

Still, he expected Indonesia to press ahead with the gas project even if China objected, while trying to avoid elevating the issue publicly. "They want to keep it silent,” he said.

Such a low profile approach will be familiar to other Southeast Asian nations.

Malaysia and Vietnam had continued offshore energy activity in waters also claimed by China without letting the dispute badly strain ties, said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

"We can expect Beijing to register its protest, as it routinely does, usually through the diplomatic backchannels,” Koh said.

Chinese maritime forces might also maintain a presence to monitor activities and signal Beijing’s position without necessarily attempting to halt the work, he added.

Indonesia appears to be following "Malaysia’s blueprint” of avoiding a politically explosive fight over sovereignty while concentrating on areas where cooperation with China remained possible, according to Yohanes Sulaiman, an associate professor of international relations at General Achmad Yani University who studies Indonesian foreign policy and security issues.

But Prabowo’s own diplomacy has complicated that balancing act.

A joint statement issued during his visit to Beijing in November 2024 referenced cooperation and joint development in "areas of overlapping claims” – wording China treated as tacit recognition of its position.

Jakarta’s foreign ministry later insisted otherwise, maintaining that it did not recognise China’s nine-dash line and that the agreement did not affect Indonesia’s sovereignty, sovereign rights or jurisdiction in the North Natuna Sea.

"They know that the ‘overlapping claims’ [wording] was a blunder and thus they pretended it didn’t happen,” Yohanes said.

Resumed activity at the Tuna field gives Jakarta a chance to show that it still regards North Natuna energy development as a matter of Indonesian resource rights, despite the 2024 joint statement.

Beijing could invoke the "overlapping claims” language if it wished to press its position, but Koh said the question was "whether it’s politically wise to do that”.

China would have to weigh whether opposing the project more aggressively was "worth imperilling the generally cordial and lucrative relations with Indonesia”, he said.

Zarubezhneft’s continued involvement adds another layer of uncertainty.

The Russian company acquired its Tuna interest in 2020, but became an increasingly awkward partner for Harbour Energy after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered an expansion of Western sanctions.

Indonesia’s regulator said in 2023 that Zarubezhneft was preparing to sell its stake, but ultimately it was Harbour that left, completing a US$215 million sale of its stake and operatorship to Indonesia’s Prime Group on May 26.

Koh said Russia’s presence might actually work in Indonesia’s favour, as the deepening alignment between Moscow and Beijing over what both have called US-led "global hegemony” likely outweighed any incentive China could have to disrupt "a single offshore energy project”.

Yohanes was more sceptical of any grand strategic reading, however, describing Indonesia’s approach as more opportunistic.

"It just looks for countries willing to invest,” he said, adding that Prabowo on the whole appeared to be making "ad hoc decisions on specific issues” rather than deliberately playing Washington, Moscow and Beijing off against each other.

Aristyo agreed, contrasting the current "incoherence” with the clearer line adopted by Prabowo’s predecessor Joko Widodo, who pursued economic cooperation with Beijing while refusing to negotiate on sovereignty.

The real test will come if and when the early engineering and paperwork surrounding the Tuna field turns into visible activity at sea, according to Koh, who questioned whether Beijing "wants to open up new ‘trouble fronts’ in the South China Sea beyond its existing preoccupation” with the Philippines.

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Six months on, Jakarta’s investment chief argues the real story is not about whether the country can earn investors’ trust.

"For Indonesia, this is not about short-term market status,” Investment Minister Rosan Roeslani told This Week in Asia in written replies to questions. "It is about building a deeper, more credible, and more investible capital market.”

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MSCI’s warning centred on what it characterised as opaque shareholding structures and suspicions of coordinated trading, giving Indonesia until May to show sufficient progress or face a weighting reduction – and possibly a downgrade after consultation.

Rosan said progress had been made through direct talks with MSCI, pointing to efforts by Indonesian authorities to tighten market transparency rules.

Regulator the Financial Services Authority (OJK), the Indonesia Stock Exchange and securities depository KSEI all now require public disclosure of shareholders holding stakes above 1 per cent, alongside more detailed investor classifications, a system to flag highly concentrated ownership and plans to lift the minimum free-float threshold to 15 per cent.

In June, MSCI acknowledged that reform steps had been taken but withheld judgment, saying it would continue to assess the scope, consistency and effectiveness of the measures before its next index review in November.

In addition to the technical fixes, Indonesia is also tightening beneficial ownership rules – identifying who really owns a company – as well as improving public disclosure of corporate structures more broadly, according to Rosan, who doubles as CEO of Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund Danantara.

The push comes as Indonesia seeks to reassure sceptical investors that its markets are governed by clear, consistent rules at a time when President Prabowo Subianto has set a target of nearly doubling economic growth, from around 5 per cent to 8 per cent, by 2029.

Danantara, which controls more than 1,000 state-owned enterprises and upwards of a trillion US dollars in assets, is central to that ambition, but it has not been a straightforward sell.

Since its launch in February last year, Danantara has attracted criticism over transparency, the risks of concentrating so much of the country’s wealth under one fund and concerns that political interference could compromise its commercial mandate.

Rosan emphasised that Danantara’s role was not to replace regulators, "but to help anchor confidence as a long-term institutional investor that deploys capital prudently.”

He said the fund aimed to build investor confidence through disciplined investment processes, clear mandates and transparent reporting, among other measures.

In practice, that often means acting as an anchor investor – deploying capital to minimise risks for major projects and attract foreign co-investors, from renewable energy projects to bauxite and aluminium processing plants.

A recent "governance milestone” came on Thursday last week when Danantara Investment Management joined the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds as an associate member, Rosan said, allowing the fund to "benchmark” itself against global peers.

He said the move would also help Danantara align with the Santiago Principles, a set of voluntary governance standards that many of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds observe.

"For investors, these are the foundations of trust,” Rosan said. "Danantara is not only managing national assets; we are building an institution that meets international expectations for professionalism, transparency and accountability.”

This investor courtship can clearly be seen in Bali, where Danantara recently broke ground on the country’s first waste-to-energy facility – part of a broader programme that has, within months, attracted partners and investments from China, France, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, India and within Indonesia itself.

"The strong participation in WtE [waste-to-energy projects] shows that global investors see Indonesia as a serious destination for infrastructure, technology transfer, and green investment,” Rosan said.

In addition to helping address Indonesia’s mounting landfill crisis, the plants also promise to provide a steady supply of baseload power.

Meanwhile, the fund is also looking into a wide array of other projects.

"We are advancing more than 20 strategic downstream projects across minerals, energy, food, and agriculture, while strengthening our long-term social impact commitment,” Rosan said, adding that Danantara was focusing on sectors that would strengthen Indonesia’s competitiveness, support its industrial transformation and create jobs.

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