New Caledonia riots

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Fundamentally what New Caledonia needs most of all right now is economic support and an ambitious public investment policy to move past the extraction economy and redistribute resources. Of course I don't expect a neoliberal like Macron to do any of that, but I also don't think an independent New Caledonia/Kanaky to have the resources to do that either (unless they become a de facto Chinese protectorate, which carries its own serious downsides...).

Transitioning to what though, a tourist centric economy? Because that's their only other productive sector of the economy, and I don't think the Kanak leaders want to go down the path of whoring away their culture to attract top tourist dollars.
Instructively, Bougainville's independence leaders have been pushing very hard for reopening and expanding their gold mine, only with the royalties to stay on the island instead of funnelling into Port Moresby. There simply isn't another way for them to generate investment.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Fundamentally what New Caledonia needs most of all right now is economic support and an ambitious public investment policy to move past the extraction economy and redistribute resources. Of course I don't expect a neoliberal like Macron to do any of that, but I also don't think an independent New Caledonia/Kanaky to have the resources to do that either (unless they become a de facto Chinese protectorate, which carries its own serious downsides...).

Transitioning to what though, a tourist centric economy? Because that's their only other productive sector of the economy, and I don't think the Kanak leaders want to go down the path of whoring away their culture to attract top tourist dollars.
Instructively, Bougainville's independence leaders have been pushing very hard for reopening and expanding their gold mine, only with the royalties to stay on the island instead of funnelling into Port Moresby. There simply isn't another way for them to generate investment.

Well, what you're outlining a big part of why I don't think it's a good idea for New Caledonia to seek independence. I'm not saying they should stop exporting nickel altogether, and of course profits from such exports should go to the island (iirc they already mostly do following the Nouméa accords), but commodities exports are famously an unreliable revenue source, and one that creates a lot of perverse economic effects. You see that even in large, diverse countries like much of Latin America, and it'd be even worse on a small island in the middle of the Pacific. Being part of a large, economically diversified country can help mitigate those issues in a variety of ways. And as far as what the alternatives are, I'm not an economist but I don't see why tourism is the only sector that could be developed. I'm sure there are avenues of development in manufacturing or in locally-oriented services, given enough political will.

Yes absolutely, when it comes to resource wealth for every Botswana there's a Nauru.
The obstacle to development across all the pacific islands is the astronomical cost of shipping from the low demand and high distances, which continues to make export driven manufacturing beyond uneconomical (this even applies to manufacturing in Australia and NZ to a lesser extent), and exports are limited to resources that have enough demand and economies of scale to be economical.
One of the few opportunities for new foreign investment are digital nomads, and they haven't exactly been a good deal in places like Portugal.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Fundamentally what New Caledonia needs most of all right now is economic support and an ambitious public investment policy to move past the extraction economy and redistribute resources. Of course I don't expect a neoliberal like Macron to do any of that, but I also don't think an independent New Caledonia/Kanaky to have the resources to do that either (unless they become a de facto Chinese protectorate, which carries its own serious downsides...).

Transitioning to what though, a tourist centric economy? Because that's their only other productive sector of the economy, and I don't think the Kanak leaders want to go down the path of whoring away their culture to attract top tourist dollars.
Instructively, Bougainville's independence leaders have been pushing very hard for reopening and expanding their gold mine, only with the royalties to stay on the island instead of funnelling into Port Moresby. There simply isn't another way for them to generate investment.

Well, what you're outlining a big part of why I don't think it's a good idea for New Caledonia to seek independence. I'm not saying they should stop exporting nickel altogether, and of course profits from such exports should go to the island (iirc they already mostly do following the Nouméa accords), but commodities exports are famously an unreliable revenue source, and one that creates a lot of perverse economic effects. You see that even in large, diverse countries like much of Latin America, and it'd be even worse on a small island in the middle of the Pacific. Being part of a large, economically diversified country can help mitigate those issues in a variety of ways. And as far as what the alternatives are, I'm not an economist but I don't see why tourism is the only sector that could be developed. I'm sure there are avenues of development in manufacturing or in locally-oriented services, given enough political will.

Yes absolutely, when it comes to resource wealth for every Botswana there's a Nauru.
The obstacle to development across all the pacific islands is the astronomical cost of shipping from the low demand and high distances, which continues to make export driven manufacturing beyond uneconomical (this even applies to manufacturing in Australia and NZ to a lesser extent), and exports are limited to resources that have enough demand and economies of scale to be economical.
One of the few opportunities for new foreign investment are digital nomads, and they haven't exactly been a good deal in places like Portugal.

That makes sense, yeah. My point is that this all makes public investment all the more important. Like, to be blunt, if the free market can't provide New Caledonians with a decent standard of living, we need a state that's actually willing to foot the bill. And it's not just about social welfare, although that has to be a part of it, but the state can (and already does) create employment opportunities, and a robust public sector that can be funded out of the revenue pool of a large European country is probably a lifesaver for New Caledonia's economy. There is of course an issue with most state workers being of French origin, and I think hiring quotas for Kanaks is the sort of thing that has to be on the table here, but either way, I think this comes closer to a solution than anything else I've come across.

100% agreed, strong government intervention is the consistent thread of the most successful developing countries (Botswana, Bangladesh, Rwanda and Singapore all demonstrating different paths of intervention). Being dependent on the whims of the French president does rather impede this though. For starters, New Caledonia’s enormous public service clearly isn’t funded out of kindness of Bercy, and hiring Kanaks would defeat the pretty blatant purpose of the system. Hell Macron’s voting reforms have dropped any facade of the strategy at play.

I really don’t think Paris has any interest in governing cooperatively with the Kanaks, yet alone bringing them into economic prosperity. They don’t see any benefit to the French state from it. Either they want to steamroll and marginalise them once and for all and build their own little fiefdom in the South Pacific like Tahiti, or if that fails they can have their independence and bugger off and try and find their own way (while the Noumea middle class presumably decamps back to the Metropolitan and becomes the modern pied noirs).

Maybe Melenchon would radically change France’s exploitative foreign and colonial policies, but that ship seems to have sailed.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

... and what's standing in the way isn't some kind of nefarious plot from Paris to eradicate them. It's good old fashioned centralist boneheadedness and economic neoliberalism.

I certainly agree there! In general I just hold a more cynical and pessimistic view of France's aims than you, though I'm admittedly biased by past actions back under Mitterand and Chirac in the South Pacific.

Rwandas developmental model is to invade and loot your large, resources rich but unstable neighbor and export their resources while guilting western governments and NGOs to fund your social services. I suppose that counts as government intervention for development but I don't think it very applicable to a Pacific island with no suh neighbour to invade.

Absolutely, and it's certainly not applicable to New Caledonia. Just making the point that in all cases it was only possible due to the strong government, be it Botswana reinvesting its Diamond wealth, Bangladesh building their textiles sweatshops from the ruins of genocide, Singapore exploiting its position as a trade hub through the authoritarian benevolence of LKY, or Rwanda recovering from genocide by looting the Congo like a Belgian.