Deep Sea Mining is the New Front in Pacific Competition
If it moves ahead, we will see a powerful state discarding multilateral frameworks in favour of domestic authorisation.
Such a precedent would enable China, Russia and others to justify departures from seabed governance norms. The outcome would be a patchwork of self-authorised claims, eroding oversight and reduced protections for some smaller Pacific states advocating for a moratorium on seabed mining.
States such as Papua New Guinea, which is still reeling from the collapse of the Nautilus Minerals project, will face pressure to agree high-stakes partnerships with powerful mining interests. Meanwhile, some, such as the Cook Islands, denounce climate inaction at international forums as they embrace deep-sea mining—and its destructive environmental effects—at home. Two Australian states have banned offshore mining. But Australia didn’t join more than 30 countries calling for a moratorium on seabed mining and Canberra’s record on climate action remains a point of friction with the Pacific island countries.
These divergences don’t necessarily imply hypocrisy but reveal how national interest drives behaviour in domain-specific ways above and below the waterline, making any shared strategy difficult—but not impossible.
Canberra’s staying on the fence, neither shaping the rules of regional seabed governance nor preparing to operate within them, implies its cable security anxiety is dangerously selective. It views risk only through the lens of espionage or sabotage, not structural transformation. In today’s Pacific, the most destabilising force isn’t a lone Chinese vessel. It’s the steady erosion of rules, the spread of commercial extractivism and the rise of actors willing to shape seabed exploitation on their own terms.
UNCLOS requires states to exercise ‘due regard’ when operating in areas of overlapping activity, particularly between subsea cables and prospective seabed mining operations. But with no binding rules to govern how due regard is implemented or cable-mining specific dispute resolution mechanisms, the system defaults to avoidance and ambiguity.
Australia could take the initiative here by convening a regional dialogue to codify operational norms—early notification, transparent consultation and environmental risk mitigation—transforming due regard into a functional Pacific-specific code of conduct.
The seabed is now the frontline of the unfolding strategic competition in the Pacific. If Australia fails to act, it won’t just fail to shape the regional security order needed to secure its undersea security interests; it will be collateral to its collapse.
Cynthia Mehboob is a hybrid threats analyst at ASPI and a doctoral scholar in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University. This article is published courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).
