Since the Second World War important changes have taken place in the region of the South Pacific. One former territory, Western Samoa, has attained independent nationhood and in several others political development and future status have become subjects of lively interest among the indigenous peoples as well as populations of external origin. More and more the international technical organisations are interesting themselves in the current problems and future prospects of the Pacific Islands. There has been a rapid and extensive development of air communications, both inter-continental through the region and inter-island within it. With these have come more business and tourism and the former characteristic isolation of South Pacific territories has been greatly modified. Sea communications and telecommunications have also developed. Literacy has spread. The cinema has brought to almost all island peoples notions of metropolitan ways of life and of the character, manners and interests of the larger populations of the world and these in turn have suggested comparisons, favourable and otherwise, with their own ways of living. Television has made its appearance in three territories.

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, almost all Pacific Islands and their people were firmly under colonial rule and therefore in no position to dictate the terms of regional organization. This was left to the founders of the first substantive regional organization, the South Pacific Commission, established in 1947 by Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, France and the Netherlands. The founders did, however, anticipate the involvement of Island people through the South Pacific Conference. This chapter focuses largely on the period of ‘colonial regionalism’ while also considering the wider context of post-war decolonization and the Cold War. Another important development in terms of defining the regional border with Southeast Asia came with the annexation of Netherlands New Guinea by Indonesia. Now known officially as the provinces of Papua and West Papua, they remain part of Indonesia, although self-determination issues are by no means settled.