Tonga—a Kingdom on the Volcano
The Kingdom of Tonga is an island country of Oceania, located in the western South Pacific. It consists of 173 islands (mostly coral islands), 36 of which are inhabited, with a land area of 747 square kilometers. Tongan(lea fakatonga) and English are the two common languages in Tonga. Its capital is Nuku’alofa, located on Tongatapu, Tonga’s largest island. About 3,000 years ago, the seafaring Austronesians(It is generally considered to be a civilization that spread from Southeast Asia or near Taiwan) sailed east from what is now Papua New Guinea in the western Pacific. These adventurous navigators were the ancestors of the Polynesians. The inhabitants of the Kingdom of Tonga are a branch of the Polynesians. Around 950 AD, the Polynesians established a powerful nation in Tonga, the Tuʻi Tonga Empire. In 1773, British navigator James Cook visited the Tonga Islands. At that time, a grand local festival was being held on the island, and Cook and his party were also warmly entertained. Therefore, the Tonga Islands were named “Friendship Islands”, and since then Tonga have gradually become known to other countries in the world. Tonga became a constitutional monarchy in 1875, became a British protectorate in 1900, became independent on June 4, 1970, and became a member of the Commonwealth and the 188th member of the United Nations.
The last time Tonga caught the world’s attention was in early 2022. At that time, a violent volcanic eruption occurred on the island of Hunga Haapai in Tonga, and the huge energy triggered a tsunami that washed away buildings in Tonga and made more than 80,000 victims (the population of Tonga is only around 100,000). It is estimated that the energy released by the volcanic eruption is more than 1,000 “Little Boy” atomic bombs. Even Chile, the United States and Japan, thousands of miles away, were affected by the tsunami caused by the volcanic eruption. The volcanic eruption damaged the submarine cable, causing Tonga to lose its communication ability and lose contact with the outside world in an instant.
The whole of Tonga is located at the junction of the Pacific plate and the Indian Ocean plate. Geographically, the junction of two plates is often a high-incidence area with active geological disasters such as volcanoes and earthquakes. In addition, the 1375-kilometer Tonga Trench lies in the southeast of Tonga, and around it, the world’s second-deepest ocean trench, are submarine volcanoes. Therefore, the eruption of the volcano in Tonga was not an accidental event. Obviously, such inevitable and frequent natural disasters have seriously affected the economic operation of Tonga. Ekaterine T. Vashakmadze, senior economist at the World Bank Forecasting Group, when referring to Tonga’s volcanic disaster, she argued that it had “disproportionately hit the island nation’s economy” , and Ayhan Kose, director and chief economist of the Bank’s Forecasting Bureau, also said: “Climate-related disasters cannot be underestimated as we have seen many times, especially in emerging developing countries, that this is one of the anticipated protracted crises causing low growth.”
Tonga has a small area, rich fishery resources, and basically no mineral resources on land, whose economic development is backward and industry is underdeveloped. Besides, it has low levels of productivity and heavy reliance on foreign aid. Tourism is one of the economic industries vigorously developed by the Tongan government, and it is regarded as a new economic growth point to increase people’s income and help with employment. However, due to the limited level of development, tourism has not been fully developed at present. The threat of volcanic eruptions often hits Tonga’s two pillar industries, fishing and tourism. Originally, these two industries could bring Tonga a portion of national income every year and make themselves continue to develop, however, since the country’s resilience against financial crises was too small, the financial crises in 2008 caused Tonga’s fiscal deficit for consecutive years, with a huge trade deficit appeared, it’s quite hard for Tonga government to have a good income. To better this situation, Tonga obviously needs more assistance from the international community. However, it was reported that the Tongan government spent most of the international aid funds on improving national welfare rather than developing its own economy, which has resulted in its poor domestic economic development for a long time. Thus, the assistance that Tonga needs will not only be material, but more in technology and education.
By Tao Cheng
