How little attention its gestures received raises questions about why so many countries very far from the Indo-Pacific - France, South Africa and Brazil, among others - are seeking honourary regional membership through alliance and association.

Even NATO, a body established to contain the Soviet Union, is under pressure from the United States to turn its full attention to the security challenge posed by China, despite no NATO member sharing a border with the ascendent power.

Near the epicentre of this global fascination, Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison made one of the most important diplomatic choices a national leader can make.

Mr Morrison chose New Zealand for his first 2021 international visit - another mostly white, mostly English-speaking former British colony - following extensive negotiations regarding a travel bubble spanning the Tasman Sea.

On Monday he met with his counterpart Jacinda Ardern in Queenstown and swapped tales of their mutual concern for the security and wellbeing of the region. After diplomatic small talk and perfunctory exchanges, the largest portion of the joint communique they ended up issuing was an almost magnanimous agenda for the health and security of neighbouring Pacific islands, rather than their own.

Both countries had already promised comprehensive vaccine coverage would be extended to their Pacific family, and Timor-Leste at the earliest opportunity. New to the agenda were initiatives to extend travel options for Pacific neighbours when safe to do so, including through the trans-Tasman quarantine-free travel zone.

"This reflects our close ties to the Pacific and our commitment to supporting their recovery," the prime ministers said.

In fact, those neighbours want nothing more than a strong international voice for their existential concern about climate change - but that has to come through the Pacific Islands Forum, the pair said.

The PIF remains a volatile association of nations, of which Australia is technically a member but not really one of the family. Any hopes Australia had that the forum would turn against China have not quite eventuated.

As one Australian academic, the University of Melbourne's Professor Michael Wesley, identified: "Most Pacific Island leaders refuse to buy into claims from Australia - as well as New Zealand and the US - that the PRC's growing role represents a threat to the region."

Instead, they are concerned about unreported and unregulated fishing, organised crime and cybercrime, and economic opportunities (including visas) in Australia that will result in trade, jobs and education. It should not take the spectre of Chinese hegemony for regional powers like Australia and New Zealand to pay attention to their near neighbours, leaders have noted.

On Wednesday, the opportunity for deeper regional engagement came during a virtual, Covid-safe summit for the Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment, at which Mr Morrison upped Australia's pledge of vaccines to developing countries around the world.

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The pledge itself was overshadowed internationally by the Japanese government's commitment - by an order of magnitude. However Australia was able to spruik its hyper-local Regional Vaccine Access and Health Security Initiative, reserved just for its Pacific and south-east Asian neighbours.

Mr Morrison has been busy with the ramping-up of the domestic vaccine rollout amid a concerning outbreak in Victoria, but that situation has masked choices of omission as well. This is most evident in how little has been said on a number of brewing issues with the potential to further anger China.

There's the fate of detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun, on trial for espionage, and the recent barring of Australian embassy officials from the latest hearing with Chinese officials. Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne upped Australia's language slightly, now saying Mr Yang faces "arbitrary detention", but the statement did not appear on the government's website.

The United States also launched a new intelligence-gathering exercise into the origins of COVID-19 in China, and called for Australia's co-operation - but Mr Morrison was reticent to draw too much attention.

"It's important that we understand [the origins of the virus] for public health. This has nothing to do with global politics," he told reporters in Queenstown.

The final litmus test was how the government chose to mark - or didn't - yesterday, June 4, as the anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. US Secretary of State Tony Blinken this week honoured the sacrifices of those killed 32 years ago, and the "brave activists who carry on their efforts today in the face of ongoing government repression".

Residents held memorials in Australia, but without government statements.

Other countries are making choices about their ties and loyalties in the Indo-Pacific, too.

Countries like Brazil and South Africa are set to increase their ties with India, through further initiatives under the umbrella of the improbable BRICS grouping - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Defence ministers of NATO, as far removed from the Indo-Pacific as possible, this week discussed the role of the organisation's 2030 initiative, giving it a more global view with a particular focus on China.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin argued in favour an integrated deterrence, to "reinforce a culture of readiness and make the Alliance more resilient and capable of confronting systemic challenges ... from the People's Republic of China".

NATO leaders will meet later this month, at which point it may not be either the ANZUS alliance or the Quad - Australia, India, Japan and the United States - that is the strongest and most influential military co-operation in the Indo-Pacific.

"Deputy sheriff" Australia won't even be a member of that club.