PNG is flirting with China on security talks. Australia is agitated. US is watching closely.
The controversial Papua New Guinea (PNG) Foreign Affairs Minister, Justin Tkatchenko, has dropped a bomb that is certain to give Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese a nightmare.
In an interview with Reuters, Tkatchenko revealed that PNG is in early talks with China on a potential security-and-policing deal. This comes right after the deadly riot that gripped the nation’s capital, Port Moresby, with damages costing over a billion kina.
Tkatchenko said, “We deal with China at this stage only at [the] economic and trade level.
They are one of our biggest trading partners, but they have offered to assist our policing and security on the internal security side.”It is still in [the] early stages of negotiation with our Commissioner of Police and our Minister of Internal Security.
They have offered it to us, but we have not accepted it at this point in time.”PNG will assess if the Chinese offer duplicates security and policing assistance already being offered by Australia and the United States.
This news will not go down well with one man: the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, under whom Australia recently signed a A$200 million ($132 million) security deal with PNG for policing.
But it’s not only Australia that will be sweating over this news. The United States, described by many geopolitical experts as ‘missing in action’ in the Pacific over the years, will also be agitated given their recent hot pursuit for the Pacific.
PNG struck a Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May 2023, giving the U.S. military access to PNG ports and airports.
US will be more likely be watching this development closely as PNG flirts with China on security talks.PNG Prime Minister James Marape assured Australia and the United States during the PNG Investment Conference in Sydney last year that he had not engaged in talks with China on security during his visit to Beijing in October.
However, the assurance by Prime Minister Marape does not hold true with PNG exploring security discussions with China.
While it’s too early to tell where security talks between PNG and China will go, it’s unlikely to result in a major pact that would shake the region, according to one expert as reported by Blayney Chronicle in Australia.
Photo Credit: Reuters
