{"id":10449,"date":"2024-01-25T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/?p=10449"},"modified":"2024-05-07T14:01:19","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T04:01:19","slug":"regional-outlook-enhancing-the-future-of-australia-papua-new-guinea-us-relations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/regional-outlook-enhancing-the-future-of-australia-papua-new-guinea-us-relations\/","title":{"rendered":"Regional Outlook | Enhancing the future of Australia-Papua New Guinea-US relations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SEAN JACOBS<\/a>\u00a0 | 30-MINUTE READ |<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Introduction<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Papua New Guinea (PNG), United States Vice President Mike Pence more than \u2018bumped up\u2019 PNG\u2019s geostrategic profile, announcing a trilateral security commitment with Australia to revamp PNG\u2019s fledgling Lombrum Naval Base at Manus Province.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PNG is regionally important, not just due to Beijing\u2019s growing interest in the Pacific nation but, with a fast-growing population of 11.8 million,[2]<\/a> PNG is larger than New Zealand, and considered a leader among its Melanesian neighbours: Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pence\u2019s agreement, in addition to the Biden-Harris Administration\u2019s release of the United States\u2019 \u201cfirst ever\u201d[3]<\/a> Pacific Partnership Strategy, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese\u2019s intensification of PNG ties, is creating an observable change of tempo in the relationship between the three nations. The landmark US-PNG Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA), inked in May 2023 by PNG Prime Minister James Marape and Secretary of State Blinken, adds to this mix.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of this optimism, however, will depend on the delivery and tangible outcomes of these strategic commitments. This is particularly important amid recent escalated tensions in the Middle East and the political focus the US will be paying to the Middle East in the immediate to medium-term. Washington DC will need some guidance in its Pacific focus, simply because the region has largely stayed off the US political radar since at least World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having worked at the strategic level of Australian national security policy, as well as \u2018on the ground\u2019 in PNG and with all levels of its government, I put forward a number of practical observations in this paper on the sequence of US and Australian commitments. This is based on being \u2018delivery focused\u2019, while also appreciating PNG\u2019s current and future political climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the US, PNG and Australia have a sound basis to grow a more formal trilateral relationship. Yet it will be a relationship that requires governmental upkeep and political vigilance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A long but thin history: The Eagle and the Kumul<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, while working with the Governor of Port Moresby \u2013 PNG’s capital \u2013 I can recount the buzz of then-US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton\u2019s official visit to PNG. With the streets lined and the fanfare palpable, I recall thinking at the time that many Papua New Guineans had not witnessed a visit from any comparable senior US Government figure since, at least, General Douglas MacArthur in World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacArthur was stationed in PNG in the early 1940s to halt the Japanese advance. Indeed, much of the United States\u2019 historical and contemporary appreciation of PNG and the wider Pacific is built around the immense US sacrifices in the Pacific theatre \u2013 the Battle of the Coral Sea, Guadalcanal, Midway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, US policymakers have also tended to frame the Pacific Islands as the three US Pacific Territories \u2013 the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa \u2013 and the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) states of Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Marshall Islands, and Palau. While not absent from US focus, the 15 other Pacific Island states, which include PNG, clearly do not share the same political-legal links to the mainland US and, for obvious reasons, simply do not command comparable political, fiscal or diplomatic attention from Washington DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new partnership?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Yet this is changing. President Biden\u2019s September 2022 announcement of \u201cthe first ever\u201d[5]<\/a> Pacific Partnership Strategy was built on US Vice President Harris\u2019 July 2021 acknowledgement, in front of Pacific leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), that the US had not \u201cgiven the Pacific the support it deserved.\u201d[6]<\/a> It was a frank and unprecedented admission, catalysing Blinken\u2019s two visits to the region \u2013 in as many years \u2013 and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin\u2019s July 2023 trip to PNG \u2013 another first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Built on four core objectives \u2013 partnership, connection, resilience, empowerment \u2013 the United States\u2019 broader regional Strategy is certainly breaking new ground. It is framed upon a range of escalated regional commitments, which notably includes a reestablishment of a regional USAID mission based in Fiji, the reopening of US embassies in the Solomon Islands, Tonga and Kiribati, and the (re)deployment of Peace Corps volunteers \u2013 important in terms of re-establishing small but powerful people-to-people links.[7]<\/a> PNG-specific opportunities from the Strategy include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n