US Navy forces return to PNG base after 80 years as Chinese military plots to expand

The US Navy has made a strategic call for the first time in decades in a bid to counter the Chinese military’s ambitions to expand in the Pacific region.

With minimum fuss or fanfare, the US Navy has moved back to Papua New Guinea for the first time in 80 years to counter China’s military expansion ambitions in the region.

The USN has begun projects at the strategically placed Lombrum Naval Base on Los Negros Island alongside Manus Island in PNG, including a huge 700 square metre training centre, an equally huge boat facility and a jetty.

Lombrum is one of six military bases in PNG where US military personnel have been granted unimpeded access under a President Joe Biden defence co-operation agreement signed last year.

It is also the latest in a trend that in defence circles is being coined a new “base race” to establish strategic offshore hubs in the region.

The initiative to overhaul the WWII base by the US alongside the Australian Defence Force and PNG Defence Force was first revealed in 2018 but the US administration has only now allocated the up to $A38.5 million budget.

Aerial view of Lombrum Naval Base. Picture: US Navy

The projects follow visits to PNG last year by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.

“These projects will support the PNGDF, maritime security operations, US military personnel participating in joint exercises, and US Indo Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) ‘Theater Campaign Plan’ with various critical facilities located at Lombrum Naval Base,” the USN has announced.

Under its agreement with PNG, the Americans are not allowed to be based permanently on the island, a nearby airport and two other ports but “unimpeded” can transit, use for training and preposition hardware there for the next 15 years.

Redevelopment of the Lombrum Naval Base has progressed with local industry setting the foundations and works Picture: Peter Bowden / Defence

A medium tactical vehicle deployed with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 5 arrives at Lombrum Naval Base. Picture: US Navy

The ADF and PNG had since 2020 already been redeveloping the base, including sections swallowed up by the jungle over decades of non-use, with a power plant, medical centre and operational facilities for Guardian-class patrol boats provided by Australia.

In February 1944 the American navy base was commissioned and codenamed “Lion” as a major maritime operating and repair base that rivalled Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor at the height of hostilities with Japan during World War II. It acted as a launch pad, anchoring 200 ships and housing 37,000 troops, for the US to liberate the Philippines.

The Lombrum Naval base. Picture: Supplied

The USN abandoned the base after the war, gave it to Australia which then gave it to PNG in the 1970s.

The move by the US back to PNG is seen as a regional square-up after the loss of Cambodia. The US had funded an expansion of Ream Naval Base in Cambodia in 2019 before Phnom Penh signed a secret deal with Beijing who took over the base, demolished what the Americans had built and now have two warships semi-permanently based there.

Australian Army soldiers Warrant Officer Class Two James Tollan, PNGDF Regimental Sergeant Majors, and ADF 3rd Brigade Regimental Sergeant Major Warrant Officer Class One Robert Munro and Regimental Sergeant Major of the 3rd Combat Engineer Regiment Warrant Officer Class One Michael Smith visiting Lombrum. Picture: LCPL Riley Blennerhassett/Defence

The US has since moved military resources and development under the Pentagon’s Pacific Deterrence Initiative elsewhere in Asia including the Philippines, Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia, Koror in Palau and runway extensions, fuel dumps and other facilities in RAAF Darwin, RAAF Tindal and Cocos and Keeling Islands.

PNG had also been flirting with the idea of a security pact with China but have since reaffirmed Australia as its first security partner of choice, the bond enhanced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who walked the Kokoda Trail during last week’s Anzac commemorations with his PNG counterpart.

Originally published as US Navy forces return to PNG base after 80 years as Chinese military plots to expand