US, India step up in PNG, Pacific

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) talks with Joe Biden (C) as India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar looks on. Picture: AFP.

China would be unwise to ignore the significance of US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi deciding to stop in Papua New Guinea while en route to Sydney for the May 24 Quad summit to be hosted by Anthony Albanese. Mr Biden leads the world’s most powerful nation and no incumbent US president has previously been to Port Moresby, or the South Pacific islands. Mr Modi leads the world’s most populous nation, of more than 1.4 billion people, that is nuclear armed with vast military resources.

Having decided independently of each other to stop in PNG after the G7 summit in Hiroshima, both men will arrive in Port Moresby on May 21 and 22 for talks with PNG officials and about 18 leaders from island nations across the South Pacific.

US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Anthony Albanese arrive for their meeting during the Quad Leaders Summit at Kantei in Tokyo. Picture: AFP.

The gathering will send a signal to China about the determination of leading democracies to ensure the South Pacific does not fall prey to Beijing’s strategic designs. The meetings and the Quad summit serve notice that the days when Beijing believed it would have things its own way across the region are over.

President Xi Jinping’s visit to Port Moresby in 2018 for the APEC summit showed the extent of inroads China’s peddling its dodgy Belt & Road Initiative had made in PNG. The decision of Pacific Island Forum nations last May to reject proposals by Chinese State Counsellor Wang Yi for a South Pacific security and trade pact showed healthy scepticism.

Then PNG Prime Minister Peter O'Neill (R) meets with China's President Xi Jinping During the APEC forum in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Picture: AAP.

That underlines the importance of the world’s democracies embarking on initiatives to ensure the region’s stability and prosperity, which is implicit in Mr Biden and Mr Modi stopping over in Port Moresby.

Working with Australia, the US has embarked on initiatives aimed at outflanking China. In September, Mr Biden invited Pacific leaders to a White House summit. The US moved to open a new embassy in Solomon Islands and there are also new US diplomatic missions in Vanuatu, Kiribati and Tonga.

Chinese State Counsellor Wang Yi suggested a South Pacific security and trade pact. Picture: AFP.

Washington has appointed a new envoy to the PIF, expanded the presence of the US Peace Corps in the region and established a regional mission for the US Agency for International Development. This reflects the priorities of Australia’s heightened assistance to the island states.

PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko may have emphasised his government’s determination to maintain close economic ties with China but that has not prevented work going ahead on a US-PNG Defence Co-operation Agreement that will allow for closer security co-operation. PNG signed a similar pact with Britain last week, and France last year; PNG and Australia are working on a bilateral security treaty and have committed to finalise negotiations by June. If the South Pacific was ever a diplomatic backwater, PNG stopovers by Mr Biden and Mr Modi make it plain that’s no longer the case.