Joe Biden’s cancellation of his Australian trip and the scrapping of next week’s Quad meeting in Sydney will be deeply disappointing for Anthony Albanese.
The optics of a presidential visit, and of hosting the US, Indian and Japanese leaders together at the Opera House, would have capped-off a remarkable year of diplomacy for Albanese, who has proven to be a surprisingly capable international statesman.
The only person likely to be more disappointed than Albanese is Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape, who was preparing to host Biden in Port Moresby the day before the President was due to arrive in Sydney.
Xi Jinping visited PNG nearly five years ago, but a US president has never visited the country, or indeed any independent South Pacific state.
As former intelligence chief Richard Maude told this masthead, “turning up is half the battle” when it comes to Indo-Pacific diplomacy.
Biden’s failure to turn up in PNG hands an easy win to Beijing.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will still make the trip to Sydney for a bilateral visit, but Japan’s Fumio Kishida will cancel as well.
Biden’s decision to skip the Australian and PNG legs of his Asia trip is understandable.
Failing to negotiate a rise to the US debt ceiling would fuel Chinese arguments of America’s decline, undermine the US dollar as the currency of international trade, and spark a financial crisis that could spread across the globe.
It’s curious the Prime Minister's office was able to confirm Biden’s visit to journalists on Tuesday afternoon when there were clearly still question marks over the President’s program.
The Quad meeting will now take place in Japan on the sidelines of the weekend’s G7 summit, which Albanese will attend as Kishida’s guest.
Albanese also looks to have scored a consolation prize, revealing his trip to Washington later this year will be for a full state visit.
But holding the Quad meeting in Sydney would have thrown the spotlight on the South Pacific, where China is locked in a battle for influence with the US and Australia.
Preparations for the President’s trip to Port Moresby were also well underway, and a wide-ranging defence security agreement had been negotiated for signing during the visit.
A draft of the agreement somehow leaked, revealing US forces would gain unimpeded access to PNG’s waters and airspace.
Some suspect Chinese interests of circulating the leaked text to undermine prospects of the agreement going ahead.
Biden was also due to meet the leaders of a raft of Pacific Island nations who were travelling to PNG for the occasion.
They will need sustained US attention going forward or China will seize the advantage.
More Coverage
Join the conversation
Time to get rid of Indigenous reconciliation police
The separatist spirit of the voice to parliament lives on in thousands of the nation’s corporate action plans.
Read more
Price blasts PM on failures, one year on from voice vote
Indigenous senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price says the Albanese government has no interest in listening to marginalised Indigenous people and continues to fail on Aboriginal policy.
Read more