Albanese insists Australia remains PNG’s closest friend amid talk of China pact

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has insisted that Australia remains Papua New Guinea’s closest friend despite the Pacific nation’s foreign minister floating the prospect of signing a security and policing pact with China.

Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister Justin Tkachenko described Australia as his nation’s “closest neighbour and traditional security partner” a day after he revealed that China approached PNG in September about signing a security and policing deal.

The prospect has caused a stir among policymakers in Canberra and alarmed former PNG prime minister Peter O’Neill, who said he was “deeply concerned” by Tkachenko’s comments.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and PNG Prime Minister James Marape in December. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“Before and since independence, PNG has rightfully stuck to Australia when it comes to providing security for our country and the Pacific region,” O’Neill, who served as prime minister from 2012 to 2019, said in a statement.

“Australia shares the Pacific’s geographic place in the world, and we value each other’s democratic and human rights principles.”

The Morrison government was caught off guard in 2022 when the Solomon Islands struck a wide-ranging security agreement with Beijing, and the Albanese government has been vigorously courting Pacific nations to ensure Australia remains their first choice for security assistance.

While acknowledging that PNG’s leaders make their own decisions, Albanese said it is a “government that has no closer friend than Australia”.

“We are the security partner of choice for Papua New Guinea, as we are for most of the countries in the Pacific,” Albanese said, noting that the two nations signed a security agreement in December.

“We’re family, and we’ll continue to engage.”

PNG’s capital, Port Moresby, was hit by rioting and looting earlier this month sparked by protests over problems with payments for public sector workers.

PNG Prime Minister James Marape will visit Canberra next week and become the nation’s first leader to address the federal parliament.

Tkachenko told Reuters on Monday that Port Moresby and Beijing were in early negotiations over a policing deal following the recent riots.

“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,” he said.

“They have offered it to us, but we have not accepted it at this point in time.”

In a statement on Tuesday he did not reject the possibility of an agreement with China, while noting that PNG would maintain its bilateral security agreement with Australia “now and into the future”.

Albanese and Marape signed a sweeping security agreement in December, including $200 million in funding to boost PNG’s policing and national security services.

Noting that Labor blasted the Morrison government for failing to prevent the China-Solomon Islands pact, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said it was “logical and essential” that Australia remained PNG’s top security partner.

“It is up to Penny Wong to live up to the standards she applied to others pre-election, such as her claims that the Solomon Islands security pact could have been stopped,” he said.

“Or is this another case of Labor saying one thing pre-election but doing another post-election?”

Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior fellow Malcolm Davis said the government needed to remain vigilant about the possibility of China striking a Solomons-style pact with PNG given the nation’s proximity to Australia.

“Obviously, the Chinese will continue to make efforts to eat away at our influence,” he said.

“We need to be very aware of what China is trying to achieve in PNG and prevent a repeat of what we have seen in the Solomons.”

Tkachenko’s comments come at a volatile time in the Pacific, with Australia’s landmark migration and security pact with Tuvalu in limbo after elections there, and Nauru’s decision to ditch Taiwan in favour of diplomatic recognition of China.

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