The leaders of Australia and Papua New Guinea yesterday signed a major bilateral defense treaty that China believes targets it unfairly.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Papua New Guinea counterpart, James Marape, described the agreement as a mutual defense treaty that would enable unprecedented integration of their defense forces and military personnel.
It is Australia’s only alliance-level security pact other than the ANZUS treaty signed with the US and New Zealand in 1951. It is the first such treaty for Papua New Guinea, Australia’s nearest neighbor and former colony.
Photo: AFP
The treaty would take effect after it is ratified by the parliaments of both countries.
Albanese said it was a great honor for Australia to have its nearest neighbor become its newest ally.
“This treaty contains a mutual defense obligation similar to Australia’s ANZUS treaty commitments, where we declare that in the event of an armed attack on either of our countries, we would both act to meet the common danger,” Albanese told reporters at a joint news conference with Marape at Australia’s Parliament House.
“Both our nations have also agreed not to undertake any activities or enter into any agreements that would compromise the implementation of this treaty,” he added.
After Marape and Albanese signed a joined statement supporting the treaty’s core principles last month, the Chinese embassy in Papua New Guinea issued a statement saying such a bilateral pact “should not be exclusive in nature, nor should it restrict or prevent a sovereign country from cooperating with a third party for any reason.”
“It should also refrain from targeting any third party or undermining its legitimate rights and interests,” the embassy posted on social media.
Marape yesterday said the treaty did not erode Papua New Guinea’s dominant foreign policy: friends to all, enemy to none.
“This is not a treaty that sets up enemies, but consolidates friendships and China — we’ve been transparent — we have told them that Australia … has become our security partner of choice and they understand,” Marape said.
Marape said the treaty consolidated Papua New Guinea’s security partnership with Australia “with no intent of creating enemies elsewhere.”
The US and Australia have both increased military ties over the past few years with Papua New Guinea, which is seen as a strategically important partner in countering China’s growing influence in the Pacific.
The security relationship is a balancing act for Papua New Guinea, which also seeks closer economic cooperation with China.
Australia has stepped up efforts to bolster relations with island nations in the region since 2022, when Beijing struck a security deal with Solomon Islands that has raised the prospect of a Chinese naval base being established in the South Pacific.
Outside Australia and New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga are the only South Pacific island nations with militaries. Australia is negotiating a bilateral defense pact with Fiji.
Three Pacific island nations have changed their diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing since 2019, as China’s influence in the region has grown. The US and its allies are particularly concerned by China’s growing sway in security through police training in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a political foundation based on the “1992 consensus” and opposition to Taiwanese independence, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today said during her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on that foundation to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, she said. Peace is a shared moral value across the Strait, and both sides should move beyond political confrontation to seek institutionalized solutions to prevent war, she said. Mutually beneficial cross-strait relations are what the
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
RSS