By René Tebel
Neighborly relations with Papua New Guinea have traditionally been friendly, but not untroubled. Two Chinese projects in Australia’s northern neighbor could further deepen the wedge between Port Morseby and Canberra and become a strategic problem for Australia.
Under the guise of the Silk Road Initiative, Fujian Zhonghong Fishery Company and Papua New Guinea entered into a memorandum of understanding in November 2020 to build a “comprehensive, multi-functional fishery industrial park” worth about $160 million on Daru Island. The island capital of the same name is the administrative headquarters of the western province in the island nation’s particularly poor, sparsely populated and underdeveloped southwest. The plan met with concern in Australia, especially since Daru is not necessarily known for its extreme abundance of fish. Instead, the island of just under 15 km2 on the Torres Strait is of strategic importance: it is located 200 kilometers off the Australian mainland and even only 50 kilometers away from the Australian island of Saibai, which is directly offshore from Papua New Guinea.
In February 2021, it also became known that another Chinese company, WYW Holding, had already submitted its bid for the construction of “New Daru City” to the government in Papua New Guinea in April 2020. In a $30 billion project, the Hong Kong firm offered to carve out an artificial city with a residential area, industrial zone, business and commercial zone, and a deep-sea port.
The Papua New Guinea government had never heard about the proposal, a spokesman for PNG Prime Minister James Marape told an Australian television station, but is not opposed to foreign investment in principle. Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison also immediately downplayed the significance of the project.
Be that as it may. Of course, alarm bells are ringing in Australia: The construction of a “comprehensive, multi- functional fishing industrial park” or deep-sea port is fueling fears that Chinese fishing fleets could one day use the port as a base and, in the worst-case scenario, Chinese paramilitary coast guard vessels could operate in Australian waters.
Mindful of China’s broaden power, Australia has already been working out plans with the Papua New Guinea government since 2018 to redevelop the Lombrum naval base on Manus Island, which can only be used for patrol boats, and use it as a joint base. However, the plans are met with concern in Papua New Guinea about being drawn into a conflict between the U.S., Australia, and the PRC.
However, Papua New Guinea is already in the midst of a geopolitical tug-of-war: Australia is also supporting the modernization of the nearby Momote military airport and the extension of its runway to allow larger fighter aircraft and maritime patrols to use the base. The work is being financed largely by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), whose largest contributors include the United States, Japan and Australia. But the construction work is being carried out by the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), a subsidiary of the state-owned CCCC. Thomas Shugart analyzes this curious situation in The Interpreter published by the Australian political thinktank The Lowy Institute: “For perspective, one could scarcely imagine that, during the Cold War era, NATO and its partner nations would have permitted the construction of critical transportation infrastructure by a Soviet state- owned company, and even less to have partially funded such a project with their own tax dollars. But such is the situation in which we now seem to find ourselves – one that is likely to be repeated.“
Author: René Tebel – Doctorate in maritime and cartographic history. He researched and taught at the University of Vienna and is the author of numerous scientific articles. His geopolitical analyses are published mainly in Austria, Switzerland and the Arab world. His research interests include current and future geopolitical hotspots as well as military developments.
The article reflects the author’s opinion, and not necessarily the views of World Geostrategic Insights.
Image Credit: Chinese Foreign Ministry (Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets with Papua New Guinea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Soroi Eoe in Guiyang, capital of southwest China’s Guizhou Province, June 3, 2021).