ALLAN PATIENCE
| Pearls & Irritations

MELBOURNE - In October 2012, Australia’s prime minister Julia Gillard released a White Paper titled Australia in the Asian Century.

The paper offered a lightweight commentary about a coming Asian century and provided a few thought bubbles on how Australia might respond to such a development.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - For considerable time, I have been writing that we stand at a hinge point in history -  an event of unexpected magnitude and significance which is upsetting the status quo and triggering a reorder of affairs.

These moments tend to come along every generation or so. One of their constant features is that the people involved invariably fail to understand the true range of possible consequences of their actions.

JACK WATERFORD
| Extract from John Menadue’s Pearls & Irritations
| Link here to Jack Waterford’s full article

Good friends divided only by a president (Bing AI Creator)

CANBERRA - Suddenly everything appears to have gone wrong, and while we in Australia are facing an election.

Actually, it was predictable all along. Since coming to power on 20 January, Trump has been proclaiming a new policy in which America no longer presides over the Western alliance as a sort of super peacemaker. No more nice is right. It’s now might is right.

JIM McKAY*
| Pearls & Irritations

PNG rugby league star Justin ('The Human Brick') Olam carries the ball upfield (Melbourne Storm)

BRISBANE - In his acceptance speech after Labor won the 2022 Australian national election, Anthony Albanese promised to look after disadvantaged and vulnerable citizens.

During the cost of living crisis over the past two years he told people he felt their pain and had their backs.

KEITH JACKSON
| Generated with AI assistance from Claude*

Papua New Guinea and Australian Prime Minister’s XIIIs,  Santos National Football Stadium,  Port Moresby 2024 (NRL.com)

NOOSA - After two years of meticulous planning, a landmark moment in rugby league will unfold today when Papua New Guinea will officially receive a National Rugby League (NRL) licence, marking its ground-breaking entry into the Australian national competition.

The historic announcement will be made at a meeting between Peter V'landys, chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission, and the prime ministers of Papua New Guinea and Australia—James Marape and Anthony Albanese.

CHRIS BARRETT
| Brisbane Times ($) | Extract

Anthony Albanese & James Marape - billion kina footie deal 'nothing to do with China' (James Marape website)

BRISBANE - The launching of a National Rugby League team in Papua New Guinea has “nothing to do with China”, according to the Pacific nation’s foreign minister, Justin Tkatchenko.

Tkatchenko yesterday revealed new details about the NRL competition’s historic expansion to include PNG, Australia’s nearest neighbour.

PAUL KEATING *

SYDNEY - A Resolve Political Monitor poll published in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald makes clear that the Australian community at large possesses a contrary view to the foreign policy priorities of the Albanese government and its predecessor under Scott Morrison.

On the significant question of whether Australia should avoid taking sides in any conflict between the US and China, fifty-seven (57%) of those polled agreed that Australia should avoid taking sides in any such conflict with but sixteen per cent (16%) in favour.

PETER O’NEILL
| Academia Nomad

Extracts from a speech to the Australian Institute for Progress by former Papua
New Guinea prime minister Hon Peter O’Neill CMG MP on 16 September 2024

The Papua New Guinean flag is raised for the first time on 16 September 1975 (PNG Association of Australia)

BRISBANE – Forty-nine years ago, the Australian flag was lowered and the Papua New Guinea flag was raised in Port Moresby. Independence had been granted, not fought for.

Many argue that independence was given too quickly but, given that it was, my country’s leaders at the time did an incredible job of setting the young country on its independent feet with help from Australia.

PAUL OATES

‘When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished.
Not before. Listen to me till the end’ - Rudyard Kipling

CLEVELAND – Are you one of the history buffs who still remember reading about the days when Rudyard Kipling held sway.

When the world map on the schoolroom wall contained innumerable blotches of red or pink to designate the colonies of the British Empire (“this vast empire on which the sun never sets” – George Macartney, 1773).

ALEX MITCHELL
| Come the Revolution

Alex Mitchell

TWEED HEADS - Former Labor Party prime minister Paul Keating is Australia’s foremost public intellectual.

Love him or loathe him, when he speaks on the ABC, the national broadcaster, people stop eating or talking, and listen.

Keating commands such public attention: he doesn’t ask for it, we give it to him with the same respect we gave prime minister John Curtin when he declared war on Nazi Germany.

PAUL KEATING
| Pearls & Irritations

Below Keith Jackson's preamble; overleaf Paul Keating's analysis ....

PREAMBLE - In Anthony (Albo) Albanese, Australia has one of its most timid, dare I say frightened, prime ministers ever to hold the office. It has been clear since the beginning of his term two years ago that his main objective was to not cause any ripples while he secured a further term. Not the Albo I knew 30 or more years ago. A loud-mouthed agent provocateur against the conservative enemy. Provided, of course, he had the protection of more stout-hearted politicians like former prisoner of war Tom Uren (whose protégé he was from a young age) and prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating (neither of whom ever thought of him as anything other than a lightweight). Eventually, Albo discovered he’d been around long enough to be considered for greater rewards: leader of the house, then leader of the opposition and now prime minister. A lesson in surviving long enough to become whatever you wish. In this piece, Paul Keating shines light on how the meek Albo and his hapless deputy Marles has turned Australia’s back on Asia and thrown in our lot more comprehensively than ever with the USA and, hard to believe this, with the UK, once of the British Empire - KJ

CAROLYN BLACKLOCK*
| Pearls & Irritations | Republished from The Diplomat

Illustration from The China Times

PORT MORESBY - While Australia and China have very different approaches in Papua New Guinea, both are working primarily with political elites - and alienating the PNG public.

Two recent financial deals that seemingly benefit PNG indicate the problems at the heart of the country’s political and economic outlook.

PATRICK KAIKU

Papua New Guinean boatmen transport Allied supplies in World War II (US Library of Congress)

WAIGANI - After a visit to the Veteran’s War Memorial in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on 17 April, president Joe Biden gave a speech to a crowd of supporters.

Attempting to personalise his family’s life story within the larger narrative of his country’s wartime sacrifices, he made passing reference to Ambrose Finnegan, his uncle who served in the Pacific theatre of World War II.

MEDIA STATEMENT
| Thanks to Academia Nomad

Belden Namah chastises James Marape for being too weak on Biden cannibal comments (One Papua New Guinea)

 PORT MORESBY - The chairman of Papua New Guinea’s parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, Belden Namah MP, has condemned utterances by United States president Joe Biden describing a situation in World War II when his uncle was ‘shot down and eaten by cannibals in New Guinea’.

“There is no such country called New Guinea in the Pacific,” Namah said. “But if President Biden was referring to Papua New Guinea, his utterances were unfounded, unacceptable and utterly disrespectful.

CHRIS OVERLAND

Map based on Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, Atlas of Past Times, DK Atlas of World History and also a Roman Empire expansion map at the University of Texas (Wikipedia)

ADELAIDE - While trying hard to be an objective historian, I find it hard to disagree that we are at some sort of hinge point in human history.

These seem to come along from time to time, always driven by the cumulative impact of many past decisions.

PROFESSOR JAMES CHIN *

Prime Minister James Marape - looks good for now but feelings are he will be deposed before the year is out (Rhiannon Johannes, DFAT)

HOBART - The past several months has seen an escalation of violence in Papua New Guinea, Australia’s nearest neighbour.

Given the recent developments, prime minister James Marape’s hold on power looks tenuous, and we may soon see a change in leadership.

PETER LAYTON *
| East Asia Forum | Extracts

An AI-generated illustration of Australia's proposed nuclear powered submarines participating in naval exercises

BRISBANE - Grand strategies are whole-of-government, involving diplomatic, informational, military and economic power.

They are of most use to states with limited power that need to focus scarce resources on their most important concerns.

DENGHUA ZHANG & BERNARD YEGIORA
| The Conversation

CARLTON, VIC – In recent years China has been steadily increasing its footprint in the Pacific as it attempts to deepen its influence and challenge the traditionally strong relationships many countries have with the US and Australia.

But what do people in the Pacific think of China’s expanding interest and engagement in the region?

CHINESE NAVY IN PNG TO PLAY GAMES

PNG Facts reports on the four-day visit by the Chinese naval vessel ship Qi Jiguang to Papua New Guinea. The stay, which ends today, seems aimed at reinforcing relationships with the politicians and military of PNG. “The officers and soldiers of both countries will participate in visits, exchange programs and games,” said China’s ambassador to PNG, Zeng Fanhua.

CODY SHEEHY

For decades this ‘nuclear coffin’ containing radioactive debris has sat on an uninhabited island in Marshall Islands. The Japanese are said to have convinced a UN agency to dispose of nuclear wastewater directly into the ocean (Image - ABC News Australia)

MAJURO, MARSHALL ISLANDS – Here in Marshall Islands we are very concerned at the news about Japan's nuclear wastewater being disposed of in the Pacific Ocean

The Korean media is going viral alleging that Japan manipulated an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on the safety and security of nuclear wastewater which is soon to be released.

ANONYMOUS *

Microsoft Bing Image Creator

PORT MORESBY – As an officer of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Papua New Guinea government, I have to write anonymously to secure my safety.

I am writing to reveal interference by the United States in PNG’s internal affairs which is undermining the bilateral relationship between Australia and PNG.

MICHAEL TAM

Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii (1840-2017) was against the Reciprocity Treaty, believing it heralded an American takeover of her kingdom. She was correct

PARI - What kind of danger does a nation face when the United States wants to establish a military base on its sovereign territory? Let me first review the history of how the Hawaiian kingdom died.

Some 3,200 kilometers away from the US mainland, Hawaii’s central Pacific location has long been of strategic military importance.

CHRIS OVERLAND

“It’ll be fascinating to watch how PNG squares away the deal with China. (I guess the Yanks will offer a few tips)” – Keith Jackson

“Presumably PNG’s policy of ‘friend to all, enemy to none’ means the same rights will be extended to China. I think the US has now decided where it’s going to fight its war with China” - Philip Fitzpatrick

“If anyone says there is a crisis between China and the US, that is hushuobada [nonsense]. It's like a siheyuan [traditional Beijing family]. Sometimes you get into fights, you have disagreements, you have no alternative but to work it out, and I think you can” - Kevin Rudd, Australian Ambassador to the USA

“Sino-US cooperation will achieve things that are beneficial to both countries and the world, while confrontation will be disastrous” – Xi Jinping

“The thing we see across all the wargames is that there are major losses on all sides. And the impact of that on our [USA] society is quite devastating” - Becca Wasser, head of gaming lab at Center for a New American Security

ADELAIDE - We don’t know the details of the US-PNG Defence Cooperation Agreement, but it does not really matter.

The plain fact is that the war with the forces of totalitarianism has already commenced. The Russo-Ukraine War is a proxy war between the Western democratic powers and Russia.

CHRIS OVERLAND

Battlefield scene from the Battle of Bakhmut, 2023 (Bing image creator)

ADELAIDE – Much has changed since I last wrote about the Russo-Ukraine War.

The supposedly undefeatable hypersonic Russian missiles turn out to be very defeatable, much to the chagrin and consternation, not to mention shame, of Vladimir Putin and his Russian officials.

The Ukrainians have once again demonstrated the ability to harness Western technologies to achieve quite startling outcomes in the war Russia expected to win in a weekend.

DUNCAN GABI

Despite calls for more public consultation, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and PNG defence minister Win Bakri Daki ink the defence cooperation and shiprider agreements at APEC House in Port Moresby (Radio New Zealand | Samuel Rillstone)

WEWAK - The defence cooperation agreement between the United States and Papua New Guinea signed late last month, and its associated shiprider agreement offer potential benefits for our fisheries industry.

But in addition to helping PNG protect its sovereignty, it’s crucial to consider the agreements broader implications and to explore other avenues for economic growth and development.

Are they here to help, or to control?

MICHAEL TAM

PARI - There’s one word that best describes the United States-Papua New Guinea Defence Cooperation Agreement signed in Port Moresby on 22 May by our defence minister Win Bakri Daki and US secretary of state Anthony Blinken.

And that word is ‘shameful’.

It came into being at APEC Haus amidst the rare sight of nationwide protests urging prime minister James Marape not to sign the security pact.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Towards the end of this year, Australians will be asked to vote in a referendum to change the Australian Constitution.

They will be asked whether it should be changed to establish a permanent, independent advisory body, known as The Voice, to advise federal parliament and the government on matters relating to the Australia’s Indigenous population.

A plan is hatched (not in the public interest)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Despite its rich and extensive natural resource base, which should make the task of national development, Papua New Guinea has been steadily dragged down over the last 30 years by a toxic blend of volatile politics and entrenched corruption.

A complex political situation intensified by corruption, cronyism and fluctuating strategic alliances have significantly hindered economic progress and contributed to societal challenges.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

PORT MORESBY - When Kiribati left the Pacific Islands Forum after the Forum (including Australia and New Zealand) failed to honour a gentleman’s agreement to let its leadership rotate to a Micronesian nation, it was Fiji which brought Kiribati back into the fold.

After becoming prime minister late last year, he went to Kiribati and, along with his delegation, sat on the grass in the sun.

Dr Bal Kama (ANU College of Law)

BAL KAMA *
| Academia Nomad

CANBERRA – The Papua New Guinea and United States governments are said to be ready (possibly this week) to sign an unprecedented security agreement enabling US forces to operate in PNG.

A draft of the agreement was leaked last week and its substance has not been denied by either government.

ANDREW KORYBKO
| Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter

MONTREAL - India is the only Great Power whose growing ties in any region aren’t seen by the New Cold War’s Chinese and Western protagonists as a threat to their interests.

This makes these nations amenable to accepting India’s envisaged balancing role in the countries they’re competing over, like those in the Pacific.

The Eagle and the Bear (Microsoft Bing Image Creator)

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Along with many other people I have spent the last year or so trying to get my head around the sabre rattling that has been occurring between China and the USA, with various nervous acolytes, including Australia, standing off to the side.

Both behemoths have unsavoury human rights records and a propensity to strut their military might whenever it pleases them.

The Think Tank (Microsoft Bing Image Creator)

SIMON MASUGU

PORT MORESBY - It seems that his current troubles, serious though they are, are not bothersome enough to prevent Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko from attending Monday’s meeting of the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation in Port Moresby.

This will be the third summit of the grouping of India and 14 Pacific Island countries, and it is held as PNG prepares to sign a controversial Defence Cooperation Agreement with the USA.

Jacksons International AIrport Port Moresby (peace-on-earth.org)

JOHN MENADUE
| Pearls & Irritations

SYDNEY - And the anti-China media beat-ups continue, this time over possible Chinese naval bases in the South Pacific.

The anti-China campaign never stops: Hong Kong; Xinjiang; debt traps; the tennis player Peng Shuai, who was ‘disappeared’; Covid policies that were too strict and then too permissive; a property collapse; a shrinking economy now growing too fast; and renewed beat ups about Chinese military bases in the South Pacific.

USS Oakland is on duty in waters around PNG and the Pacific Islands as AUKUS steps up activities in the region

ANDERSON TALAO

PORT MORESBY - United States president Joe Biden and Papua New Guinea’s prime minister James Marape are slated to sign a defence cooperation agreement next Monday which will give nuclear submarines and other military assets freedom of entry to PNG and the Pacific Islands.

The signing of the US-PNG Defence Cooperation Agreement will drag PNG into a military alliance with the US and Australia and give the US and its allies the right to utilise Lombrum naval base in Manus Province.

UK foreign minister Cleverly and PNG foreign minister Tkatchenko after signing a security agreement - "a sheer weight of words that mean absolutely nothing"

JOHN KURI

PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinea has been publicly stating – through official and media sources – that the Chinese don’t have to worry about the long list of security arrangements we are developing with the USA and its allies.

Despite this, however, it is quite clear where PNG is aligned in terms of the growing geopolitical uproar in the Indo–Pacific region.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - I have spent many decades studying the wise, wonderful, astonishing, strange and all too often terrible and cruel behaviours of human beings as, collectively, we have created what we call history.

One thing is obvious. History does not follow a predictable and linear trajectory by which we collectively reach progressively higher levels of economic success and enlightened civilisation.

In fact, a feature of history is how good we are at engineering the collapse of elaborate, successful and productive civilisations.

Caricature portrait of Paul Keating c 1984 by John Spooner (National Library of Australia)

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Despite my increasing aversion to the 24 hour news cycle, and after the resultant negative pile-on by what passes for the media in Australia, I couldn’t help but be lured to view an interview with Paul Keating at the National Press Club on Wednesday.

Keating has an impressive intellect and an acerbic wit, which was fine-tuned even in his first days as a young Labor Party MP in the late 1960s and had become well-honed when he became Australia’s prime minister in 1991.

He also has always had his finger very firmly on the pulse of Australian and international politics.

New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens flying for Susi Air held hostage by West Papua National Liberation Army on 7 February (Jubi TV screenshot)

YAMIN KOGOYA

BRISBANE - The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), released a video last Wednesday of the Susi Air pilot they have taken hostage.

The plane had landed in Paro village, Nduga Regency in Papua’s highlands men kidnapped Captain Philip Mehrtens, a New Zealander.

Pacific Islands nations are determined not to  concede sovereignty in the arm wrestle for regional control between China and the US (Gzero, Paige Fusco)

GREG FRY & TERENCE WESLEY-SMITH
| DevPolicy Blog

CANBERRA - In ‘Sea of many flags’, Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University, argues why Pacific Island states should regard the deep regional involvement of a Western coalition (“quietly” led by Australia) as an effective and attractive “Pacific way to dilute China’s influence”.

Although presented as a new proposal, the increased regional engagement of this Western coalition is already well advanced, in the form of proposed new military bases and joint-use facilities, new security treaties, increased aid programs, new embassies, as well as a new regional institution, Partners in the Blue Pacific.

Ministers who participated in yesterday's 29th Australia-Papua New Guinea ministerial forum

IAN POOLE

FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND - The 29th Australia-Papua New Guinea ministerial forum in Canberra yesterday, co-chaired by Justin Tkatchenko and Senator Penny Wong, featured a stellar line-up of ministers from both countries.

The official communique, which you can read here, details the outcomes of the five key issues discussed at the forum it which 16 Papua New Guinean and 12 Australian ministers took part.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Australia’s sudden spurt of interest in Papua New Guinea has got nothing to do with concerns over corruption.

Rather, it is a reaction to the USA’s paranoia about China’s influence in the region and how that influence might impact on its desire for global economic and military superiority.

One of the world's top military officers, Admiral John C Aquilino, inspects a PNGDF guard of honour

JOHN KURI

PORT MORESBY - On Sunday 29 January, Admiral John C Aquilino, Commander of the United States’ Indo-Pacific Command, came to Papua New Guinea.

There was not much fanfare and the guard of honour of the PNG Defence Force left a lot to be desired.

But that’s not the point of this article. It's really about what it means for us that one of the most powerful men in the world’s military comes to PNG’s shores.

Anthony Albanese and James Marape at Moem Barracks,  Wewak (PM’s Office Media)

JIMBO GULLE
| PNG Business News

PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape says that, for the first time in the 47 years since independence, an Australian government and prime minister are addressing all outstanding issues between both countries.

Marape was commenting on the visit by Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese in mid-January.

WeChat and Alipay digital payment applications

BETTY GABRIEL WAKIA

PORT MORESBY - In November of 2022, a few months after arriving in China’s Hubei Province, it was with a feeling of excitement that I strolled down the busy streets of Wuhan.

I wanted to see how Wuhan had changed since I lived there in 2011.

Eleven years later, I was returning to the place where I had started my journey in higher education.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Across many parts of the world people are enjoying - or enduring - the Christmas season.

This Christian celebration has long been stripped of its religious meaning in most of the capitalist Western world.

At best, it is a time for people to get together and enjoy the company of their family and friends.

But mostly it is a time too often devoted to over indulgence and conspicuous consumption.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - We ought not to regard China as a direct military threat. It makes no strategic or practical sense to do so. After all, we willingly sell them the resources they need from us.

They have long ago worked out that, in our neo-liberal capitalist system, money speaks much more loudly than ethics, morality or patriotism.

I also agree that we should avoid being dragged into ugly regional wars, especially those premised upon the idea that democracy can be successfully exported.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Dennis Argall, Australia’s former ambassador to Beijing and Washington, has written recently on the breakdown of USA's power as the defining feature of our strategic environment. 

I agree with a great deal of what he has written, however, I think that has not demonstrated that China is not bent upon becoming the world’s most dominant and influential power.

He does not pay sufficient regard to the rhetoric coming from within the Chinese Communist Party about China’s destiny to resume its natural place as the world’s foremost power.

YAMIN KOGOYA

“We are part of them and they are part of us,” declared politician Augustine Rapa, founder and president of Papua New Guinea’s Liberal Democratic Party.

Rapa was speaking in Port Moresby on 1 December at the 61st anniversary of the struggle for independence in West Papua.

Rapa’s statement was in response to PNG police who arrived at the anniversary celebration and attempted to prevent Papuans from the other side of the colonial border from commemorating this significant national day.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - It was Lord Palmerston who first said, in a speech to the British House of Commons on 1 March 1848, that Britain had ‘no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.’

This axiom ought to be the guiding principle for Australian diplomacy and, in fact, I think it has been since 14 March 1942, when prime minister John Curtin stated that Australia turned to America for support and advice in confronting the Japanese peril in the Pacific.

Our relationship with the US has endured since that time and, as Phil Fitzpatrick has rightly pointed out, we have usually acted loyally if sometimes unwisely to support our ‘great and powerful friend’.