Papua New Guinea is in early talks with China on a potential security and policing deal, Foreign Minister Justin Tkachenko says, weeks after deadly riots in the South Pacific nation’s capital.
Amid jostling between Washington and Beijing for influence in the Pacific, Papua New Guinea, the largest Pacific Island nation, has previously said Australia and the United States are its security partners, while China is an important economic partner.
China approached PNG in September with an offer to assist its police force with training, equipment and surveillance technology, Mr Tkachenko told the Reuters news agency on Monday. Talks continued last week.
“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,” Mr Tkachenko said.
PNG will assess if the Chinese offer duplicates security and policing assistance already being offered by Australia and the United States, he added.
“It is still in [the] early stages of negotiation with our commissioner of police and our minister of internal security,” he said.
“They have offered it to us, but we have not accepted it at this point in time.”
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a regular press briefing in Beijing that Papua New Guinea was “China’s good friend and good partner” in the Pacific Islands, and the two nations had cooperated in various fields, including policing, for a long time.
“China is willing to continue to work with Papua New Guinea to continue to promote cooperation in relevant fields, deepen and promote common development,” he added.
A Chinese naval training vessel came to PNG’s capital, Port Moresby, in September, with crewmates visiting a local school.
Work is also slated to commence on a Chinese-funded military hospital at Port Moresby’s Taurama Barracks.
PNG signed pacts with US, Australia
Talk of a security and policing deal between China and PNG comes after PNG inked major agreements with both the United States and Australia last year.
The defence cooperation agreement with the United States, signed during a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May, grants the US military access to PNG ports and airports, while a $200 million bilateral security agreement with Australia in December will help PNG build up its judiciary and correctional services, as well as set up a police training centre for Pacific Island countries.
The agreement also commits both nations to deeper information sharing and to holding joint consultations in the face of any security threats.
Days after the agreement with Australia was signed, Prime Minister James Marape told an investment conference in Sydney that he had not held talks with China on security when he visited Beijing in October.
PNG had chosen Australia and the United States as security partners, he said.
However, in the same week the agreement was signed, at least one senior ranking PNG police officer was in China for the second “ministerial dialogue on police cooperation”, a meeting which drew in ministers from three Pacific Island countries.
Mr Tkachenko on Monday said PNG would not do anything to jeopardise its defence and security relationships with Australia or the US, and was not a “fence-sitter”.
In a statement sent to the ABC, a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said Australia was working with PNG to meet its needs across the security sector.
“Pacific Islands Forum Leaders share the view that the security of the Pacific is the shared responsibility of the Forum family, of which Australia is part,” it added.
Security talks follow riots that left 22 dead
News of the talks between PNG and China comes after violent riots in Port Moresby this month left at least 22 people dead and major retail stores burnt and looted.
Following the riots, China’s embassy complained to the PNG government about the safety risk to Chinese citizens whose businesses were looted in the chaos.
Mr Marape’s government called in the PNG Defence Force to restore order, but didn’t seek Australia’s help.
A vote of no confidence in Mr Marape is widely expected to be held when PNG’s parliament resumes in mid-February.
Riots in neighbouring Solomon Islands in 2021 saw China strike security and policing pacts with Manasseh Sogavare’s government a year later, alarming Washington and Canberra.
Australia’s minister for international development and the Pacific, Pat Conroy, pledged $35 million in policing assistance to neighbouring East Timor on Monday during an official visit, amid concern in Canberra that Beijing is again aggressively targeting the police and security sectors in the Pacific.
Mr Conroy will on Tuesday visit Nauru, which switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to Beijing this month.
