By Paul GREGOIRE
Reporter John Pilger’s 2017 documentary The Coming War With Chinaalerted that the United States had developed a “perfect noose” of 400-odd military basessurrounding China, while previous Australian PM Paul Keating recently assertedthat the AUKUS offermakes us part of this “containment policy”.
Indeed, the AUKUS, regional US force posture initiativesand increasing interoperabilitybetween United States and Australian forces have actually increased the property that this relationship has relegated our nation to the status of a vassal state: independent locally but ever-compliant with US diplomacy.
However, the increasing implementation of United States troops andarsenalto Australian coasts does not complete Washington’s program, as there is an island country to the north of this one, that being Papua New Guinea, which the White Home has an interest in integrating into its ring around Beijing’s neck.
This process involves AUKUS power Australia acting in a similar way to that of the US in regard to us, when it pertains to accessing and occasionally obtaining control over certain Australian military centers, as Canberra is taking a similar path at PNG’s Lombrum Naval Base in Manus province.
And while many Australians understand that Joe Biden is coming to our country next week as part of the China-focused Quad alliance leaders meeting, many are unaware that the US president will also be visiting our northern neighbour on his way, looking for to develop defence contracts.
Of tactical importance
In U.S.A., Australia Militarizing PNG, a paper launched last month, journalist and ex-PNG foreign affairs officer Dominic Navue Sengi explains the AUKUS pact as “a case of vassals”, specifically our country and the United Kingdom, “lining up together under US leadership”.
Sengi outlines that he ‘d forecasted in 2006 that PNG would be of increasing value to the western alliance, when it began targeting China in the South China Sea, as PNG sits squarely in “an island chain”, starting in Tokyo to Saipan and onto Guam: “the United States’ so-called ‘big spearhead’ looking into China”.
The PNG reporter is also clear about the reason the US-led AUKUS has China in its sights, which is not, as Australian authorities and media have actually asserted, due to Beijing positioning any military danger to Washington or Canberra, however rather it’s that it’s likely quickly to exceed United States hegemonic financial power.
That the “USA and Australia have placed militarily in PNG territorial jurisdiction” is obvious to many, composes Sengi, including that the main development that sees AUKUS powers threatening PNG’s sovereignty and independence is through their participation in the Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island.
Yet, what Sengi describes as the AUKUS powers making ventures into his nation’s jurisdiction includes a scenario whereby it’s Australia that’s asserting control over the PNG seaside military base, in a not different way to how the US has the ability to assert supreme command over certain facilities here.
Increasing interoperability with PNG
The Obama administration shifted United States military focus to the Indo Pacific area with its 2011 Pivot to Asia. And the list below year saw the Gillard federal government accept increasing United States military existence in the north of Australia, which was formally established under the 2014 Force Posture Contract.
This arrangement allows United States forces to access dozens of local bases and take control of them during any upgrades it chooses to do. And it further attends to the presence of 2,500 US marines in Australia, along with increasing interoperability between flying force, and with the AUKUS, it likewise encompasses navies.
In a similar manner, Australia now has access to PNG’s marine base upon Manus Island. This was established by means of the 2019 Memorandum of Understanding for the Joint Initiative at Lombrum Naval Base, which aims to redevelop it and increase interoperability between both nations’ defence forces.
“The joint initiative will improve PNG Defence Force ability to secure its borders and maritime resources through a broad program of mentoring, tailored training, infrastructure advancement and shared facilities at the PNG defence force base,” said then Australian defence minister Christopher Pyne.
Sengi suggests that deceptive MoU implementation arrangements permit aspects of the multimillion-dollar redevelopment to stay concealed even to PNG cabinet ministers, with the obvious question set off being whether Australia and the United States are preparing Lombrum to be an AUKUS submarine base.
A key function of AUKUS is that Australia at first permits the US and UK to establish a joint rotational nuclear-powered submarine force here by 2027, which is previous to our country then obtaining its own 8 nuclear-powered attack-class subs, with all of this being in aid of installing stress with China.
Of increasing value
Australian PM Anthony Albanese was over in PNG for a two-day see in mid-Januarywith the primary aim of releasing a Joint Statement of Dedication to Negotiate a Bilateral Security Treatywith his PNG equivalent James Marape: an arrangement that includes increasing interoperability on security.
And ahead of the 24 May Sydney Quad Leaders’ Top, US president Biden will be dropping in on PNGto sign a defence contract with that nation, which was settled a fortnight back, and he’ll likewise be consulting with 18 leaders of Pacific Island countries, with local security most likely to be the focus.
The 2nd product on Biden’s PNG agenda is the signing of a Ship Rider Contract, which will allow the US Coast Guard to patrol PNG waters, whilst also permitting the island country’s military personnel to sign up with onboard, with the objective of initiating them into the latest technologies.
“A US-China dispute could play out across the whole Pacific, consisting of Melanesia and the Polynesian islands, not just in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, which puts PNG and the Solomons strongly in the spotlight,” UNSW Professor David Kilcullen told Reuters recently.
However according to Sengi, the Lombrum base MoU, the Ship Rider Agreement and the pending bilateral security plans with both Australia and the United States, all indicate a scenario whereby his country has actually unwittingly been drawn into the noose of US bases tightening around China.
“The issues of command and control, of non-discriminate interoperability and training of marine officers, the parking of Australia’s hypersonic military transport assets and munitions are not especially transparent,” the PNG journalist alerts in his report.
And this lack of clearness, the former foreign affairs public servant keeps, postures problems for all levels of federal governments, as well as his country’s peoples, in terms of how this growing interdependency with the AUKUS powers will affect PNG’s “sovereignty and national interest and diplomacy”.