PHIL FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - In the ongoing debate about governance in Papua New Guinea and the internal and external forces influencing it, we tend to make certain assumptions as if they are foregone conclusions requiring no further examination.
One of these is that PNG is a very small fish in an extremely large pond and is irrelevant in terms of global geo-politics.
From this we then assert that it has no role in wider events such as globalisation and the rise of China.
I’m not sure this assumption is necessarily true, especially when one begins to examine the motives and methods used by the key players in these power struggles.
Late last year both the USA and Australia released strategy documents that attempted to define Chinese ambitions and suggest ways to deal with them.
These documents all concluded that China is a “revisionist power” that wants to displace the USA in the Indo-Pacific and, using predatory economics, “reorder the region in its favour”.
Neither the USA nor Australia wants this to happen but both are unsure how to prevent it.
China maintains that its intentions are wholly peaceful. Its chief strategy seems to be finding weaknesses in the affairs of places of interest to it and infiltrating itself into them. This sort of strategy is often called “soft power”.
The USA, in contrast, has often used its military might to get what it wants. If the Chinese strategy is called soft power the USA strategy could be characterised as “hard power”. These kinds of opposing forces don’t work well together.
Rather than sending in tanks and missiles China prefers to compromise the ruling elites in nations of interest so it can influence the political process and, among other things, entrap the nation in debt – exactly what it is currently doing in PNG.
And it doesn’t just involve PNG’s politicians and business elites, it includes the churches and other institutions like universities.
For instance, a Christian Chinese website in Australia proclaims: “The awe-inspiring righteousness of Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, and the rise of a great nation that is modern China are part of God’s plan, predestination and blessing.”
A perfect marriage between church and China blessed God.
When you narrow down Chinese interests to the Indo-Pacific area, PNG begins to take on some significance, especially as a stepping stone and proxy for China’s strategy in the region.
And, if you believe the claims made in a new book by Professor Clive Hamilton, ‘Silent Invasion – How China is Turning Australia into a Puppet State’, the Chinese strategy is well advanced in Australia too.
So if you think PNG is insignificant in the world order and the expansionist plans of the Chinese you must also ask yourself why is China making so much effort there?
You should also ask yourself why Australia is so supportive of this year’s APEC summit in Papua New Guinea.
Even if Donald Trump doesn’t get it, Australia has obviously concluded that its defence against China has to be economic rather than military.
That’s why Malcolm Turnbull is currently in Washington trying to convince the USA to re-join the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Australia knows you have to fight fire with fire. By appealing to Peter O’Neill’s ego it has persuaded him to hold the APEC summit in Port Moresby. It is making APEC part of its strategy to save itself from Chinese expansionism.
In other words, just as China is using PNG as a pawn in its plans to expand into the Pacific, Australia is doing exactly the same thing to combat it.
When APEC meets in Port Moresby later this year, PNG will unwittingly become the centre of the storm that is the re-ordering of world geo-politics.
To me that doesn’t sound insignificant.