On Monday, the US and Papua New Guinea signed a new military pact and a surveillance agreement while Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the Pacific Island nation as part of the Biden administration’s strategy against China.
A State Department spokesperson said the Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) will “replace an outdated Status of Forces Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding regarding defense cooperation.”
Details of the DCA have not been released, but Papua New Guinea officials have said it will give the US military access to ports and airports, which could lead to the US building bases. PNG Prime Minister James Marape said Sunday that his country should expect to see a steady increase in the presence of US troops and contractors over the next 15 years.
“How many soldiers we are looking at, how many contractors we are looking at, I do not have that scope today but there will certainly be an increased presence and a more direct presence of US in our country,” he said.
The separate surveillance agreement will allow the US Coast Guard to patrol the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of Papua New Guinea, which extends 200 nautical miles from the nation’s coast. Blinken said at a joint press conference with Marape that the purpose of the surveillance agreement is to “help combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.”
The deals with Papua New Guinea are seen as the US response to China signing a security pact with the nearby Solomon Islands. US military leaders have also made clear that the plans are part of preparations for a future war with China.
Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of the US Pacific Air Forces, recently told Nikkei Asia that the idea of expanding in the Pacific is to create more areas China would need to target. “Obviously we would like to disperse in as many places as we can to make the targeting problem for the Chinese as difficult as possible,” he said. “A lot of those runways where we would operate from are in the Pacific Island nations.”
It’s good to see Biden is adding some real depth to the warmongers’ team.
Old colonial properties finally have some use. No?
Papua New Guinea deal is a model you don’t want to follow if you want to stay out of trouble.
You don’t need a warship or an entire fleet of them to keep an eye on illegal fishing – we have Greenpeace and Seashepherd for that – however I know that the Japanese have continued their illegal whaling in the arctic waters and have rammed the ships operated by SeaSshepherd.
The double standard is as per usual blindingly obvious – the Japanese can do no wrong when they ram and sink the ships operated by the brave crewmembers of the Seashepherd who risk their lives trying to prevent about illegal fishing such as whaling.
If China did not have expansionist designs on waters that New Guinea claims themselves, I seriously doubt they would invite us in with this pact.
“Washington will provide $45 million in new funds as it worked with PNG to strengthen economic and security cooperation, including protective equipment for the PNG defence force, climate change mitigation and tackling transnational crime and HIV/AIDS, the US State Department said.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/22/papua-new-guinea-us-to-sign-security-pact-with-eye-on-china
Let us not forget the bribe. But, hey, it’s only $45 million and just a fraction of our overall budget. Am I right?
Worlds biggest polluter to keep an eye on illegal fishing makes as much sense as providing 45M of funds – there’s always a catch.
Oh good – can we count on those Papua New Guineans to help us defend our southern border now?
All about spying and stirring the shit up to provoke China .