Rugby agreement signed between Australia and PNG to limit China's influence

Papua New Guinea will join Australia's national rugby league, after signing an agreement requiring it to avoid security ties with China.

The Pacific nation has produced several Australian National Rugby League (NRL) stars and has long been pushing to join the franchise.

Australia will provide A$600m (£301m, $384m) over ten years to establish the team – which will be based in Port Moresby and compete from 2028 – and help develop the game at a grassroots level across the Pacific region.

In contrast, Papua New Guinea has signed a separate agreement that it says confirms its commitment to Australia as its key security partner.

The exact terms of the dual deals are confidential, but the BBC has learned they allow Australia to withdraw funding if Papua New Guinea enters into a security agreement with a country outside the so-called “Pacific family”. This term is widely accepted to exclude China, despite Beijing's efforts to gain a foothold in the region.

If Canberra withdraws, the NRL is obligated to drop the Papua New Guinea team.

Announcing the agreement in Sydney on Thursday, Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, James Marape, said it was a “tremendous” opportunity for his country, aimed at promoting “unity” – not only among Papua New Guinea's 830 linguistic groups, but also among the nation. All over the country. Large and its closest neighbors.

“For us, it's not just about sport and sports commerce, it's also about… uniting the most diverse nation on the face of the planet and also bringing Papua New Guinea and Australia together in the most important ways, from people to people,” he added. He told reporters.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared it a “great day” for both countries, and said Papua New Guinea – the only country in the world where rugby league is a national sport – “deserves” a place in the league.

“The new team will belong to the people of Papua New Guinea… and I know it will have millions of proud fans who have been preparing for it from day one,” Albanese said.

It's a big milestone for the NRL too. This is the first time that the competition, which is trying to attract international audiences, has expanded abroad. The only other foreign team, the New Zealand Warriors, has been part of the competition since its inception almost three decades ago.

NRL president Peter V'landys was in favor of PNG's bid, arguing that it represented a huge opportunity for the league, as well as for Papua New Guinea's economic development.

The name and uniform of the new team will be determined at a later date.

Stuart Murray, associate professor of international relations, told the BBC that although Australia's use of sport as a diplomatic strategy is nothing new, this agreement is unprecedented.

Dr Murray, from Bond University, said that over the past decade the country had been “thinking innovatively about how to combine sport and politics to confront classic security threats”.

He added that in this case, “the size, the scale, the scope, the funding, the fact that it's being ratified at such a high level by both prime ministers — this has never happened before.”

“Basically, through this one channel, we will open 20 or 30 other channels – for business, trade, policing, educational exchange, gender work, climate change… I think it's great.”

Both Australia and China have been vying for greater influence in the Pacific in recent years. After Beijing signed a major conditional agreement with the Solomon Islands in 2022, Australia has spent years trying to forge exclusive security agreements with countries across the region – including a conditional agreement with Tuvalu last year, and a treaty with Nauru unveiled earlier in the year. this week.

The agreement with Papua New Guinea – which declared independence from Australia in 1975 – has been hailed by some as another major strategic win for Australia.

“Over the past two years, as geopolitical interest and engagement in the Pacific region has increased, what many middle powers and other major powers have struggled to achieve is getting Papua New Guinea into an exclusive security partnerships deal,” Oliver Nobito said. , a Papua New Guinean government lawyer turned policy analyst at the Lowy Research Institute.

The two prime ministers sought to downplay the security aspect of the agreements, positioning them instead as a blessing for what Nobito says is a “weak” relationship between the two countries.

Marape noted that the agreement “does not prevent us from communicating with any country, especially our Asian neighbors.”

“We deal with China, for example, as a great trading partner and a great bilateral partner,” he said. “But in security, close to home…our common territory must be protected, defended and guarded…together.”

Government sources say the deals do not give Australia veto power over security agreements in Papua New Guinea. But its framing has the effect of eliminating almost every other potential partner – and Mr Nobito said the announcement could be seen by some in Papua New Guinea as “an exercise of Australian authority over Papua New Guinea's sovereignty”.

However, he and Dr Murray also point out that the dual deals speak to the emerging “transactional” dynamic in Pacific relations.

“People who talk about good faith and who say that sport and politics don't mix, that's a 20th century view,” Dr Murray said. “For us, it is not possible to give up one of our precious cultural assets for nothing. This does not happen in diplomacy.”

Both Dr Murray and Mr Nobito also agree that the deals represent an important moment in bilateral relations between the two countries – and a potential indicator of how Australia will continue to pursue its agenda across the region.

“China invests a lot of money in sports infrastructure… which is what China is good at… (but) China will not offer any alternatives in this area,” Nobito said.

“It's something other countries can't do,” Dr Murray added. “We need to use it, especially in a highly contested region like the Pacific.”