By Kirsty Needham
(Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a defence cooperation pact signed with Papua New Guinea on Monday would expand the Pacific island nation’s capabilities and make it easier for the U.S. military to train with its forces.
Blinken and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held separate summits with 14 Pacific island leaders in the PNG capital Port Moresby, pledging support for the region’s priorities of health, development and climate change.
The United States and its allies are seeking to deter Pacific island nations from forming security ties with China, a rising concern amid tension over Taiwan, and after Beijing signed a security pact with Solomon Islands.
Leaders of the Pacific islands, whose territories span 40 million square km (15 million square miles) of ocean, have said rising sea levels caused by climate change are their most pressing security priority.
Meeting PNG Prime Minister James Marape, Blinken said the United States would deepen its partnership across the board with PNG, and he expected partnerships with U.S. businesses would bring tens of billions of dollars’ worth of new investment.
After university students protested on campuses against the defence agreement on Monday, Marape said in an evening press conference “there is nothing for us to be fearful about”.
The accord updated an existing U.S. military relationship, he said, and “has nothing to do with China”.
“We have a healthy relationship with the Chinese government and they are an important trading partner,” Marape said with Blinken standing alongside.
Marape told media on Sunday the defence agreement would see an increase in the U.S. military presence over the next decade, while the U.S. State Department said it would bolster security in the region.
“The defence cooperation was drafted by the United States and Papua New Guinea as equals and sovereign partners,” Blinken said at a signing ceremony.
It will expand PNG defence capacity to enhance humanitarian assistance and disaster response, and make it easy for U.S. and PNG forces to train together, Blinken said.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a news briefing that China had no objection to mutually beneficial cooperation with Pacific island countries such as PNG, but added: “What we need to be vigilant about is engaging in geopolitical games in the name of cooperation, and we also believe that no cooperation should target any third parties.”
‘KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING’
The United States and PNG struck a separate agreement on increasing maritime surveillance of PNG’s exclusive economic zone through U.S. Coast Guard patrols, protecting its economy from illegal fishing.
Marape said the agreement would boost economic security by giving PNG’s defence force “the ability to know what is happening in its waters – something we have never had since 1975”.
The United States will provide $45 million in new funds as it works 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, Blinken said.
Modi told the 14 leaders of the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation that India would be a reliable development partner and was committed to a “free, open and inclusive Indo Pacific”.
“Without any doubt we are willing to share our capabilities and experiences in digital technology, space technology, health security, food security, climate change and environment protection,” he said.
The Quad leaders of Australia, United States, Japan and India had agreed in Hiroshima, Japan to increase cooperation with the Pacific, he said.
In his opening remarks, Marape urged India to think of small island states that “suffer as a result of big nations at play”.
Marape said Russia’s war with Ukraine, for instance, had caused inflation and high fuel and power prices in the region’s small economies.
The United States also signed a Compact of Free Association with Palau, one of three agreements worth a combined $7.1 billion that will renew pacts originally struck in the 1980s with Palau, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia that give the U.S. defence responsibility and access to huge strategic swathes of the Pacific.
The pact “will prevent an authoritarian regime from undermining a free and open Indo Pacific,” Palau President Surangel Whipps said in a signing ceremony.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham and Praveen Menon in Sydney; additional reporting by Lucy Craymer in Wellington, Liz Lee and Ethan Wang in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Gerry Doyle and Mark Heinrich)
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