Last week, Papua New Guinea approved a new treaty with Australia, the Pukpuk Treaty, under which the two countries commit to defending each other in the event of an attack. Meanwhile, Australia is still seeking to finalize the Nakamal Agreement with Vanuatu, a deal worth AU$500 million intended to strengthen the two countries’ economic and security ties.
These agreements are widely seen as efforts to advance Australia’s strategic interests and block China’s influence in the region, and debate can be expected to continue about whether the arrangements benefit Pacific Island countries or undermine their sovereignty.
Pukpuk Treaty Signed, But Not Ratified
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was supposed to sign the Pukpuk Treaty — “pukpuk” means “crocodile” in Tok Pisin — last month during his visit to Port Moresby for the 50th anniversary of PNG’s independence. However, the PNG government failed to reach a quorum, causing PNG Prime Minister James Marape and Albanese to sign a communique instead.
Marape said that the delay had to do with the normal process of government: “We’re not running a military dictatorship here, we’re a democracy.” There was “no sticking point” on the text, he said. Nevertheless, it is clear that the treaty raised questions about sovereignty.
The treaty represents PNG’s first military alliance and Australia’s first since ANZUS in 1951. It will allow each country’s citizens to serve in the other country’s military; as many as 10,000 Papua New Guineans may serve in the Australian Defense Force.
It also includes provisions to expand defense cooperation and interoperability and ensure that “any activities, agreements or arrangements with third parties would not compromise the ability of either of the Parties to implement the Treaty.”
Both Marape and Albanese said that the treaty would be concluded within weeks, which proved to be true. But in the interval, the delay prompted speculation in Australian media that China was attempting to sabotage the signing of the agreement.
After Albanese’s departure, the Chinese Embassy released a statement advising Papua New Guinea to “properly handle issues bearing on its sovereignty and long-term interests,” and not to sign any agreement that would restrict the cooperation of third parties.
Marape called China an “enduring friend” to PNG and added, “But China also knows clearly that in, as far as security, we have security partners of choice.”
The delay only lasted about two weeks, and Papua New Guinea’s Cabinet agreed to the treaty on Wednesday. Next it needs to be ratified by both countries’ national parliaments.
The treaty will bring the bilateral relationship to “its highest level in history,” Marape said.
Others have doubts about the agreement and its implications. Former Papua New Guinea Defense Force commander Jerry Singirok said, “It’s common knowledge that Australia sees China as a potential threat, but China is not PNG’s enemy.”
The treaty is expected to be debated in PNG’s Parliament next month.
Nakamal Agreement Still Delayed
Albanese visited Vanuatu in early September and, like PNG, left with the Nakamal Agreement unsigned, although both he and Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat said they are committed to ensuring that it will be finalized soon. A nakamal is a traditional meeting house in Vanuatu.
Napat said last month that the delay stemmed from wording: “When it comes to critical infrastructure, certain wordings could limit our ability to get funding from other countries,” he said. “We must allow our officials to have better discussions so that the agreement can capture the interests of both countries.”
The full details of the Nakamal Agreement have not been released, but Vanuatu government spokesperson Kiery Manassah said that it includes “earthquake recovery, economic development, climate resilience, regional security, renewable energy and easier people-to-people connections.”
In another similarity with PNG, the delay created speculation in the Australian media that China might be preventing the signing of the agreement. This was fueled further by the news in late September that Vanuatu will sign a policing deal with China for the provision of motorcycles, drones and other equipment, amounting to about AU$700,000.
Manassah called the speculation about Chinese pressure “misguided” and “an insult to the collective wisdom of Vanuatu leaders.” He said that the delay allows Australia and Vanuatu to “polish” the agreement to better reflect their aspirations.
Vanuatu Police Minister Andrew Napuat said, “These [policing] MoUs are not the same as the Nakamal Security Agreement… Overseas media has exaggerated these discussions with misrepresentations, giving wrong impressions of our relationship with our partners on topics of security and policing.”
Speculation about the delay in signing the Pukpuk Treaty appears now to be overblown, and this may also prove true in the case of the Nakamal Agreement. Even if it ends up being delayed longer, it doesn’t mean that China is pulling the strings; that is a claim that, like anything else, requires evidence to support it.
It may simply be that negotiations are stuck because Vanuatu is not getting what it wants: Napat previously said he would not sign unless the agreement included visa-free travel for citizens of Vanuatu to Australia, but Albanese appears unlikely to make this kind of concession. Australia has never granted visa-free travel to any Pacific Island country.
Australian Versus Pacific Interests
There is a tension between Australia’s interest in blocking China’s influence and Pacific Island countries’ interest in pursuing a “friends to all” foreign policy. If the Nakamal Agreement, as proposed, limits Vanuatu’s ability to receive funding from other countries, then it is unsurprising that its government disputed that language.
Australia has signed several bilateral agreements with Pacific nations in recent years – with Tuvalu in 2023 and with Nauru in 2024 – effectively giving Canberra the power to prevent them from entering into security partnerships with Beijing. The newer agreements can be seen as part of Australia’s strategy to limit Beijing’s influence in a region that Canberra considers critical to its own security.
But what about Pacific security? The negotiation of new security agreements often sparks debate in the Pacific about the potential benefits versus the potential loss of sovereignty, a concern closely tied to the region’s colonial history. Some regional actors also see new security agreements as part of the broader militarization and geopoliticization of the Pacific, raising tensions at a time when the region is confronting an entirely different crisis: climate change, on which Australia and the Pacific Islands are very much at odds.
And while the Falepili Union was designed in part to help Tuvalu deal with the effects of climate change, it can also be read — along with other Australian security agreements in recent years — as Australia using Pacific nations’ vulnerabilities to advance its own strategic interests. Of course, Canberra doesn’t always initiate these agreements: Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka began seeking a new treaty with Australia earlier this year.
Speculation that Beijing may want to prevent these agreements from being signed is not without reason, but it tends to be done in a way that denies the agency of Pacific Island countries and ignores other likely explanations for delay. For example, Canberra may be trying to extract too many concessions without giving Pacific Island countries something worthwhile in return, like visa-free travel in Vanuatu’s case.
Whether it’s PNG or Vanuatu or another Pacific Island country, all of Australia’s relationships in the region are fundamentally lopsided due to its greater wealth and power. Ultimately, whether Australian security agreements are well received will depend upon how much their implementation benefits Pacific nations themselves, and not Australian interests only.