SYDNEY—Australia and Papua New Guinea said on July 22 their leaders will meet annually in a bid to foster closer ties, which Canberra believes is important in its bid to counter China’s quest for greater influence in the Pacific.
The pledge came after PNG Prime Minister James Marape, who came to power in May, met Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the first time.
Morrison said bilateral meetings would be held annually in a bid to improve ties between the two close neighbors that have frayed in recent years.
“This is a broad and a deep relationship but, above all, it is a relationship of family and true friends,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.
Australia, which long enjoyed nearly unchecked influence in the Pacific, and its Western allies worry that it has edged closer to China in recent years as Beijing increased aid to the sparsely populated region and its vast resource-rich oceans.
“Marape has said that he wants to diversify PNG’s relationships, but this visit will comfort those who are worried that Australia is no longer the partner of choice in the region,” said Jonathan Pryke, director of the Pacific Islands program at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think tank.
PNG has turned increasingly to China for financing in recent years and China forged a particularly strong relationship with Marape’s predecessor, Peter O'Neill.
O‘Neill was the first Pacific leader to sign up to China’s ’One Belt, One Road' (OBOR, also known as Belt and Road) infrastructure-building program. He met Chinese leader Xi Jinping more than a dozen times during his eight years in office, stoking fears in Australia that its influence in PNG was waning.
Australia has offered Pacific countries up to A$3 billion ($2.11 billion) in cheap loans and grants in a bid to arrest its slide in influence, while Canberra has also increased its diplomatic presence in the region.
