Can PNG become the 'richest black Christian nation on earth'?

By ANDREW KORYBKO | Eurasia Future

MOSCOW - The new prime minister of Papua New Guinea only entered office a few months ago after a long-running political scandal led to the resignation of his predecessor, Peter O'Neill.

But he’s already making waves with his ambitious vision of turning this resource-rich but poverty-stricken island country into “the richest black Christian nation on earth”.

James Marape made his Trump-like nationalist proclamation in late July during his visit to Australia, which was his first foreign trip since assuming his position.

Here he also spoke about his plan of one day “participating with Australia looking after smaller island nations”.

He aims to achieve this through a combination of fairer resource deals with transnational corporations and a renewed focus on the agricultural sector, but the success of his vision will largely rest on his ability to “balance” between the West and China, as well as making unprecedented progress on the socio-economic development of the mostly tribal hinterland.

Marape’s predecessor, Peter O’Neill, was regarded as extremely close to China, though he was also at the same time responsible for laying the basis of his successor’s “balancing” act by agreeing to allow the US and Australia to jointly operate a naval base in the northern island of Manus.

PNG’s new leader emphasised his more visibly neutral position by recently stating that his country is “friends to all, enemies to none” and that “every businessman and woman is welcome in our country, and the Chinese investors will not receive any special treatment and preference, just like Australian investors will not receive any special favour or treatment.”

That’s a very pragmatic approach and one that’s much-needed if he hopes to make good on his bold promise because he can’t do it without cooperating equally with both “sides” of the New Cold War.

Australia is a long-standing strategic partner while China is a much more recent one, but investment from both is crucial to Marape’s plans.

PNG’s resource riches have been more of a curse than a blessing over the years after corrupt governments proved themselves incapable of fairly distributing the billions of dollars of wealth that have poured into this comparatively small country of roughly eight million people.

But Marape wants to change all of that by using some of that revenue to fund an agricultural revolution that would turn his nation into “the food basket of Asia”.

To do that, however, he must first make serious strides in improving the socio-economic situation of the millions of people who still live in tribal societies there where “most fights are still about women and pigs“.

Tribal warfare recently intensified after an horrific massacre of women and children in July that observers worry might plunge the mountainous heartland into a renewed round of tribal warfare that could hold the country back from the advances that it so desperately needs to make.

If the security situation stabilises and the writ of the state finally extends into the interior in a noticeable way unlike the present (where it’s only relevant as far as selling land to transnational corporations and electing figurehead representatives to parliament), then one of the first tasks will be to promote an inclusive national narrative that binds together the country’s disparate tribes, hence Marape’s embrace of race and religion as the foundation for this.

Concurrent with that, PNG will need to seamlessly transition the locals from their tribal societies into the global market economy, which explains his emphasis on their traditional industry of agriculture instead of anything much more culturally disruptive like their large-scale employment in urban factories for example.

Still, what Marape envisions for his people is a profound paradigmatic shift that will be difficult to pull off without the right resources, prior planning, and political will.

It’s here where the West (mostly Australia in this case) and China can help. PNG is being reconceptualised by American strategists as a pivotal geopolitical battleground in the New Cold War, which is why the US will be jointly operating a naval base with Australia there in the coming future, but it’s also partnered with the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) being spearheaded by the People’s Republic.

If Marape successfully “balances” between the West’s “Indo-Pacific” strategy and China’s BRI, then PNP could conceivably reap the benefits of improved market access for his country’s forthcoming agricultural exports from both, as well as more infrastructural investment to help with the tribal interior’s socio-economic development.

Should he can manage to do that, then he stands the best chances yet of turning this terribly impoverished country into “the richest black Christian nation on earth”, though it’ll still take a lot of time for Marape to pull off this miracle.

Go to this link for more: https://www.pngattitude.com/2019/09/can-marape-make-png-the-richest-black-christian-nation-on-earth.html

In Papua New Guinea, reality will dim any nationalist dreams

ASSESSMENTS WRITER | Stratfor Worldview | Edited

AUSTIN, USA - Papua New Guinea's new prime minister, James Marape, is touting a more nationalist push on resources for his energy- and mineral-rich country and hinting at a rebalance in great power relations, vexing both foreign companies and regional heavyweight Australia.

Since taking office in late May, Marape has launched a formal review into a multibillion dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, threatened to seek Chinese help in refinancing the country's K27 billion debt and mulled an overhaul of the country's natural resource laws to increase PNG’s share of revenue.

But despite his ambitious intentions, the eager new leader will find it difficult to take any of these efforts too far, because there's only so much the small resource- and aid-dependent Pacific country can push the envelope without jeopardizing its political stability and primary income streams.

Just a month after taking office in May, Marape began a full review of Total's Papua LNG deal, with an eye on improving the terms. (The review also put on hold an as-yet incomplete agreement for Exxon's PNG LNG expansion project, which is connected to Total's Papua LNG deal.)

But shortly after, he was quick to reassure that his administration was still pro-investment and that adjustments need not be drastic.

And on 2 September, the government announced it would move forward with the Total deal after the company agreed to make the pipeline accessible to third parties and to open up the possibility of a government stake in the future, and after it granted state-owned Kumul Petroleum Holdings the option to take on ownership of some LNG tankers. 

For foreign companies already locked into investments in PNG’s substantial oil, natural gas, gold, copper and nickel reserves, Marape's new nationalist push risks troubling their long-term plans.

The way Total was able to save its project by agreeing to some concessions could temporarily alleviate some of these concerns. But perhaps most importantly, the settling of the deal after such extreme political rhetoric serves as a testament to the limitations Marape's government will surely face when it comes to implementing its wider "Papua New Guinea-first" platform. 

Marape's ambitious vision for the country includes reducing its reliance on primary resource extraction by building onshore processing and increasing agricultural exports to nearby Asian markets.

He's also stated that he wants to overhaul the country's resource-related legislation by 2025 to ensure that it earns at least half of the foreign revenues on all resource projects via taxes and royalties. But in doing so, he faces a steep uphill climb, because energy and resource exports made up over 77% of exports in 2017 (Agriculture, by contrast, accounted for only 15%).

When it comes to oil and gas in particular, LNG accounted for 34% of exports in 2018, making it a critical revenue stream for his government to sustain and thus protect. Accounting for just 3% of global LNG exports, PNG is also dwarfed by much larger exporters in the region (namely, Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia), as well as a growing field of other potential nearby exporters such as East Timor.

This means that despite his attempts to pressure foreign majors, Marape will have to tread lightly — knowing that foreign energy firms can take their lucrative projects elsewhere, should his government's meddling become too burdensome to their bottom lines.

Marape's other big priority will be managing the country's debt burden, which now amounts to nearly one-third of its gross domestic product (GDP). The massive debt was largely racked up under Marape's predecessor in recent years. 

The 2015 drop in oil prices hit the country hard, worsened by an ill-fated K2.8 billion loan used to buy a stake in the Australian oil and gas company Oil Search. And as a result, the 2018 government budget was in a K1.6 billion deficit.  

To help dig the country out of its debt, Marape has sought additional help from its two vying suitors, China and Australia. On 7 August, Marape's government announced it had approached China in the hopes of having Beijing fully refinance Papua New Guinea's debt burden.

This raised a furore from neighbouring Australia, who fears such a move could lead to a loan default and the Chinese repossession of a major New Guinean port, mine or infrastructure project.

Several weeks later, Marape's government called for greater financial assistance from Australia. Specifically, he said he wanted 25-50% of total Australian aid to the country in the form of direct budget support.

After Canberra declined the request, PNG tacitly threatened to seek help from China instead. And, just as intended, this prompted Australia to mobilise a high-level delegation to the country to reportedly discuss terms for a significant loan. 

But while such efforts to play China and Australia off each other might help shake a more money loose from Canberra, there's probably only so much more cash the regional giant can funnel to PNG.

In addition to a recent partnership to develop a joint naval base on Manus Island, Australia is already the country's largest trade and investment partner, with K23 billion in bilateral trade and $58 billion in investment in 2018. Between 2019 and 2020, Australia provided about K1.4 billion in aid. 

Australia's assistance, however, is often slotted for programs specifically focused on making PNG more financially independent and politically stable. China's assistance, by contrast, often comes in the form of loans with far fewer strings attached. Beijing's state-owned China Development Bank, for example, is slated to deliver a K1 billion loan to help with PNG's budget deficit at the end of the year. 

That said, China has so far accounted for only about 17% of PNG’s total foreign aid in 2019, paling in comparison to Australia's 40%. But PNG is also a keystone of Australian efforts to secure its periphery from China's growing presence, especially as Beijing's rivalry with one of its strongest allies, the United States, heats up.

And for this reason, Canberra will want to keep Beijing from growing its financial influence further. 

But at the same time, Australia is also facing mounting political pressure at home to curb government spending and wean the country's Pacific neighbours off aid. Thus, it won't be able to completely counter Chinese largesse.

Instead, it will move to prevent China from making major inroads — dangling the sweetener of its non-loan aid and ability to help PNG complete the restructuring needed to continue receiving International Monetary Fund assistance.

Meanwhile, back at home, PNG’s innately fragile and fragmented political context will make rebalancing the country's resource-dependent economy a particularly challenging feat for Marape's government.

The country is deeply fractured, geographically and ethnically. Disruptive pushes from fragmented regional power bases have led to a dispersed, decentralized government that grants a strong hand to provinces.

The successful pushes of the resource-rich states of Enga, New Ireland and New Britain for a road map to greater autonomy could prompt other regions to follow suit. Meanwhile, the region of Bougainville is planning a nonbinding independence referendum in November, which risks whipping up secessionist fervour elsewhere in the country. 

PNG’s new prime minister can only go so far without jeopardising the country's fragile political stability and vital foreign revenue streams. 

However, greater revenue-sharing on LNG projects across the country might help quiet some of these calls for regional autonomy. But if Marape is unable to deliver on his political promises and placate key stakeholders, there's a chance his term — scheduled to end in 2022 — could very well be cut short.

Since gaining its independence in 1975, the country has seen a slew of feeble governments defined not by party or ideology, but by personal politicking and lawmakers defecting to other parties for their own self-interests.

As a result, only a handful of these administrations have completed a full term. And indeed, Marape's rise to power embodies this trend as well. When an 18-month constitutional grace period expires, he'll be vulnerable to a vote of no-confidence beginning in October 2020 — the very same tool used to force O'Neill's resignation in May. 

To ensure he doesn't suffer the same fate as his predecessor, Marape he will need to deliver a high-profile victory on resource deals that both saves face for the government and doesn't jeopardize vital projects.

Meanwhile, on debt and aid, he will need to extract at least some concessions from Australia to illustrate his ability to diplomatically secure the country's interests.

But in doing so, foreign players will be aware that he can only push so far due to his cash-strapped country's reliance on the revenue flows from both foreign LNG firms and Canberra.

As such, while both Australia and foreign major oil companies will respond to Papua New Guinea's calls for adjustments, they will not make the kind of sweeping overhauls to their relationship with the government that Marape has called for.

Go to this link for more: https://www.pngattitude.com/2019/09/in-papua-new-guinea-reality-will-dim-any-nationalist-dreams.html

Beijing university will offer Tok Pisin & 6 other Pacific language courses

PHOTO: Beijing Foreign Studies University is the campus of choice for training Chinese diplomats in foreign languages. (Wikimedia Commons)

By PRIANKA SRINIVASAN & PEGGY KONG - ABC Pacific Beat

China is pushing for more university students  to study Pacific Island languages in a bid to bolster the appeal of its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative across the region.

Seven Pacific Island languages will soon be available for study in bachelors-level programs at the Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) including Tok Pisin, one of Papua New Guinea's official languages, as well as Samoan, Tongan, and Fijian.

The move comes as China continues to try and grow its diplomatic influence in the region, amid renewed efforts from Australia to "step up" its own engagement in the Pacific.

China's foreign ministry accuses Australia of acting like "a condescending master" in its relations with Pacific Island countries.

Languages from all eight of China's diplomatic partners in the Pacific will be represented in the courses, which have been developed with the explicit goal of improving China's foreign ties.

"[BFSU] plans to cover languages of all the countries that have diplomatic relations with China by 2020."

Scholarships will also be offered to Pacific students as part of the language exchange.

Australia has almost no comparable language programs at its universities — the Australian National University is the only institution with a Pacific language course, specifically in Tok Pisin, which is offered online.

Anna Powles, a senior lecturer in security studies at New Zealand's Massey University, told the ABC's Pacific Beat program the lack of Pacific Island language skills among Australian diplomatic staff has not gone unnoticed.

"Language has been a key criticism of Australia, certainly in terms of the language skills of those deployed to the region," she said.

"Language as a soft power tool is critical because as we know in the Pacific, relationships and trust are very much the currency in the region.

"You can only really build true, genuine relationships through shared language, shared culture and understanding."

In addition to the seven Pacific Island languages, Beijing's Foreign Studies University will also offer dozens of other minority languages like East Timor's Tetum and the Dhivehi language spoken in the Maldives.

Each of the languages is from countries that have signed on to China's Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious infrastructure and development project that aims to connect 126 countries through land and sea.

The project is Chinese President Xi Jinping's signature foreign policy, and experts say it aims to reshape global trade flows to place China at its centre.

"The Chinese Government will not spare any effort in promoting [the BRI] globally, including in the Pacific," Denghua Zhang, a research fellow at the Australian National University's Department of Pacific Affairs, told the ABC.

"The main purpose of this kind of teaching program is to support Chinese foreign policy and especially to support the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative."

Dr Zhang worked alongside Setope So'oa'emalelagi, a Samoan language teacher at Liaocheng University in China's Shandong province, to research the impacts of Pacific language teaching on Chinese foreign policy.

Mr So'oa'emalelagi said the push for more university-level Pacific Islands language courses was significant, especially since the Beijing Foreign Studies University was a school of choice for Chinese diplomats.

Mr So'oa'emalelagi said the push for more university-level Pacific Islands language courses was significant, especially since the Beijing Foreign Studies University was a school of choice for Chinese diplomats.

PHOTO: Students at Liaocheng University have been able to learn Samoan since March this year. (Supplied: Setope So'oa'emalelagi)

However, attracting enrolments could prove to be a headache — some of the languages, like Cook Islands Maori and Niuean, have fewer than 15,000 native speakers, and that fact has been a point of controversy for prospective students.

"Fiji has a population of less than one million, so there is little use in studying Fijian," one critic wrote on the online forum Zhihu.

"Such a major cannot guarantee employment."

Dr Powles from Massey University said China's push ought to be a concern for both Australia and New Zealand, where opportunities for learning Pacific Island languages are limited.

Australia will plunge billions of dollars into projects across the region through grants and soft loans. But what's driving this, and what are the pitfalls?

Dr Powles said irrespective of China's plans, both countries should first be worried about the fact they have not already implemented similar programs.

"What Australia and New Zealand do in the region, as a rule, shouldn't be a reaction to what China is doing," she said.

"If the Australian Government and the Australian prime minister are serious about the relationship of family — of vuvale — if they're serious about a 'step up' in the region, then things like language and other critical elements of what it means to be part of a region need to also be elevated.

"Not because China's doing it, but because it's the only thing to do if you're serious about deepening your relationship with your neighbours."

For Mr So'oa'emalelagi, who has been teaching his course at Liaocheng University since March, the cultural value of the language classes trumps the geopolitical significance.

"Point one percent of people in China actually understand or know where Samoa is, let alone other islands," he said.

"So it's a great way for us to promote our culture and who we are through the language."

Go to this link for more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-07/beijing-university-set-to-teach-seven-pacific-island-languages/11474276