The Guardian-Papua New Guinea in talks with China on security cooperation foreign minister says
January 29, 2024 3 min 468 words
这篇报道揭示了巴布亚新几内亚与中国就潜在的安全与警务协议进行初步磋商。在太平洋地区，中美之间的影响力争夺激烈，巴布亚新几内亚曾表示澳大利亚和美国是其安全伙伴，而中国是经济上的重要合作伙伴。然而，中国在去年九月提出协助其警察力量的提议，引发了讨论。外交部长Tkachenko表示，尽管目前只涉及经济和贸易，但中国提出在内部安全领域提供协助。对于中国的提议，巴布亚新几内亚将评估其是否与澳大利亚和美国已经提供的安全与警务援助存在重复。这表明了地缘政治中的微妙平衡，尽管经济合作重要，但安全关切仍然是国家首要考虑。在这个背景下，中国与太平洋岛国的安全合作引起了国际社会的关注，特别是在澳大利亚和美国等国。
Papua New Guinea is in early talks with China on a potential security and policing deal, the country’s foreign minister Justin Tkachenko has told the Reuters news agency, weeks after deadly riots in the country’s capital.
Amid jostling between Washington and Beijing for influence in the Pacific, the biggest Pacific Islands nation, Papua New Guinea (PNG), has previously said Australia and the United States are its security partners, while China is an important economic partner.
China approached PNG in September with an offer to assist its police force with training, equipment and surveillance technology, Tkachenko said in an interview with Reuters on Monday. Talks continued last week.
“We deal with China at this stage only at economic and trade level. They are one of our biggest trading partners, but they have offered to assist our policing and security on the internal security side,” Tkachenko said.
PNG will assess if the Chinese offer duplicates security and policing assistance already being offered by Australia and the United States, he said.
“It is still in early stages of negotiation with our commissioner of police and our minister of internal security,” he said, adding, “they have offered it to us, but we have not accepted it at this point in time.“
PNG signed a A$200m security deal with Australia last month to boost policing, and days later prime minister James Marape told an investment conference in Sydney that he had not held talks with China on security when he visited Beijing in October.
PNG had chosen Australia and the United States as security partners, he said.
Riots in the PNG capital Port Moresby earlier in January left at least 16 dead, with major retail stores burned and looted, after police held a strike over pay. Marape’s government called in the PNG defence force to restore order, but didn’t seek Australia’s help.
PNG struck a defence cooperation agreement with the United States during a visit by US secretary of state Antony Blinken in May, giving the US military access to PNG ports and airports.
Tkachenko said PNG would not do anything to jeopardise its defence and security relationships with Australia or the US, and was not a “fence-sitter“.
Riots in neighbouring Solomon Islands in 2021 saw China strike security and policing pacts with Manasseh Sogavare’s government a year later, alarming Washington and Canberra.
Australia’s pacific minister Pat Conroy pledged A$35m in policing assistance to neighbouring East Timor on Monday during an official visit, amid concern in Canberra that Beijing is again aggressively targeting the police and security sectors in the Pacific.