In a first for the Pacific, United States President Joe Biden will visit Papua New Guinea, the PNG government has announced.
Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation in Port Moresby on May 22.
Biden will become the first sitting US president in recent history to visit a Pacific nation, excluding US territories.
The visit comes amid calls for Washington to accelerate its diplomatic ties with the Pacific in the face of Chinese competition with President Xi Jinping, who toured PNG in 2018.
PNG is the world’s third-largest island nation with a population of close to 10 million, according to the World Bank.
Biden and Modi are also expected to attend the Quad Summit with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Sydney on May 24.
The US embassy in Port Moresby has yet to confirm Biden’s visit but PNG Prime Minister James Marape said in a statement on Monday: “PNG is ready to host Biden and Modi in the biggest country in the Pacific.
“It is also a ‘going forward’ futuristic meeting of global superpowers.
“PNG and the Pacific cannot be ignored and with our combined forests and seas, we have the world’s greatest carbon sink, and the biggest sea and airspace on Earth.”
Biden’s visit also comes amid concerns China is pushing ahead with new plans to maintain its power and presence in the Pacific despite the US and its allies gaining ground in the battle for dominance in the region.
In April 2022, Beijing signed a security deal with the Solomon Islands which allows Solomons’ Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to call on China at any time for defence and policing assistance.
Marape’s office confirmed Biden would stop in Port Moresby for three hours on his way from a G7 meeting in Japan to attend the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – Quad leaders meeting – in Australia.
“Marape has been invited to visit Beijing later this year,” the PM’s office said in a statement.
US diplomat Joseph Yun said President Biden would be warmly welcomed in Port Moresby.
Yun, a special presidential envoy who led the renegotiation of the Compact of Free Association agreements with three Pacific nations, told a media conference in Washington on Saturday that it was a “good thing when heads of states get engaged on new issues”.
COFA deals grant the US military basing rights in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Palau and the Marshall Islands in exchange for economic support and security.
The agreements are set to expire this year and propose an extension of more than US$7 billion (NZ$11.4b) over 20 years to the three Pacific nations.
But this will all depend on the Republicans approving Biden’s Budget, experts say, with the US Congress debating the Democrats’ foreign aid policy.
US foreign aid includes a US$800 million (NZ$1.34b) economic assistance package to the Pacific island nations.
In September last year, Biden hosted more than a dozen Pacific leaders and envoys at the White House and pledged the funding in his Pacific Partnership Strategy.
Yun said while he was optimistic Congress would approve Biden’s foreign aid policy, there was still “some hard work ahead”.
Marape said he had invited Biden to visit PNG when they met in Washington last year, and was “very honoured that he has fulfilled his promise to me to visit our country”.
Source: stuff
