Getty ImagesPapua New Guinea ( PNG ) will join Australia’s national rugby league competition, after signing a deal that obligates them to shun security ties with China.
The Pacific region has produced numerous National Rugby League ( NRL ) stars and has long campaigned to appoint newcomers.
To set up the team, which will be based in Port Moresby and begin playing in 2028, Australia will provide A$ 600 million ( £301 million,$ 384 million ) over ten years and support the development of the game at a grassroots level throughout the Pacific region.
PNG also ratified a distinct agreement, which it claims reaffirms its dedication to Australia as its principal security partner.
The BBC is aware of the confidentiality of the dual agreements, which allow Australia to remove money if PNG and a country outside the so-called” Pacific family” reach an agreement. That word is commonly accepted to eliminate China, despite Beijing’s efforts to gain a hold in the region.
The NRL is then required to drop the PNG group if Canberra pulls out.
Announcing the deal in Sydney on Thursday, PNG Prime Minister James Marape said it was a “monumental” option for his land, and one aimed at fostering “unity”- not only between the 830 speech organizations in PNG, but also between the nation at large and its closest ally.
” For us, it’s not just game and sport business, it is ]about]… uniting the most diverse region on the face of earth Earth and even uniting PNG-Australia together in ways that matter most, citizens to people”, he told reporters.
The only nation in the world where sport club is the federal sport, PNG, according to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, “deserves” a place in the league. He declared it was a “great time” for both nations.
” The new team will belong to the people of Papua New Guinea,” said Albanese,” and I know it will have millions of proud fans clamoring for it from day one.”
It is a significant accomplishment for the NRL as well. This is the first time the competition, which is trying to lure international audiences, has expanded overseas. The New Zealand Warriors, the only other foreign team that has participated in the competition since its beginning almost three decades ago, are the only other team.
NRL boss PeterV’landys had been championing the PNG bid, arguing it was a huge opportunity for the league, as well as for PNG’s economic development.
At a later time, a name and uniform for the new team will be chosen.
‘ Unprecedented ‘ win for sport diplomacy
Stuart Murray, an Associate Professor of International Relations, told the BBC that while Australia’s use of sport as a diplomatic strategy is nothing new, this agreement is unprecedented.
According to Dr. Murray from Bond University, the nation has been” thinking innovatively about how to combine sport and policy to combat classical security threats” for the past ten years.
In this case, he added,” the scale, the size, the scope and the funding, and the fact that it’s being endorsed at such a high level with both prime ministers- that’s never been done before”.
” Basically, through this one channel, we will open up 20 or 30 other channels- for business, trade, policing, educational exchange, gender work, climate change… I think it is fantastic”.
In recent years, China and Australia have been competing for more clout in the Pacific. Australia has spent years trying to forge exclusive security pacts with nations in the region, including a policing agreement with Tuvalu last year, and a treaty with Nauru that was unveiled earlier this week.
Some have hailed the pact with PNG as another significant strategic win for Australia, which declared its independence from Australia in 1975.
A number of other middle powers and major powers have struggled to secure PNG’s agreement of exclusivity for security partnerships, according to Oliver Nobetau, a PNG government lawyer turned policy analyst at the Lowy Institute think tank, over the past few years as a result of the heightened geopolitical interest and engagement in the Pacific.
Both prime ministers have attempted to minimize the security aspect of the agreements, instead presenting them as a benefit to what Mr. Nobetau calls a” thinning” relationship between the two nations.
Marape made a point to say the agreement “doesn’t stop us from relating with any nation, especially our Asian neighbours”.
” We relate with China, for instance, a great trading partner, a great bilateral partner”, he said. ” But in security, closer to home … our shared territory needs to be protected, defended, policed … together”.
According to government sources, the agreements do not grant Australia a veto over PNG security agreements. However, their framing does result in the elimination of almost all other potential partners, and some in PNG thought the announcement was” an exertion of Australian power over PNG sovereignty,” according to Mr. Nobetau.
Both he and Dr Murray also note, however, that the dual deals speak to an emerging” transactional” dynamic in Pacific relations.
” People that talk about goodwill and who say sport and politics don’t mix, that’s the 20th century view”, Dr Murray said. ” For us, there’s no way we’re going to give away one of our prize cultural assets for nothing. That doesn’t happen in diplomacy”.
Dr. Murray and Mr. Nobetau both concur that the agreements represent a significant turning point in bilateral relations between the two nations, and they are likely to show how Australia will continue to pursue its agenda in the region.
” China puts in a lot of money into sport infrastructure … which is sort of what China is good at…]but ] China is not going to be offering any alternatives in this space”, Mr Nobetau said.
” It’s something that other countries can’t do”, Dr Murray added. ” We need to use it, especially in a very, very contested region such as the Pacific”.