The Yegiora Files

By Bernard Yegiora  The recent Post-Courier article “UoG warms up people to people bond with China” provides a snapshot of how China is embedding itself in PNG’s higher education sector. What may appear as a colourful cultural event—martial arts, Mandarin displays, and Chinese cuisine—is in fact part of a broader process of soft power projection. As my PhD research examines the influence of China’s Higher Education Exchange Programs on PNG–China relations, this article offers valuable evidence of how such programs are taking shape at the institutional and cultural level. University of Goroka Vice Chancellor Dr. Teng Waninga samples Chinese cuisine during the Sino–PNG cultural exchange, highlighting how food diplomacy complements language and education programs in shaping people-to-people ties. At the heart of the article is the framing of “people-to-people” diplomacy. This is central to my study, which looks at how exchange programs, scholarships, and language initiatives create ...

The National Rugby League (NRL) is proving itself to be more than a game—it is a soft power asset with ripple effects reaching far beyond Australian borders. Nowhere is this clearer than in PNG, where rugby league is not just sport but national culture. The viral circulation of a recent video from Western Highlands Province underscores how deeply embedded the NRL has become in PNG’s social fabric. Brisbane Broncos fans in Dei District burn a Panthers jersey after the NRL clash — a viral display of passion that shows how deeply rugby league shapes identity and rivalry in PNG. The footage shows Broncos supporters physically stripping a Panthers jersey from a rival fan and burning it in public, celebrating Brisbane’s win over Penrith. The video has gone viral on Facebook and WhatsApp groups, amplifying the spectacle far beyond Dei District. What might have been a local outburst of passion is now a transnational moment of rugby league politics, consumed, debated, and reshared thousands of...

By Bernard Yegiora  The strategic concern surrounding Papa and Lombrum highlights the depth of PNG’s entanglement in great power competition. On the surface, these facilities are framed as projects to bolster PNG’s infrastructure, maritime capacity, and regional security cooperation. Yet beneath that veneer lies a clear geopolitical calculus: Australia and the U.S. are embedding themselves into PNG’s geography as part of their broader strategic hedging against a rising China. The notion that Papa could become a refuelling hub and Lombrum a forward operating base is not speculation; it reflects long-standing patterns of external powers leveraging PNG’s location to offset their own vulnerabilities. Papa’s selection is particularly instructive. Its proximity to northern Australia provides strategic depth to Canberra and, by extension, Washington. In military planning, distance translates into both opportunity and constraint. For Australia, having an offshore hub close enough to m...

By Bernard Yegiora  PG428 Foreign Policy in PNG is delivered fully online for students based on our Madang campus. The teaching plan set out in the unit outline revolves around three strategies: online webinars, structured Moodle lessons, and group case studies . At the start, we relied on livestreaming through Facebook to broadcast our lectures and student presentations. It worked well in creating immediacy, but as the semesters went on, we found this model lacked one crucial feature: proper archival value. Facebook livestreams were convenient in the moment, but they were not reliable as a long-term storage platform. Once a session ended, students often struggled to revisit it. Videos could be buried under layers of posts, hard to search, or simply disappear. For a unit on foreign policy, where continuity of debates and access to past material is vital, this was a serious weakness. Students needed a way to build on the lectures of previous weeks—and future cohorts needed a recor...

By Bernard Yegiora  Lesson 6 takes students into the heart of one of PNG’s most pressing strategic challenges—maritime security. As highlighted in recent scholarship, including my contribution to Blue Security in the Indo-Pacific (2025), the maritime domain is no longer a peripheral concern. Instead, it sits at the intersection of sovereignty, economic development, and regional diplomacy. PNG’s Exclusive Economic Zone is under pressure from illegal fishing, transnational crime, and great power competition, making the framing of security responses more than just an academic exercise. The lesson begins by situating maritime security within PNG’s foreign policy framework, referencing the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Corporate Plan 2018–2022 . This document underscores border and maritime security as central to safeguarding sovereignty, while simultaneously stressing the need for balanced engagement with external partners. Australia, China, and the United States all present compet...

By Bernard Yegiora PNG’s foreign policy has long been guided by the principle of “friends to all, enemies to none.” Yet, as the geopolitics of the Pacific intensify, Port Moresby increasingly finds itself navigating difficult trade-offs between loyalty, sovereignty, and pragmatism. One area where this tension is visible is in the way PNG positions itself on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and whether that loyalty could translate into tangible security cooperation with Israel. On October 8, 2024, The National reported PNG’s renewed pledge of support for Israel, reaffirming the country’s long-standing loyalty in international forums. Australia, PNG’s closest defence partner, has taken a more cautious and calibrated approach to the Middle East. Canberra generally aligns with Western positions, balancing its alliance with the United States with sensitivities in the Arab world. PNG, on the other hand, has consistently demonstrated strong loyalty to Israel, including at the UN. This dive...

By Bernard Yegiora  Assessment Task 3 in Foreign Policy in PNG is designed to test not only a student’s ability to think about foreign policy in theoretical terms, but also their capacity to translate abstract policy statements into operational strategies. In Semester 2 of 2024, students authored foreign policy reviews that set out broad visions and strategic directions for PNG’s external relations. The challenge now is to revisit those proposals and move them from the rhetorical plane into the bureaucratic machinery of government. This is where policy vision is tested against institutional realities. The assignment is built around a critique by former diplomat and academic Lahui Ako, who noted that nearly all of PNG’s foreign policy statements have been “ambiguous, and ad hoc, lacking that required bureaucratic support and capacity to operationalize them into an actual foreign policy white paper.” This observation highlights a structural weakness in PNG’s foreign policy practice...

When people ask what research theory underpins my PhD research, my answer is simple but deliberate: critical realism . In studying China’s Higher Education Exchange Programs in PNG—from scholarships and language training to public sector upskilling—I needed a lens that could help me see beyond the numbers and stories. Critical realism allows me to ask not just what is happening , but why , and what deeper structures are at play . This is essential when dealing with international education, soft power, and foreign policy. This diagram illustrates the layered structure of the research design: starting with a critical realist epistemology, guided by soft power as the theoretical lens, employing an explanatory sequential mixed-methods methodology, and using surveys and interviews as core data collection methods. At its core, critical realism is a philosophical framework developed by British philosopher Roy Bhaskar. It suggests that reality exists in layers: what we can observe (empirical)...

Rugby league is more than just a sport in PNG; it is a unifying cultural force and, increasingly, a tool of diplomacy. In Lesson 5 of our Foreign Policy in PNG unit, we explored how rugby league diplomacy can be framed and understood as an instrument of soft power. Using Moodle’s Lesson activity, we designed a branching exercise that asked students to make strategic choices about how PNG might frame its National Rugby League (NRL) bid in relation to foreign policy objectives. This approach highlighted the practical intersection of media framing, public diplomacy, and foreign policy strategy. Moodle Lesson 5 introduces students to rugby league diplomacy as a form of soft power, linking PNG’s NRL bid to foreign policy objectives outlined in the Department of Foreign Affairs Corporate Plan 2018–2022. The lesson opened with a content page introducing the idea of rugby league as soft power. Drawing on Hafford Norea’s NRI Spotlight paper , students were reminded that rugby is not merely a...

Lesson 3 in the Foreign Policy in PNG unit focuses on one of the most critical dimensions of the country’s early diplomacy: the economic interest behind its first foreign policy. The Moodle lesson is designed not just to present information but to actively engage students through a carefully sequenced mix of content pages, multiple-choice questions, true/false items, and short essays. This structure ensures that students absorb the historical detail, test their comprehension, and reflect critically on the role of national interest in shaping PNG’s external posture. Moodle Lesson 3: Economic Interest Behind First Foreign Policy — a structured mix of content, quizzes, and essays guiding students through the role of economics, scholars, and leaders like Somare and Ako in shaping PNG’s early foreign policy. The lesson begins with the page titled “Economic interest behind first foreign policy.” This section introduces students to the conceptual framework for understanding how states for...

Jesher Tilto’s recent editorial , “Time to move from aid to trade,” published in The National , is a strong piece of writing. It makes the case that PNG must move beyond aid dependency and anchor its foreign policy in trade and strategic partnerships. The prose is sharp, the argument is persuasive, and the subject matter is timely. Few would disagree with the urgency of Tilto’s call for a more coherent foreign policy framework to guide PNG’s external engagements. That said, accuracy in foreign policy history matters, and here the editorial falls short. Tilto asserts that PNG’s foreign policy has remained unchanged since 1975 under the banner of “friends to all, enemies to none.” This is not correct. As someone who has taught PNG foreign policy for the last ten years, I can say confidently that PNG’s foreign policy has not been static. It has undergone important reviews and revisions that have shaped the nation’s international posture. The most notable review occurred in 1979. That...

The Chinese Embassy in Port Moresby has issued its first official response to the joint communiqué between PNG and Australia on a Mutual Defence Treaty. The tone of the statement is carefully balanced: on the one hand, Beijing acknowledges PNG’s sovereign right to sign treaties with other states, a right explicitly provided for under Section 117 of the Constitution ; on the other, it lays down clear red lines. For PNG, this response underscores the delicate balancing act it must perform in navigating its most important bilateral relationships. China’s official response to the Australia–PNG Defence Treaty: respect for PNG’s sovereignty, but with clear warnings against exclusivity, targeting third parties, or undermining China’s long-term interests. The first key point is China’s invocation of the principle of non-interference . This framing signals respect for PNG’s sovereignty and projects an image of China as a partner that does not dictate terms. At face value, it reassures Port Mor...

Foreign policy education in PNG has entered a new phase of innovation. At Divine Word University, the unit Foreign Policy in PNG (PG428) is now delivered fully online, with a strong emphasis on blending academic inquiry with practical experience. For the past four years, I have co-taught this unit alongside Mr. Lahui Ako, a veteran of the foreign service whose insights allow students to see both the theory and practice of statecraft. This partnership, supported by digital platforms, ensures that students across PNG can engage with one of the most important areas of national decision-making. The unit is designed to give students a critical understanding of how PNG interacts with the international system. Through ten online lectures, ten Moodle lessons, and a capstone case study, students are introduced to the key decisions and turning points that have shaped PNG’s foreign policy since independence. But more importantly, they are challenged to assess the merits and shortcomings of thes...

PNG’s reliance on security treaties and defence cooperation agreements with Australia is understandable given our geographic proximity and historical ties. Yet, the sequencing of our priorities is questionable. Instead of anchoring our bilateral relationship primarily in security, PNG would have been better served by negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) with Australia. Economic integration should precede security guarantees. Trade builds independence, and independence funds security. Australia has a Free Trade Agreement with China—why not with PNG? Instead of another defence treaty, why not build true economic integration first? Because PATCRA II is a non-reciprocal trade agreement or not an equal free trade agreement. Australia is already our largest trading partner and aid donor . But aid does not translate into economic sovereignty. An FTA would open Australian markets more fully to PNG goods and services, incentivise investment in manufacturing and agriculture, and create a...

When designing a postgraduate program in Foreign Policy Analysis, one cannot rely on assumptions alone. Programs must be built on evidence, not guesswork. At Divine Word University, we conducted an online survey to test the demand for such a program. The results, with 232 respondents , confirmed that there is both strong interest and urgent need for postgraduate training in this field. The survey reached a wide cross-section of Papua New Guineans: 101 students, 57 public servants, 43 academics, and 31 private sector professionals . This mix reflects the reality that foreign policy is not the exclusive preserve of diplomats. It cuts across sectors—from government and education to business and civil society. The fact that interest came from every corner demonstrates that a postgraduate program in foreign policy would serve a genuinely national constituency. One of the strongest findings was the age profile of respondents. The 25–34 age group made up 111 participants , nearly half of th...