The Yegiora Files

The Lowy Institute’s recent publication “Southeast Asia’s Evolving Defence Partnerships” offers critical lessons for countries on the periphery of Asia’s strategic chessboard. PNG, though not part of ASEAN, is no less exposed to the shifting balance of power. As Southeast Asian states diversify their defence relationships, PNG must read the signals carefully: a multipolar security environment demands agility, not dependence. Lowy Institute’s August 2025 analysis on Southeast Asia’s evolving defence partnerships highlights how regional states are broadening their security ties beyond the US and China — a lesson PNG can adapt as it recalibrates its own defence strategy. The report underscores how Southeast Asian nations have moved beyond binary choices between the US and China. Instead, they are engaging Australia, Japan, India, and South Korea through defence agreements, dialogues, and joint exercises. This diversification strategy is highly relevant for PNG, which still leans disprop...

The signing of shiprider agreements with the UK and the US , alongside PNG’s long-standing participation in Australia’s Pacific Maritime Security Program, signals a major transformation in the way Port Moresby manages its ocean domain. On the face of it, these partnerships are practical: they give the PNGDF access to vessels, surveillance, and training it cannot afford on its own. For a country with responsibility over 2.4 million square kilometres of sea, such external help is not optional—it is survival. Yet beneath the rhetoric of “capacity building” and “partnership,” there is a deeper layer that warrants careful scrutiny. All three of PNG’s main maritime security partners—the UK, US, and Australia—are members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance and central actors in the AUKUS security pact. Their motives cannot be divorced from the larger strategic contest in the Indo-Pacific, where maritime access, surveillance reach, and influence over island states are critical pieces in ...

Francis Hualupmomi’s 2015 essay on the internationalisation of higher education was one of the first attempts to explain why PNG has struggled to harness education as a tool of diplomacy. He noted that while political, economic, diplomatic, and security issues dominate foreign policy, higher education cooperation is rarely prioritised . This neglect has created a blind spot: PNG risks underutilising one of the most powerful instruments of influence in the modern era — education. In today’s world, internationalisation of education is no longer a marginal academic concern but a central component of foreign policy. Countries like China, through its scholarship and language programs, or the United States with the Fulbright Program, use higher education as a deliberate strategy to project soft power, cultivate elites, and build long-term influence. Australia, PNG’s closest neighbour, has long pursued similar goals through the Australia Awards , which provide hundreds of PNG students with ...

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has made inroads across the Pacific through infrastructure, connectivity, and investment projects. Yet in PNG, where China’s largest single investment in the Pacific—the Ramu NiCo mine—operates, benefits remain contested. Community voices , parliamentary debates, and national leaders have all questioned whether Chinese projects are meeting local needs. If the BRI is to enhance China’s credibility in PNG, it must target projects that directly improve daily life for communities around Ramu NiCo. Chief among these is the Ramu–Madang road. Minister Richard Maru has directed the Mineral Resources Authority to audit Ramu NiCo’s community benefits, reflecting growing concerns about whether the mine is delivering fair outcomes for local people. The Ramu–Madang road is not just a transport link; it is the lifeline that connects the Kurumbukari mine site to Madang town, the provincial centre , and to surrounding villages, schools, and markets. For thousands of...

Ramu NiCo has again found itself under the national spotlight. International Trade and Investment Minister Richard Maru recently directed the Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) to conduct an audit into the company’s benefits to local communities, expressing dissatisfaction with its oversight. His demand reflects growing discontent not only in Madang Province but also at the national level, where the question of whether Ramu NiCo is delivering fair returns to PNG is being openly contested. In Parliament, newly elected Usino Bundi MP Vincent Kumura has echoed these concerns, stating plainly that Ramu NiCo must do more for its host communities. His intervention is significant because it adds political weight to grievances long voiced at the grassroots. Kumura’s remarks underline that the dissatisfaction is not just localised complaint but part of a wider political consensus forming around the mine’s performance. National revenue authorities have also entered the debate. Internal Revenu...

Over the past few weeks, I have been steadily advancing my PhD research on China’s Higher Education Exchange Programs and their influence on Sino–PNG relations. I am pleased to share with you, my survey participants and wider audience, that I have completed two significant research reports. These documents represent important milestones in both the data analysis phase and in refining the methodology that underpins this study. The first report focuses on the quantitative data analysis . Drawing on the survey responses I received from participants across PNG and those currently studying in China, I examined trends using descriptive statistics such as means, frequencies, and cross-tabulations. These figures reveal not only how students and alumni perceive Chinese scholarships and language programs but also how these experiences are shaping their views on bilateral relations. The data points to consistent support for the academic quality of these programs while also highlighting areas whe...

The proposed Australia–PNG Defence Treaty has been hailed as a milestone in bilateral security cooperation. Canberra frames it as a partnership that will strengthen the PNG Defence Force (PNGDF) through training, infrastructure, and interoperability with the Australian Defence Force (ADF). Yet behind the rhetoric lies a set of risks that have not been openly debated in Port Moresby. The most pressing danger is that PNG could be pulled into conflicts driven not by its own interests, but by Australia’s wider alliance obligations with the United States (US) and other partners. PNG soldiers are set to join the Australian Defence Force under the new defence treaty, raising tough questions: if Australia goes to war with China alongside its ANZUS and QUAD partners, will PNG troops be drawn in too? Watch the ABC News coverage here . Unlike the ANZUS treaty, which binds Australia, New Zealand (NZ), and the US to act collectively if attacked, no public draft of the Australia–PNG agreement includ...

PNG’s diplomacy has too often been reduced to rhetoric. Successive leaders deliver striking foreign policy statements in Parliament or abroad, but the bureaucracy is left with nothing more than speeches. Without structures, strategies, or resources to sustain them, these statements evaporate. It is a cycle of rhetoric without results—and two authoritative voices, Philip Mitna and Lahui Ako, show us exactly why. Dr. Philip Mitna, in his doctoral thesis Factors Influencing Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century , is blunt. PNG’s foreign policy, he argues, “remains weak and more personalised in individual political leaders” . For Mitna, the Department of Foreign Affairs has failed in its most basic task: to translate political declarations into sector-aligned documents such as white papers or national strategies. The system, he concludes, is institutionally incoherent. The consequences are obvious. Foreign policy is reactive, episodic, and dictated by personalitie...

PNG’s geopolitical environment is growing more complex as global competition, climate change and transnational threats reshape the Pacific. Yet the country’s capacity to analyse and formulate foreign policy remains limited. Public servants, private‑sector leaders and academics often lack formal training in modern diplomacy, geopolitical analysis and cross‑sector coordination. A proposed Master of Foreign Policy Analysis (MFA) with an embedded Postgraduate Diploma seeks to fill that gap by cultivating a cadre of skilled analysts. The need for such a program is evident when considering that PNG has produced only one comprehensive foreign policy white paper since independence. Active and Selective Engagement , tabled in Parliament on 9 November 1981 following a review commissioned by Sir Michael Somare and championed by Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan, was published in 1982 in the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Review Journal (Volume 1, Number 4) for public circulation. It remains the c...