Why Building China Expertise in PNG Matters

by Bernard Yegiora

The publication of my article in the Australian Journal of International Affairs (Volume 79, Issue 6, 2025) coincides with a broader and more pressing issue for PNG: the country has engaged China for five decades, yet it has invested very little in building domestic China expertise capable of informing policy, mentoring scholars, and shaping long-term strategy.

The article appears in a special anniversary issue marking 50 years of PNG’s independence, guest edited by Dr Henry Ivarature. Anniversaries are not simply commemorative moments. They are opportunities to assess institutional capacity, policy maturity, and whether a country has developed the analytical tools needed to manage its most consequential external relationships. China is unquestionably one of those relationships.

My contribution examines five decades of China–PNG relations, situating current debates within a longer historical arc. The core finding is straightforward: China’s presence in PNG is not new, abrupt, or anomalous. What has changed is the scale, scope, and complexity of engagement. What has not kept pace is PNG’s capacity to generate its own China-focused analysis.

This capacity gap is not abstract. It has shaped my own academic journey. My Honours research at the University of PNG examined China’s economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping and their relevance as a paradigm for ideological and economic change in PNG. At the time, there was no Papua New Guinean China expert available to mentor that work. As a result, progress was slow and largely self-directed. Conceptual framing, comparative analysis, and source interpretation had to be built from scratch.

That experience is not unique. It reflects a structural issue: PNG has long engaged China diplomatically and economically, but it has not cultivated a domestic pipeline of scholars and analysts specialising in China. The absence of mentorship lengthens learning curves, fragments knowledge, and weakens continuity across generations of researchers.

My Master’s degree in International Politics at Jilin University built on that foundation. My dissertation, Soft Power as an Analytical Tool in the Case of Rising China, provided theoretical grounding in how influence operates through education, culture, and long-term relationship-building. Studying in China reinforced an important lesson: countries that manage China effectively do so because they invest in expertise, language training, and sustained research—not because they react episodically to external pressure.

Since then, I have spent over 13 years teaching international relations at Divine Word University, including courses on PNG foreign policy, international security, and foreign policy analysis. Across these units, a recurring pattern is evident. China is frequently discussed, but often through second-hand frameworks developed elsewhere. Local, historically grounded, PNG-centred analysis remains limited.

The journal article directly responds to this problem. It does not frame China as a threat or benefactor by default. Instead, it documents patterns of continuity, constraint, and adaptation in the China–PNG relationship across five decades. It shows that PNG’s outcomes in engaging China have depended as much on domestic institutional capacity as on China’s intentions or resources.

My PhD research takes this argument further. It examines China’s soft power in PNG, focusing on media narratives, public perceptions, and higher education exchange programs. The project is based on original survey data, interviews, and media analysis, and is undertaken under the co-supervision of Dr Denghua Zhang of the Australian National University, a scholar who has published widely on China’s engagement in the Pacific. Together with the journal article, this research forms part of a coherent agenda aimed at strengthening PNG’s analytical base on China.

The point is not individual progression. It is institutional learning. Expertise is cumulative and slow to build, especially in environments where mentorship and research infrastructure are thin. The fact that it took years to consolidate this research trajectory underscores why PNG needs deliberate investment in China expertise, not reliance on ad hoc commentary or external analysis.

Publishing in an international journal is therefore a means, not an end. It places PNG-centred analysis into global debates and demonstrates that local scholarship can meet international standards. More importantly, it highlights what is still missing: structured mentorship, sustained funding, and institutional commitment to China studies within PNG universities and policy institutions.

As PNG reflects on 50 years of independence, the question is no longer whether China matters. It is whether PNG is prepared to build the intellectual capacity required to engage China strategically, consistently, and on its own terms. Without domestic China expertise, policy will remain reactive and externally framed.

This article is one small contribution to addressing that gap. The larger task—building China expertise in PNG—remains a national priority.

Article link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/2IDEYXHRWQSNWB2UQJDE/full?target=10.1080/10357718.2025.2575133#abstract