Is China Becoming a Traditional Security Partner for PNG?

By Bernard Yegiora

A recent statement by Police Minister Sir John Pundari raises an important question about how PNG classifies its external security relationships: should China now be regarded as one of PNG’s traditional security partners?

According to an article published by The National, Sir John reaffirmed PNG’s commitment to strengthening relations with its traditional security partners while discussing proposed Chinese assistance to the Royal PNG Constabulary. The cooperation reportedly includes autonomous drones, information exchange, targeted training and prefabricated housing for police officers in remote areas. These measures are intended to improve surveillance, intelligence-led policing and the State’s response to illegal firearms, organised crime and cross-border criminal networks.

Screenshot of The National article, “Security ties prioritised,” published on 17 September 2026, which prompted this reflection on China’s evolving security relationship with Papua New Guinea. Source: The National.

The announcement is significant. It demonstrates that China’s engagement with PNG is moving further into an area historically dominated by Australia and, to a lesser extent, other established partners such as New Zealand and the United States. It also invites closer reflection on what governments mean when they use the term “traditional security partner.”

What makes a security partner “traditional”?

China is unquestionably a longstanding diplomatic partner of PNG. Formal diplomatic relations were established soon after PNG gained independence, and the bilateral relationship has developed across trade, investment, infrastructure, education, health and development cooperation. The durability of that relationship should not be understated.

However, a longstanding diplomatic partner is not necessarily a traditional security partner.

In my 2025 journal article, “Fifty years of China–Papua New Guinea relations: strategic shifts, developmental diplomacy, and the future trajectory”, I traced the bilateral relationship from 1976 to 2025. The historical record shows that the relationship was initially driven by diplomatic diversification and economic opportunity. It subsequently expanded through trade, aid, infrastructure, resource investment, health cooperation, education diplomacy and people-to-people exchanges. Security cooperation did not occupy the same sustained or central position in the relationship.

The article identifies economic motivations as the principal driver of China–PNG relations. It also observes that PNG has generally looked to China and initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative for economic opportunities while continuing to depend on traditional partners, particularly Australia and the United States, for security cooperation. Bilateral security proposals involving China emerge much later in the historical account and largely within the context of intensifying strategic competition in the Pacific.

My more recent reflections on the Chinese Embassy's public displays provide a second, more contemporary indication of this historical emphasis. In “How China Presented Its Partnership” and “One Visit, Two Articles and My PhD Research”, I discussed how the Embassy presented the bilateral relationship through education, health, agriculture, infrastructure, commerce and people-to-people cooperation. None of the display panels presented bilateral policing or defence cooperation as a major field of the relationship.

That omission should not be overstated. A diplomatic exhibition is selective and cannot establish that security cooperation did not exist. China has, for example, provided military and defence scholarships that enabled PNG Defence Force officers to study in China. Such professional military education constitutes genuine defence engagement and may build personal networks, institutional familiarity and knowledge of Chinese military systems.

Nevertheless, scholarships for individual officers are narrower than a comprehensive security partnership built around regular joint operations, extensive interoperability, sustained policing programs, formal intelligence arrangements and deeply embedded institutional cooperation. Their existence qualifies the claim that security cooperation was entirely absent, but it does not overturn the broader historical conclusion: security was not among the principal or most publicly prominent pillars of China–PNG relations for much of the period since 1976.

This history provides an important basis for distinguishing between diplomatic longevity and security longevity. China has been PNG’s diplomatic partner since 1976, but the two countries have not spent the entire period building a continuous and deeply institutionalised bilateral security relationship. Nearly five decades of diplomatic relations cannot therefore be treated automatically as five decades of security partnership.

Within PNG and the wider Pacific, the word “traditional” usually refers to countries with which Pacific states have maintained extensive defence and policing relationships over a long period. These relationships are supported by formal agreements, regular training, personnel exchanges, operational cooperation, institutional familiarity and, in some cases, shared military history. Australia occupies the most prominent position in PNG’s security system because of geography, colonial history and decades of defence, policing and development cooperation.

China’s substantial involvement in the Pacific security sector is comparatively recent. For this reason, political leaders, policymakers and academics frequently describe China as a new or emerging security partner. That description is largely based on the timeline and institutional depth of its bilateral security activities, rather than the age of China’s diplomatic relations with Pacific countries.

Time, however, is not the only relevant consideration. Security partnerships evolve through repetition. Training programs, equipment transfers, information exchange and sustained contact between institutions can gradually convert a new relationship into an established one. The boundary between an emerging partner and a traditional partner is therefore neither permanent nor universally agreed.

What the minister’s statement actually says

The wording reported by The National deserves careful attention. Sir John referred to PNG’s enduring relationships with its traditional security partners and then described China’s proposed support as complementing the long-term work undertaken with those partners.

This does not conclusively place China within the traditional-partner category. Instead, it appears to distinguish China from PNG’s traditional partners while recognising that Beijing can provide targeted and practical assistance.

That distinction matters. It presents PNG’s security policy as diversification rather than strategic replacement. PNG is not necessarily abandoning its established partners or choosing China over them. It is seeking assistance from a wider range of countries to address immediate domestic security problems.

This is consistent with PNG’s broader foreign-policy tradition of maintaining friendly relations with multiple partners. Yet diversification is not the same as neutrality without consequences. Every new security relationship can affect institutional practices, technical systems and external perceptions.

From equipment to institutional influence

The proposed Chinese assistance should not be viewed simply as the provision of equipment. Autonomous drones, for example, require trained operators, maintenance arrangements, software support, communications systems and procedures for storing and analysing collected information. What begins as a technical donation can create an enduring relationship between the recipient institution and the foreign supplier.

Information exchange and specialised training carry even greater institutional significance. They may influence how threats are identified, how intelligence is assessed and how policing operations are planned. Repeated engagement can establish professional networks and habits of cooperation that persist beyond individual projects or changes of government.

This does not mean Chinese assistance is inherently problematic. PNG faces serious operational challenges, including illegal firearms, transnational crime, inadequate police infrastructure and limited state presence in remote areas. Refusing practical support merely because it comes from a non-traditional partner would not necessarily serve the national interest.

The central issue is whether such cooperation is governed by PNG’s laws, priorities and institutional safeguards.

Sovereignty must remain central

Any expansion of foreign-supported surveillance and information-sharing capabilities must be accompanied by clear accountability arrangements. PNG should establish who will control information collected by drones, where that information will be stored, who may access it and how misuse will be prevented. Parliament and the public should also know whether the technology can operate securely alongside systems supplied by other partners.

The question of sustainability is equally important. Equipment that cannot be maintained locally can produce technological dependency rather than institutional capacity. Training should therefore include technical maintenance, data governance and the progressive transfer of knowledge to PNG personnel.

These requirements should apply to assistance from every external partner, not only China. PNG’s national interest is not protected by trusting one group of partners while automatically distrusting another. It is protected through transparent agreements, strong domestic institutions and consistent oversight.

An emerging partner becoming established

China should not yet be described as a traditional PNG security partner in the same historical and institutional sense as Australia. Its contemporary role in policing and security cooperation remains comparatively new. Nevertheless, describing China indefinitely as a “new” partner may eventually become analytically inaccurate.

China’s position is changing. Its engagement is moving from economic and development cooperation into policing technology, training, information exchange and security infrastructure. If these activities continue and become regular features of bilateral relations, China will increasingly become an established security partner—even if policymakers remain reluctant to call it a traditional one.

The more important question is therefore not whether China already carries the traditional label. It is what kind of security partner China is becoming, how that relationship will be managed and whether PNG will retain effective control over the institutions and capabilities developed through it.

PNG needs assistance to confront serious internal and transnational threats. It also needs a coherent national framework for assessing all security partnerships. Partnerships should be judged by whether they strengthen PNG’s sovereignty, institutional competence and public security—not simply by whether the participating country is described as traditional or emerging.

The terminology will continue to evolve. PNG’s national interest must remain constant.