VANGUARD - Expressing the viewpoint of the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)
For National Independence and Socialism • www.cpaml.org
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The recent Australia-Papua New Guinea Pukpuk mutual defence treaty (named after the PNG Pidgin word for “crocodile”) forms a small, but highly significant, component part of the wider US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), which is responsible for the waves of Cold War militarism sweeping the vast region.
The small print contained in the treaty is likely to eventually cause problems for both countries. The changing regional balance of forces has already created problems for traditional US hegemonic positions. The declaration by Bougainville, likewise, to move toward full independence in the next few years is also an important consideration.
The Pukpuk mutual defence treaty was greeted by Canberra as a significant step toward defence and security provision in the South Pacific. The big print of the treaty contained reference to both countries having an obligation to 'act to meet the common danger if either comes under attack'. (1) Other similar references included 'Australia's plans form a hub and spoke security network with our closest neighbours'. (2)
Media coverage of the treaty tended to play down the fact that PNG's South Pacific neighbours, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, wanted nothing to do with the treaty or similar provision. The Solomon Islands already have a security pact with China, signed in 2022; Vanuatu, likewise, has China-led police and security training programs. (3)
Opposition to the Pukpuk treaty inside PNG also raised serious concerns that it would 'threaten PNG's independent foreign policy and could draw the country into a future war with China'. (4)
It remains highly significant to note that the Pukpuk treaty contained reference to PNG being elevated with defence and security provision 'to the same status as its alliance ties with the US and New Zealand', carrying hallmarks of the US-led IPS remaining an important consideration behind the scenes. (5)
The revamped IPS has a framework where the US, Japan, India and Australia, have established a 'quad' containing and encircling China on all sides; other regional countries have then been linked through one or more of the 'quad' as lower-level partners. (6) The IPS, furthermore, also has the main US-Japan alliance upgraded to that of a global alliance, and the recent Pukpuk treaty closely followed other high-level diplomatic initiatives between Australia and Japan.
As the balance of forces swings against traditional US-led regional hegemonic positions, moves pushed by the Pentagon have become ever more desperate to block China's diplomatic initiatives in the vast Indo-Pacific region.
It is not particularly difficult to establish the small print of the Pukpuk treaty, despite it not being well publicised.
Six years ago, more than 97 per cent of the people of Bougainville, an island part of PNG, voted for the autonomous region to seek full independence. The final decision is still in the hands of the PNG government, and part of a longer agenda stretching back to before PNG was granted independence in 1975.
The people of Bougainville were included into the sovereignty of PNG by the Australian colonial administration, despite declaring their independence; the demands of the Bougainvillians were never accepted by either Canberra or Port Moresby. (7)
Geographically, nevertheless, Bougainville is the largest island in the Western Pacific's Solomon Islands Chain, and five hundred miles from PNG. (8) The subsequent independence war fought between 1988 and 1998, led by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) against PNG, resulted in widespread human right abuses.
To date, the whole matter has simmered on longer and not straightforward neo-colonial agendas. The fact that Bougainville hosted the enormous Panguna mine, which was closed by the BRA, has recently been assessed as still containing 5.3 million tonnes of copper and 547 tonnes of gold, remains a major consideration. (9) The deposits have been estimated to be valued at about $60-100 billion. (10)
As an act of defiance, Bougainville has recently set 2027 as the date from which they will establish full independence. The move has been strengthened by the recent re-election of the President Ishmael Toroama, a former BRA leader and leading political figure in Bougainville.
It remains unclear whether PNG will even agree to the creation of a new country in the South Pacific; they have not accepted the proposed 2027 deadline. (11) An official statement from Port Moresby, for example, noted the whole matter was regarded as 'still subject to the parliamentary process'. (12) Political leaders in PNG have long feared ethnic considerations potentially resulting in other independence struggles, including the Western Province bordering on West Papua and controlled by Indonesia.
PNG, therefore, has a constitution which enables conscientious objection as a right for all military personnel; due to extensive ethnic groupings and rivalries it was created to prevent separatist threats to the sovereignty of PNG itself. The Pukpuk treaty, however, would appear a way around constitutional problems, by placing Australia as potentially the main policing power in the region, if, and when, required, under IPS supervision.
Part of the treaty, for example, has provision for 10,000 PNG citizens to serve in the Australian Defence Forces. (13) The move was, however, supported by an official media release acknowledging that 'Bougainville is a no-military zone for the PNG Defence Force
.. . this would ensure there would be no stepping into Bougainville by PNG's military or police'. (14)
Canberra and Port Moresby, have, therefore, used the Pulpuk treaty to circumvent problems arising with interpretations of PNG's constitution. It has been noted, for example, that while the PNG Defence Force report to their Commander, including Papua New Guineans in the ADF, those accepting Australian citizenship report to their respective Commander in Canberra. (15) The PNG constitution does not allow joint citizenship. The status of former PNG Defence Force personnel attached to the ADF and serving at the Lombrum base on Manus Island, which has been recently upgraded by Australia for rapid deployment into the wider region, therefore, has yet to be officially clarified.
Reading the small print of the Pukpuk treaty would tend to indicate, however, that Australian defence and security provision has been extended into PNG to safeguard long-time neo-colonial and economically dependent interests, particularly with Bougainville. References, elsewhere, to Australia viewing Bougainville as a 'strategically important inner security arc', have shown just how close class and state power considerations and assessments remain to Canberra's diplomatic thinking in regard to the South Pacific.
The fact that Bougainville rests on an arc from sensitive military facilities in Queensland and the Northern Territories, swinging across the whole of the South Pacific, including counterparts in Port Moresby and Lae in PNG, leaves little to the imagination. (16) There remains a fine line between genuine defence and security considerations and general interference inside other political systems. The localised Australian facilities, for example, enable the constant monitoring and surveillance of all movements and developments taking place in their designated area of interest. They are, subsequently, also over-ridden by US facilities based at Pine Gap, with a global range for monitoring and surveillance, specifically for counter-insurgency and counter-intelligence provision. (17)
The Pukpuk treatyis a component part of the US-led IPS:
We need an independent foreign policy!
1. PNG set to approve Pukpuk defence treaty, The Weekend Australian, 4/5 October 2025.
2. The pain of Pacific's twice-jilted bride, Australian, 18 September 2025.
3. China's influence mission in the Pacific, The Weekend Australian, 13-14 September 2025.
4. Retired PNG general seeking legal advice on Pukpuk treaty, Australian, 23 September 2025.
5. Weekend Australian, op.cit., 4/5 October 2025.
6. See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
7. See: How China is paving the way for Bougainville independence, The Asia Times, 12 June 2025.
8. Bougainville's long goodbye to colonialism, Who, What, Why, 24 July 2025.
9. Asia Times, op.cit., 12 June 2025.
10. Who, What, Why, op.cit., 24 July 2025.
11. PNG's Bougainville leader see independence by 2027, Islands Business, 12 December 2024.
12. Ibid.
13. PNG pact could put PNG troops into Bougainville, Australian, 7 October 2025.
14. Ibid.
15. See: Military treaty to boost PNG force, Australian, 3 October 2025.
16. See: Peters Projection, World Map, Actual Size.
17. See: Pine Gap is a place for counter-insurgency, IPAN., (South Australia), 24 July 2025.