WASHINGTON: Joe Biden, the President of the United States, is set to meet with 18 leaders from the South Pacific region during his visit to Papua New Guinea in May, according to a top regional diplomat.
Biden’s visit comes as China and the US compete for influence in the South Pacific. The region was previously seen as a diplomatic backwater, but it has become an arena for powers to vie for political, commercial and military influence.
Foreign Minister of Papua New Guinea Justin Tkatchenko said that Biden would hold bilateral talks with his hosts and attend a meeting with the Pacific Island leaders.
The eighteen-member Pacific Island Forum is a regional alliance of mostly small states scattered across the vast swath of the ocean. The Australian and New Zealand Prime Ministers will also attend.
Joe Biden is set to become the first sitting US president in at least a century to visit Papua New Guinea when he arrives on May 22.
According to State Department records dating back to Theodore Roosevelt’s administration in 1901, no sitting US president has visited Papua New Guinea. Joe Biden is also scheduled to attend a G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, and a summit of the Quad – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – in Sydney in May.
China’s growing influence in South Pacific
The US special representative Joseph Yun said this week that the United States was playing “catch-up” after years of neglect in which China’s influence increased across the South Pacific.
China recently signed a secretive security agreement with the Solomon Islands, east of Papua New Guinea, that could allow Chinese forces to be deployed or based there.
A state-backed Chinese company availed a contract in March to develop the international port in Honiara, the capital, a major victory in Beijing’s quest to gain a strategic hold in the South Pacific. The region could prove crucial in any possible military conflagration over Taiwan.
Biden’s trip may also finalize a US-Papua New Guinea Defence Cooperation Pact that would allow more joint training and the development of security infrastructure. The US is working to establish a joint naval facility at Lombrum on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.
Construction began in mid-2020, according to Australia’s Department of Defence, which is also taking part in the initiative. Four Guardian-class patrol boats are eventually expected to be based at the facility.
