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by FREDDY
GIGMAI
Managing the unmanageable
PNG and Australia are slowly
reconciling from the wounds of the Brisbane airport incident and
the more current Julian Moti affair.
Optimists would say that an equilibrium has been found – not at
the amicable or hostile end of the continuum but in the middle
where elements of cooperation mix with elements of competition and
conflict.
Pessimists point out that there is little common ground on which
to forge a relationship.
They say PNG should seriously focus its attention towards Asia and
only share with Australia a mutual desire for a stable political
and economic environment, and in maintaining peace in the South
Pacific region amid the demands of Autonomous Bougainville Region,
the Solomon Islands crisis, the Fiji military coup, and the recent
violent uprising in Tonga.
Otherwise, diverging national interests, different political
systems, conflicts over important policy issues, and mutual
distrust will prevail in the PNG-Australia relations.
Rescuing the relationship from becoming a self-fulfilling
adversarial prophecy will require no small degree of leadership,
vision, and political guile on both sides.
In November last year, Foreign Minister Paul Tiensten met with his
counterpart Alexander Downer in Sydney where both agreed to “let
bygones be bygones” and move forward in cementing the strained
relations.
Arresting the downward spiral trend may be difficult, but it is
achievable.
Relations between the US and China, for example, reached a low
point following the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, and remained in the
doldrums until 1994 when then US president Bill Clinton extended
China’s most favoured nation trade status and decoupled it from
human rights criteria.
Clinton’s administration also took the new tack of “comprehensive
engagement”.
The Sino-American relations then pulled out of the doldrums, and
cooperative interaction was reinitiated.
As part of this new strategy, several US officials visited China
and in the process, netted about US$5 billion worth of contracts
for American companies.
It may be, however, that China and the US are destined for a
prolonged period of acrimony and confrontation but the lessons for
Australia and PNG to learn are written on the walls.
Future PNG-Australia relations will be conditioned by a variety of
factors, many beyond the control of either government. Two
elements, however, will remain present.
First, domestic politics in each country will continue to have a
profound – even defining – impact on relations.
This is normal and natural, especially in Australia where the
political system is very stable.
But even PNG has its interest groups and domestic pressures.
Domestic pressures on diplomacy are a fact of life with which both
sides will have to live.
Second, the perception in PNG that Australia challenges, and
interferes with its core national policies and interests will
remain indefinitely.
For PNG, the raison d’etre of its foreign policy in the Pacific
region is anti-hegemony, anti-big power politics, anti-bullying
and anti-pressure tactics and sanctions.
This foreign policy conduct is deeply imbedded in the mindset of
Papua New Guineans, and grows directly out of their cultural
heritage where respect for another man’s land and communal living
is deeply rooted.
For their part, many in Australia see PNG as a weak Pacific giant
that cannot adequately protect Australian commercial and security
interests within the region.
Canberra views PNG’s cooperation on a range of bilateral and
international issues to be marginal at best and presents outright
opposition on occasional occurrence.
In some places, interests do overlap but a deeper struggle of
worldviews between the two is at work.
A mixture of some cooperation (where their interest coincide) and
a lot of friction seems likely if Australia continues to treat PNG
the way it is doing now on matters of sovereign interests.
This will be the case until PNG heads in a more politically and
economically-liberal direction, or until Australia stops acting
like the Pacific superpower that it is, withdraws into its own
boundary and stops trying to induce change in PNG.
Neither is likely to change much in the coming years.
The relationship will remain messy, complex, and infused with a
strong dose of nationalism and ideology.
While not sought by either side, Australia and PNG may
inadvertently be sliding into an adversarial relationship.
To avoid a new “Pacific Cold War”, the two sides must step back
from the brink and realise their larger national interests.
High-level statesmanship and leadership are required to arrest a
downward spiral.
An adversarial relationship between Australia and PNG would be
profoundly damaging to each country, as well as to their ties with
Pacific, Asian, and European partners.
The burden of stabilising the current strained relationship falls
with both sides. Without stability there can be no cooperation.
*The writer is a former journalist and
now press officer to the Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Paul
Tiensten.
 
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