Serious breach of diplomatic protocols: Papua New Guinea strains ties with India by yielding to US bullying tactics

After extensive negotiations over the last year, Papua New Guinea agreed to jointly host with India, the 3rd edition of the Forum of India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC) Summit in Port Moresby, between 21 to 23 May 2023. This included a high-level business delegation coming from India along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit Papua New Guinea and undertake investments into key areas of oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, education, satellite and space industry, renewable energy projects like solar and hydroelectricity, defence cooperation and agricultural sectors. Now, Papua New Guinea, for unknown reasons, has agreed to allow POTUS (President of the United States) to gatecrash this important FIPIC Summit. This has resulted in the cancellation of the Indian business delegation’s plans to visit Papua New Guinea. These actions by Papua New Guinea and the US are being perceived in India as a serious breach of established diplomatic protocols. It is pretty much resulting in the second-grade treatment being given by Papua New Guinea to Prime Minister Modi, who is a democratically elected leader of the largest populated country in the world, and has the third-largest GDP of the world. Now, the latest revelations in MSM are that POTUS has instructed the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand to attend the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Summit in POM on 22 May 2023, when POTUS will be in Papua New Guinea for only three hours!! This effectively has changed what was meant to be a full day FIPIC Summit in Papua New Guinea between the Indian prime minister and the PIF leaders into only a 90-minute event!! All this is because the Papua New Guinea prime minister couldn’t say NO to POTUS bulldozing his way for a meeting with PIF on the same day as FIPIC Summit and Papua New Guinea prime minister decided to accommodate POTUS demands at the last minute! Nobody can understand the urgency of this gatecrashing and bullying initiatives by POTUS in Papua New Guinea, especially considering he’s meeting other world leaders at G7 Summit in Japan a few days before 22 May and then QUAD Leaders Summit in Sydney on 24 May, after which he will travel to the South Pacific region countries to meet individually with the PIF Leaders in their respective countries! This will, unfortunately, reflect very poorly on Papua New Guinea as a country that’s desperate to align with the West but at the same time wants to grow its business with the fastest-growing Asian economy of India! Also, the fact that Papua New Guinea is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) where India is the founding country of Papua New Guinea, reflects poorly on Papua New Guinea’s commitment to NAM! Since many countries have now signed up or applied for BRICS membership, Papua New Guinea has lost a good opportunity to benefit from such BRICS grouping membership. The BRICS economies have combined GDP far greater than G20 economies combined. The BRICS Summit in South Africa is expected to announce an alternative reserve currency for all developing countries to move from their current dependence on USD, which has been weaponised by US & Western countries to retain economic colonial hegemonic control over weak and poor, resources-rich developing countries like Papua New Guinea! This sequence of events reflects a fear amongst US and Western allies of the Indian prime minister’s visit to Papua New Guinea for engaging with South Pacific region countries through an important FIPIC Summit! It also reflects the importance of Prime Minister Modi in the current global climate that’s got fast-moving geopolitical issues impacting humanity at large. The Chinese government will leverage these dramatic diplomatic changes and breaches of protocols to increase its footprint in an unstable South Pacific region. This will increase the isolation of these small countries from their traditional colonial power countries’ hegemonic control as they seek to focus on important matters of global warming and economic growth through partnerships with Asian countries and the future largest economies of the world! Hopefully, Papua New Guinea will reflect seriously on these actions and the potential damage this serious breach of protocols could cause including reputation damage by giving Prime Minister Modi a second place to POTUS, especially after a full year of negotiations for the FIPIC Summit objectives and deliverables, that should have been the focus to grow Papua New Guinea’s economic ties with the largest economies in Asia. Currently, the Papua New Guinea-India trade is only approximately US$200mn, but with targeted approaches into sectors of LNG, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and resources exports, this trade could grow into billions within a few years! The author is based in Australia and is a core committee member, CASA and Adjunct Fellow, National Maritime Foundation of India. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.