By Leonard Fong Roka
Like many other formerly colonized states, Papua New Guinea was given independence on a golden plate, unprepared. She was unprepared in terms of the intellectual capacity, that is, the level of educated persons to drive the country’s political and economic mechanism forward minimising the level of external forces off, was not there.
This is well portrayed by the nature of Papua New Guinea’s moderate approach to diplomacy. Such, behaviour or characteristics given to Papua New Guinea shows just how much the country lacks power to design and force its national interest to gain its desired results. I could say that, in such circumstances, foreign policy is so influenced by external factors or forces—non state and state actors. This is capitalism taking the upper hand.
Yet though, I am ascertaining that, the seven policy approaches the country did created since independence had their own good-and-bad story needing analysis.
In this discourse, I will show few significant weaknesses and gains of these policy catch phrases. To support my points I shall try to outline certain experiences that Papua New Guinea has gone through in the recent years.
Before I go further, let me bring forward what other scholars have said of Papua New Guinea’s policy making culture:
‘Researching, analysing and writing about the making, content and implementation of Papua New Guinea foreign policy since independence is complicated by a number of quite practical factors (apart from the requirements of public service confidentiality, respect for the records of previous governments, and the secrecy which applies to exchanges and a very small number of agreements with other governments)’1.
From this piece, we conclude that Papua New Guinea is careless or irresponsible in nurturing a determined acting role in its position in the international system. Papua New Guinea has a high level of fluidity in the political realm characterised by continuous change or restructuring of the departmental or governmental framework. Corruption also, greatly affects the national interest promotion capacity. This weakens a goal oriented drive in the diplomatic sea thus; we could say that, all seven Papua New Guinea ‘catch phrases’ were often subjected to political turbulences.
Papua New Guinea’s foreign policy since independence are said to have been based on two broad approaches: (1). Universalism, and (2). Active & Selective Engagement (Bernard Yegiora, 2012 lecture PowerPoint). Universalism is so centred on ‘almost inevitable postures for the government of a newly-independent state concerned to display and maintain its independence’2 and Active & Selective Engagement, walks out of being too liberal and open to calculating benefits that Papua New Guinea can harvest in a relationship.
At independence in 1975, PNG took ‘friends to all and enemy to none’. Being a newly created state, this approach was vital as a measure of introduction into the tangle of global politics. The ‘catch phrase’ was more a symbol of neutrality in the then Cold War era between the USSR and the USA. On the hand, however, I could say that the policy, to many well developed countries and peoples, it looks more like a cowardice leadership bringing into birth a state that is worth playing around with.
Furthermore, the policy came short of creating a foundation for the future development of policy strategy. As stated that, ‘‘friend to all, and enemy of none,’ it did not provide a clear rationale for the future development of relations, especially as it might involve setting priorities or making choices’ (ibid, p3). That is, it did not clearly defined, for example by setting documented precedence, for the future to engage into pursuing the national goals in the so competitive international system. That is, it just cannot give PNG a early moulding to attaining a determined step in policy creation.
The second approach, ‘active and selective engagement’ came about towards the end of 1979 and implemented in 1980. This one, however, plays the opposite, Papua New Guinea now having some degree of confidence in itself, turn to establish its position in the world to strictly pursue her liking.
The ‘active and selective engagement’ is to me, the by-product of missing out on gains in the first universalistic approach. This negative picture can be gleaned from the quote:
‘The third element represented an early attempt to reach out to Papua New Guinea’s Asian neighbours — cautiously, for the reasons just outlined. The main outcome was a number of statements promoting cooperation between the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation (SPEC, which later became the South Pacific Forum Secretariat, now the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat) and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and not-very-productive meetings between senior officials of the two regional organizations’ (ibid, p 4).
I could say that this was a run-away strategy from the former regime. But in this escape, how does PNG benefits in regard to Indonesia and the West Papua conflict? In PNG-Indonesia relations the bottom line is PNG’s fear and avoidance of conflict with Indonesia. PNG is not that selective, but gives in to deny Melanesians in West Papua.
The third catch phrase from 1985-1988 is, ‘independent commitment to international cooperation’ was more literally, stand-alone approach to the international system. PNG did attempted, if not, to pursue its ambitions without interference.
But one classical success of this is the return of ABC correspondent, Sean Dorney in 1987 after he was deported in 19843. Here, the approach seemingly upheld commitment to democratic principles. But, a clear failure is the ignorance of the Bougainvillean protesters on BCL that led to the conflict.
The next was from 1988- 1992, this was the ‘economic aspects of active and selective engagement’. I could word this as ‘attempts by the state to sample up every relationship for greater economic gain’ that is, PNG must enjoy a win-win relationship for the good of the state.
The fifth catch phrase, ‘look north’ was in place between 1992 and 1994. As can be perceived, it was a direction to the economic raise of Asia, especially China, that stunning the world with a rapid growth. Its gains are obvious, we have Chinese investment in PNG and one negative aspects of it is that it is not controlling the influx of Asians that are taking what PNG citizens should own.
Between 1994 and 1997, PNG had the catch phrase ‘look north and work the Pacific’ as its compass. Its purpose was to strengthen local relationships as the power base and selectively navigate friendship with Asia for economic gains.
My personal criticism on this is on the second-half of the phrase ‘…work the Pacific’. In March 1992, my relatives were attacked by an infiltrating single PNGDF banana boat at a family property on Kariki bay of Choiseul island (Western Province) after they were attacked at Taurato islet in the PNG side of the border. PNG did not apologise to Honiara for this coward’s mission. But, the positive impact is the massive Asian influence in PNG that the country is enjoying.
The current policy approach is ‘reinforcing our core relationships’ that was created in 1996. Analysing this, we could say that this catch phrase is more an outcome of evaluation of the lane of diplomatic interactions PNG had gone through so far.
And, I could say that commentary on this catch-phrase is not that clear as yet. Reconstruction and so on, I believe is still going on within the official realms thus, conclusions could be off-track as yet. But, some positive signs are obvious in the example of the LNG project and the economic growth in the country.
In summary, PNG has a developing state had done well, generally. In other respects there are also loopholes the state has gone through.
The walk is long and I think PNG should still be walking with the process of adaptation. After all, practice makes perfect.
Reference
· Bernard Yegiora (PNG Foreign Policy Lecture Notes, 2012 Semester 1).
· 1,2 & all (ibid) references to http://epress.anu.edu.au/ssgm/policy_making/mobile_devices/ch09s04.html
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