WASHINGTON – U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s visit to Papua New Guinea will focus, in part, on detailed discussion establishing a U.S. military presence in the country, according to experts.

Underpinning the establishment of a U.S. military presence in PNG is the Defense Cooperation Agreement the two countries signed in May.

The Defense Cooperation Agreement “will form the foundational framework for the two countries to enhance bilateral security cooperation” and “improve the capacity of the Papua New Guinea Defense Force,” said a statement released by the Pentagon on Tuesday.

“This is a major step for both the United States and Papua New Guinea,” said Zack Cooper, former special assistant to the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy during the George W. Bush administration and now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

“U.S. officials know that they need to have access to more facilities in the Indo-Pacific region, but most of that access has been limited to existing U.S. treaty allies and a limited set of long-standing partnerships. Papua New Guinea is the first major new access point for the United States in years,” Cooper told VOA Korean via email.

“Defense Secretary Austin’s trip is likely to focus on the details and implementation, as well as providing a visible indication of growing U.S.-PNG ties,” said Terence Roehrig, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.

“His visit will also likely seek to allay any concerns in Papua New Guinea that this will lead to a permanent U.S. base and somehow infringe on the country’s sovereignty, an important issue since the agreement has yet to be ratified in the PNG parliament,” he told VOA’s Korean Service via email.

The defense agreement will be released officially after the PNG parliament ratifies it as expected in August. It will allow the U.S. to station troops and vessels at six sites including Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island, according to Agence France-Presse, which obtained a copy of the agreement.

“These six sites are useful for both air and naval forces, which are both critical in the large expanses across the Pacific,” said Cooper. “For Papua New Guinea, I think this will open up new possibilities in terms of not only security cooperation but also economic assistance. This trip will help solidify those arrangements.”

Experts said Austin’s visit featuring discussions with PNG Prime Minister James Marape and his top defense officials is important as the region has become another theater of U.S.-China rivalry.

Dennis Wilder, who served as the National Security Council director for China from 2004-05, told VOA’s Korean Service via email that Austin’s trip “demonstrates that the region is a priority and that the United States will make considerable efforts to counter China’s attempts to bring the region into its sphere of influence” while the security pact “strengthens the U.S. footprint in the western Pacific.”

Roehrig said the U.S. ties with PNG are important “to keep pace with Beijing’s presence in the South Pacific” and to “ensure regional access.”

Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA’s Korean Service via email Tuesday that China is “not opposed to countries’ efforts to grow ties with Papua New Guinea and other Pacific Island countries.”

“We always advocate,” he continued, that the international community to give “more attention and support” to island nations and that “the negotiation and signing of any cooperation document should help realize this goal.”

He added, however, that “we should be on alert particularly for geopolitical games under the pretext of cooperation” and that “any cooperation should not target at any third country.”

For China, the region is the so-called Air Silk Road, an important part of its Belt and Road Initiative that seeks to connect Asia and Central and South America through Pacific Island countries.

According to Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation research center, in addition to the first island-chain, which includes Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia, China has been seeking to exert its dominance over the second island-chain comprising countries in the South Pacific such as Palau, Solomon Islands and PNG.

“China has this notion of the first island chain that they totally want to control, and a second island chain, which the Solomons could be part of, where it would establish pretty significant control,” said Bennett in a telephone interview. “The U.S. doesn’t want China to get there.”

According to the Australian Institute of International Affairs, the first chain comprises the Kuril Islands, the main Japanese archipelago, Okinawa, the northern part of the Philippines archipelago, the Malay Peninsula and Taiwan. The second consists of the islands of Japan stretching to Guam and the islands of Micronesia.

China reached a security agreement with the Solomon Islands in April 2022. The security agreement allows China to send ships to the islands to “carry out logistical replacement” as well as military forces to “protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects.”

Cooper said: “China will probably step up efforts in Solomon Islands and other locations in response, so American leaders and their counterparts will want to watch closely to see what Beijing might do in the coming weeks and months.”
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The U.S. Federal Reserve raised a key interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday, citing still-elevated inflation as a rationale for what is now the highest U.S. central bank policy rate since 2007.

The hike, the Fed’s 11th in its last 12 meetings, set the federal funds rate – the benchmark rate on overnight loans that banks charge each other – in the 5.25%-5.50% range. That level was last seen just prior to the 2007 housing market crash, and it has not been consistently exceeded on an effective basis for about 22 years.

“The [Federal Open Market] Committee will continue to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy,” the Fed said in language that was little changed from its June statement and left the central bank’s policy options open as it searches for a stopping point to the current tightening cycle.

As it stated in June, the Fed said it would watch incoming data and study the impact of its rate hikes on the economy “in determining the extent of additional policy firming that may be appropriate” to reach its 2% inflation target.

Though inflation data since the Fed’s June 13-14 meeting has been weaker than expected, policymakers have been reluctant to alter their hawkish stance until there is more progress in reducing price pressures.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said any future policy decisions would be made on a meeting-by-meeting basis, and that in the current environment officials could provide only limited guidance about what’s next for monetary policy.

But he didn’t rule out action if it was deemed necessary.

“It is certainly possible that we would raise the funds rate again at the September meeting if the data warranted, and I would also say it’s possible that we would choose to hold steady at that meeting” if that was the right policy call, Powell said in a press conference after the release of the policy statement.

But Powell cautioned against expecting any near-term easing in rates. “We’ll be comfortable cutting rates when we’re comfortable cutting rates, and that won’t be this year,” Powell said.

Yields on both the two- and 10-year Treasury notes moved down modestly from levels right before the release of the Fed’s policy statement, while U.S. stocks ended mixed. Futures markets showed bets on the path of Fed rate increases over the remainder of the year were little changed, seeing small odds of a rise in September.

“The forward guidance remains unchanged as the committee leaves the door open to further rate hikes if inflation does not continue to trend lower,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide. “Our view is the Fed is likely done with rate hikes for this cycle since continued easing of inflation will passively lead to tighter policy as the Fed holds the nominal fed funds rate steady into 2024.”

‘Moderate’ growth

Key measures of inflation remain more than double the Fed’s target, and the economy by many measures, including a low 3.6% unemployment rate, continues to outperform expectations given the rapid increase in interest rates.

Job gains remain “robust,” the Fed said, while it described the economy as growing at a “moderate” pace, a slight upgrade from the “modest” pace seen as of the June meeting. The U.S. government on Thursday is expected to report the economy grew at a 1.8% annual pace in the second quarter, according to economists polled by Reuters.

Powell said he’s still holding out hope the economy can achieve a “soft landing,” a scenario in which inflation falls, unemployment remains relatively low and a recession is avoided.

“My base case is we’ll be able to achieve inflation moving back down to our target without the kind of really significant downturn that results in high levels of job losses,” he said, while noting that outlook is “a long way from assured.” He also noted that Fed staff economists are no longer predicting a recession as they have at recent meetings.

With about eight weeks until the next Fed meeting, a longer than usual interlude, continued moderation in the pace of price increases could make this the last rate hike in a process that began with a cautious quarter-percentage-point increase in March 2022 before accelerating into the most rapid monetary tightening since the 1980s.

In the most recent economic projections from Fed policymakers, 12 of 18 officials expected at least one more quarter-percentage-point increase would be needed by the end of this year.
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Cambodian officials say renovation work on a naval base in the coastal city of Sihanoukville is nearly complete, but U.S. officials have voiced suspicions the facility, being upgraded by China, will be used exclusively by China’s military.

Suspicions about China’s intentions for the Ream naval base were raised after satellite imagery showed that a major pier capable of anchoring aircraft carriers had been constructed on the site.

Chhum Socheat, a spokesman for the Cambodia National Defense Ministry, confirmed to VOA Khmer that the work will be completed soon but said, “I don’t know the inauguration day.”

He denied speculation that China will use the base to expand its influence in the region against its rival, the United States.

“I regret that there is untrue information. Cambodia is very small. They [some countries] have bad intentions on our country,” he said.

“Some countries don’t acknowledge the truth, and they still say untrue information,” he said.

Satellite imagery taken by BlackSky, a U.S. commercial imagery company that monitors the construction at Ream naval base, noted “the rapid pace of development of a large Chinese military naval station from August 2021 until July 2023.”

“There is a near-exact similarity between an angled deep-water pier located on the western shore of the Ream base and another military pier at the People’s Liberation Army Support Base in Djibouti.

“Both main piers are 363 meters long and large enough to support any ship in China’s naval arsenal, including the new 300-meter-long Type 003 Fujian aircraft carrier,” said Craig Singleton, China Program deputy director and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in a July 24 release on BlackSky’s website.

In August 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised the issue with the Cambodian government about the naval base it is modernizing with Chinese funds, saying use of the site would pose a threat to Southeast Asia if used exclusively for China’s military. He made his remarks during a visit to Phnom Penh.

In discussing the naval base, Blinken told VOA Khmer that U.S. concern “is first and foremost in making sure that Cambodia has a truly independent foreign policy, and is not, does not feel pressured, of course, by anyone.”

“And when it comes to the Ream naval base, I think countries throughout the region would be very concerned if any one country had exclusive control or use of any portion of the base or was doing anything there that undermined the security of other countries in the region. So, I think it’s important to have transparency and to make sure that the base is open to all, and not the exclusive use of any one country,” the top U.S. diplomat said.

Political analyst Em Sovannara told VOA Khmer the Ream base is “a very sensitive issue” that requires the Cambodian government to be transparent to allay U.S. suspicions.

”If it is just a political statement via news outlets, it can’t solve or clear doubts from the U.S. Thus, there should be other mechanisms for strengthening diplomatic ties with the U.S., which is a way to solve the issue,” he said.

The United States has alleged that China will maintain a military presence at Ream, Beijing’s second such overseas outpost and its first in the strategically significant Indo-Pacific region. It also has an outpost in Djibouti, at the mouth of the Red Sea.

Tea Banh, Cambodia’s defense minister, said in June 2022 the Ream base would most likely not be open for full examination by any foreigners after completion.

He said that Cambodia would not allow any foreign military base on its soil and “has no intention to provoke any threats to any country, and Cambodia is never against other countries’ ‘military building efforts.’”

“Cambodia just wants to strengthen its protection capacities to curb against pressure and impacts of the current geopolitics competition,” he said, adding, “Cambodia has no policy to choose one country against one country.”

In October 2022, the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh told VOA Khmer the Cambodian government had “not been fully transparent about the intent, nature and scope of this project.”

Ream is on the Gulf of Thailand near the South China Sea, where China has claimed sovereignty and disregarded international law.

The Wall Street Journal in 2019 also reported that China had signed an agreement to have People’s Liberation Army officers stationed at the naval base. Satellite imagery has shown the demolition of buildings, some built by the United States, and the recent construction of two structures on the base’s northern half.

Some information for this article comes from Agence France-Presse.
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A towering construction crane caught fire high above the west side of Manhattan on Wednesday morning, then lost its long arm, which smashed against a nearby building, dangled and then plummeted to the street as people ran for their lives on the sidewalk below. 

Four people suffered minor injuries, but no one died, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. 

“As you can see from the debris on the street, this could have been much worse,” the Democrat said, noting that the street at that hour of the morning is often filled with pedestrians, cars and buses. 

The fire atop the 54-story building was reported around 7:25 a.m. Photos and videos posted on social media showed flames bursting from the car of a crane hundreds of feet above 10th Avenue at 41st Street. The crane’s arm, which was carrying a 16-ton load, snapped off after the fire had been burning for a period of time. 

The person operating the crane tried to put out the fire as it spread, but then had to flee to safety, according to Fire Department First Deputy Commissioner Joseph Pfeifer. 

Firefighters stationed on a roof deck of another building used hoses to battle the blaze. Surrounding streets were closed to traffic. 

The fire’s cause was being investigated. 

The location is near the Port Authority Bus Terminal and an entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, which carries auto traffic to and from New Jersey under the Hudson River. 
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Top U.S. military officials and diplomats are embarking this week on another concerted push against Chinese influence across the Indo-Pacific, hoping to expand security agreements with key Pacific Island nations. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea late Wednesday for a series of meetings with the country’s prime minister and top defense officials. 

The visit to Papua New Guinea, the first by a sitting U.S. secretary of defense, comes just months after the two countries signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement, meant to serve as a framework for enhancing the capabilities of Port Moresby’s defense forces and establishing a U.S. military presence – with rotational forces – on the island. 

From there, Austin is set to travel to Brisbane, Australia, for the 33rd annual Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN), where he will be joined by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their Australian counterparts.   

Blinken will arrive in Australia after a visit to the island nation of Tonga, where he dedicated a new U.S. embassy, and a stop in New Zealand. 

The visits by Austin and Blinken are being supplemented by other trips to the region by high-ranking U.S. officials, including a visit by Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff to New Zealand and Samoa, and an upcoming trip by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia. 

“We see ourselves as delivering results with partners,” a senior U.S. defense official said Monday, ahead of Austin’s visit to Papua New Guinea. “The secretary’s hitting the road again to keep the momentum moving forward in the region.” 

Focus on defense agreement

For Austin, the key focus for his meetings in Port Moresby will be on the recently signed defense agreement, which still needs to be ratified by Papua New Guinea’s parliament.   

U.S. officials said they are optimistic the deal will be ratified “quite soon,” adding it is something “that both sides really wanted.” 

“The agreement will serve as a foundational framework for us to enhance our security cooperation, improve the capacity of the PNG [Papua New Guinea] defense forces, allow us to respond to humanitarian and regional crises, and also expand the scope of our [military] exercises,” said a second defense official, who like the first briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. 

The official also expressed confidence that officials from both countries will make progress on a second deal — a so-called shiprider agreement — that allows Papua New Guinea personnel to sail on U.S. Coast Guard ships. 

“This is really important and really valuable for enhancing maritime domain awareness and combating things like illegal unregulated and unreported fishing,” the official said. 

Concern about China  

Yet for all the optimism, there is growing concern about pushback from China in response to U.S. efforts.   

During a visit to the U.S. last week, the president of Palau, a small Pacific Island nation, warned Beijing is actively trying to influence politicians in his country and others to prevent them from gravitating to Washington. 

“All the Chinese need to do is get a new president that favors what they want to do and they can change it,” Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. said during an event in Washington.  

And Whipps said Beijing’s strategy is meeting with some success, having managed to curry favor with some of his fellow politicians by offering economic incentives that Washington has yet to match.   

Pressed on China’s outreach campaign and offers of economic cooperation, some U.S. officials downplayed the concerns. 

“Our approach… is to demonstrate value and to demonstrate the ways in which we can contribute meaningfully to a long term, mutually beneficial security relationship,” said the second senior defense official. 

“In every one of our alliances and partnerships throughout the region, we are working to ensure they’re delivering for the partners and for the host countries,” the official said. “And I think that’s true in every instance.” 

As evidence, they point to agreements like the ones signed by Papua New Guinea and also to military exercises like Talisman Sabre, getting underway in Australia. 

With some 30,000 troops taking part, Talisman Sabre is the largest U.S.-Australian military exercise. This year, however, U.S. officials point to participation from a host of other countries from the region, including India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand. Additionally, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga, are taking part for the first time. 

U.S. diplomatic officials, however, have been careful not to paint U.S. efforts, including the establishment of a new U.S. embassy in Tonga, as part of a counter-China campaign. 

“Our embassy is not being set up to counter China,” a State Department official told reporters last week, briefing on the condition of anonymity. 

“Strategic competition is an aspect, a reality in the region,” the official added. “But we are standing up an embassy to reflect our strong ties with Tonga and, frankly, our desire to be engaged in places like Tonga.” 

Still, despite efforts to downplay Washington’s moves in the Pacific, some analysts say the U.S. and allies like Australia are keenly aware of China’s efforts to lure countries into its sphere of influence, either with economic incentives or with security agreements, as it has done with the Solomon Islands. 

“Australia and the U.S. have never been more interested in the Pacific Islands than they are now,” said Lavina Lee, a Sydney-based adjunct fellow with the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies, during a media call previewing this week’s Australia-U.S. ministerial meeting in Brisbane.     

“Both Australia and the U.S. is keen to address the region’s concerns by also showing that they are a provider of public goods without strings attached, as opposed to China.” 

At the same time, the U.S. and Australia are working to strengthen their growing military cooperation, with U.S. officials speaking of a “profound strategic alignment” between the two allies. 

“There will be a strong focus on advancing defense industrial cooperation, production and information,” the second U.S. defense official said of Saturday’s ministerial meeting. 

U.S. officials said they expect the meeting to result in a “broadening [of] our force posture initiatives to new domains and locations” in Australia. 

They also expect talks to focus on Australia’s guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise aimed at bolstering Australia’s ability to produce precision guided munitions, which have been in demand in Ukraine and could further be in demand by Taiwan should China decide to retake the island by force. 
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U.S. first lady Jill Biden heralded her nation’s return to the United Nations’ cultural and educational body, UNESCO, at its headquarters in Paris, a city long famed for its cultural contributions. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.
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