The Biden administration deserves praise for reaching a new defense agreement with Papua New Guinea. Alongside other deals that will see the Pacific nation receive tens of millions of dollars in U.S. grants and aid, the defense pact will allow the U.S. military access to Papua New Guinea.
While Papua New Guinea remains keen to maintain good ties with China, this agreement ends decades of American neglect for Australia's immediate northern neighbor. More importantly, it offers the prospect of U.S. forces being able to operate from the country in anticipation of a war with China over Taiwan. This is of critical importance. A growing consensus of U.S. military analysts believe Xi Jinping will order an invasion of Taiwan before 2030.
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If that happens and the United States decides to intervene on Taiwan's behalf, the People's Liberation Army will have vast advantages in force levels and geography (ease of rearmament/refuel/short-range strike). To offset these advantages and ensure maximal Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps forces can enter the fight, the U.S. military needs bases in and around Taiwan. Even if Papua New Guinea might presently be unwilling to allow U.S. forces to operate out of its territory during a war, this agreement offers hope for that future potential. As with the recent military basing agreement it reached with the Philippines, the Biden administration has done a good thing here. As the map below shows (with my annotations), the U.S. is establishing a security cordon along and beyond the Pacific's First Island Chain. At the margin, the PLA will face new obstacles to covert operations in the Western Pacific Ocean.
The benefits are also clear for Papua New Guinea.
Alongside U.S. funding and prioritized diplomatic and economic engagement, this deal will see the U.S. provide Coast Guard support for Papua New Guinea's exclusive economic zone. That will help deter the Chinese fishing fleets that are decimating the world's oceans. Not simply the agents of an ecological disaster, these fleets are responsible for impoverishing already poor local fishermen from West Africa to the Galapagos Islands to the South China Sea. The U.S. can now provide critical support for Papua New Guinea's fisheries industry in the absence of its own Coast Guard. This will have the accrued benefit of earning popular favor for the U.S.
Top line: This agreement is good news for the U.S., Papua New Guinea, and Taiwan but bad news for China.