“When you come here you find friends to all – and enemies to none”, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister declared during this week’s celebrations marking his nation’s 50th anniversary of independence from Australia.

James Marape’s proud assertion of PNG’s long held non-aligned foreign policy should have been a clear signal to Australia’s Prime Minister and other VIPs in the audience that securing a military alliance with the Pacific neighbour won’t be easy.

Anthony Albanese, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Pacific Islands Affairs Minister Pat Conroy had all flown to Port Moresby hoping to clinch a signature on an historic defence treaty shutting out China from any similar cooperation.

Instead, for the second time in two weeks, the PM saw his government’s efforts to secure an exclusive

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