The Bougainville Autonomous Region: Balancing independence and foreign relations
The Bougainville Autonomous Region: Balancing independence and foreign relations
WRITTEN BY DR LUCAS KNOTTER
31 January 2023
At the November 2022 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, the leaders of some of the most important players in the region met to try and make progress on the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). A couple of meetings perhaps flew a little under the radar. On 17 November, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Papua New Guinea (PNG) Prime Minister James Marape and, a day later, Marape met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The stories about these two meetings sound familiar. Like many other Pacific Island states, PNG finds itself compelled to balance its engagements with the two global hegemons — it has “become a key focal point for the United States”, while China remains its biggest trading partner. In line with its “Friend to all; Enemy to None” foreign policy approach, Marape remained adamant that “it is important that we maintain our relationship with China”. He also quickly dismissed concerns that China used this meeting to discuss the possible establishment of a military base in PNG.
A major factor for PNG in negotiating possible China-US tensions in the region is its Autonomous Region of Bougainville (ARB). Hoping for full independence from PNG after a decade-long war of independence and a 98 per cent vote for independence in a 2019 referendum, Bougainville is likely to play a perhaps surprisingly significant role in the tussles between China and the US in the region. The future of this breakaway island, its relationships with PNG, the US, and China, and of PNG-US-China geopolitics, all seem strongly entwined with one another.
The newest sovereign state?
Although Bougainville’s 2019 referendum is officially non-binding, several foreign policy commentators have since argued that Bougainville is “the most likely candidate for becoming the [newest] sovereign state”. This tentative projection is based on provisions in the 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement, the outcome of the referendum itself, and especially the post-referendum agreements between Marape and Bougainville’s President Ishmael Toroama. In April 2022, the two leaders signed the Era Kone Covenant, outlining a parliamentary roadmap for ratifying the referendum result before 2027. Notably, Marape has simultaneously expressed hesitation over whether such a ratification would genuinely imply Bougainville independence or merely a new political status. Speaking in May 2021, he conveyed concerns over the possible effects of Bougainville independence on PNG’s socio-culturally and geographically dispersed make-up, stating that his “responsibility is to preserve the union of the country”.
While it is tempting to view the relatively small island of Bougainville as merely drifting into the geopolitical whirlwinds of more powerful actors in the region, we should not forget that Bougainville also maintains considerable leverage in relation to these actors.
Moreover, as in any case of newly emerging statehood, the more pressing question for the ARB is whether, and how, it can combine hypothetical international recognition with fruitful foreign economic, diplomatic, and security relations. Ironically, whether before or after official state independence, fledgling states such as Bougainville tend to be seen as rather dependent on one (or more) ‘patron states’. As regional hegemons like China, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand are “all tracking [Bougainville’s] progress because the island territory sits on a wealth of copper and gold” and Bougainville independence remains by no means a certainty, can Bougainville cultivate some agency in a geopolitically imposing environment?
Bougainville’s natural resources
Bougainville’s modern geopolitical history cannot be separated from its mineral wealth — it is estimated to sit on USD 58 billion in remaining copper and gold reserves. The infamous Panguna copper mine has especially played an important and controversial role in Bougainville’s anti-colonial struggles against Australia and, then later, PNG. Indeed, local resentment over the influx of Australian and PNG mine workers, its lack of local profits, and severe mining-induced environmental destruction formed the primary spark for the Bougainville Civil War of the 1990s. While the mine ceased production in 1990, Bougainvilleans now find themselves needing to strategise on how best to reap the benefits from their possible full state ownership over the island’s vast natural resource wealth.
However, with international corporate and political interests looming closer and closer, such strategising may also prove increasingly difficult. Chinese involvement in PNG’s natural resource facilities is already quite sizeable, and it is therefore unsurprising that Beijing is looking at Bougainville’s political and economic future with similar interest. Since 2018, for instance, Chinese businesspeople have reportedly been expressing their eagerness to invest in Panguna. Former presidential candidate Sam Kauona has also stated that China — more so than Australia or the US — has presented Bougainville with a “holistic offer” of infrastructure construction as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. With independence possibly beckoning, the Bougainville authorities will want to decide for themselves how big a stake they will allow Chinese companies and officials to have in the new country’s economy, politics, and society.
While these authorities seem neither willing nor able to completely forego the benefits of Chinese involvement, there is also noticeable popular resistance and concern. Case in point, while Kauona presented himself in his presidential campaign as welcoming extensive Chinese investment, this campaign was also unequivocally unsuccessful. The 2021 unrest in the nearby Solomon Islands, which was thought to originate at least in part out of local distress over the country’s (re)orientation of diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China, has ostensibly served as a warning sign to Bougainvilleans. Bougainville is therefore likely to take a cautious stance towards allowing Beijing too direct an influence on its economic and political future.
This caution, in turn, does not mean that we should be presumptuous about the ARB’s allegiance to ‘the West’. Despite reports that the US and its Western allies had edged out China by funding and organising the 2019 referendum, in addition to the PNG’s inclusion in the United States’ Global Fragility Act (GFA) development policy, Bougainvilleans have repeatedly expressed their own sense of self-determination in choosing with whom to ‘build their nation’. For instance, it is the ARB’s view that — via the 2015 Bougainville Mining Act — ownership over the mine’s future rests in local hands. In 2016, Panguna’s owner, Rio Tinto, transferred shareholding in the Panguna mine to a trustee company “for the benefit of all the Panguna landowners and the people of Bougainville”, while the mining company’s subsidiary reiterated it would “retain strong levels of support among customary landowners within the project area” and “continue to engage with project area communities”.
Local and international concerns
In contrast, fears remain — among local and international observers and stakeholders — that Bougainville will struggle to find genuine international political independence. Marape continues to claim that PNG and the ARB have established a timeline for a mutual settlement of the ARB’s status rather than necessarily for Bougainville statehood, and PNG may indeed find Bougainville’s resource abundance an economic asset too valuable to give up. Port Moresby is planning to organise a nationwide consultation about Bougainville independence, essentially delaying the settlement process and brushing off its own decision-making capacity and accountability on the matter.
More importantly, PNG officials have — perhaps not altogether impartially — cautioned that Bougainville does not have sufficient economic and institutional means to steer itself successfully as an independent state. It has been well-established that a richness of natural resources can be both a blessing and a curse for state development, but as one commenter wondered, how else can Bougainvilleans “find the economic resources to build a potentially new and independent nation?”. As one report has found, there is a strong possibility that Bougainville will rely heavily on foreign aid in the aftermath of acquiring statehood. As the report unabashedly put it, “political independence isn’t worth much if you don’t have the economic independence”. An added problem, in this regard, is that in case Bougainville finds itself compelled to unilaterally declare independence — instead of through an agreement with PNG — financial assistance from organisations like the IMF may become a lot less likely.
A straightforward consequence of this could be that Bougainville is unable to retain its agency against Chinese, American, or other geopolitical pressures. For example, besides Beijing’s promises to invest and finance Bougainville’s transition towards sovereign statehood, Taipei has similarly promised development funds and projects — obviously, both expect Bougainville to support the ‘right cause’ in return. Apart from the attractiveness of its natural resources, Bougainville’s strategic location in the Pacific and substantial fishery potential could further make it vulnerable to foreign exploitation.
Self-determination
To curb these pressures, the Toroama administration has set up a ministerial committee to take Bougainville’s search for international support into its own hands. Bougainville could also establish something akin to a Sovereign Wealth Fund to protect itself from overdependence on natural resource reserves. In October, Toroama reaffirmed his view that no foreign government or leader would dictate Bougainville’s future, singling out Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles’ comments about Australian support for PNG in the settlement process.
According to Toroama, Australia is reluctant to allow Bougainville independence out of fear that the new state would allow itself to be inducted into China’s sphere of influence. While Marles himself denied this, the ARB’s annoyance with foreign governments and commenters’ continued condemnation over the possibility of the establishment of ties with China and the non-acknowledgement of Bougainvilleans’ agency is understandable. Indeed, while it is tempting to view the relatively small island of Bougainville as merely drifting into the geopolitical whirlwinds of more powerful actors in the region, we should not forget that Bougainville also maintains considerable leverage in relation to these actors.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Dr Lucas Knotter is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Massey University and Waikato University (New Zealand). He specialises in questions of secession, self-determination, and theories and practices of sovereignty. He is currently finalising a book on de facto states in international relations theory. Image credit: Wikimedia.