Australia has been assured there will be no foreign military bases established in Vanuatu after the signing of a long-awaited security agreement — but the deal will not ban Chinese investment in the Pacific nation’s critical infrastructure.
As leaders finally inked the landmark deal in Canberra, China’s largest surveillance ship was being tracked north of Papua New Guinea where it is conducting ocean research in strategically sensitive waters of the Pacific.
On Monday, Anthony Albanese welcomed his Vanuatu counterpart Jotham Napat to Parliament House for the formal signing of a watered-down version of the Nakamal Agreement, ending months of tense negotiations over the document.
The Prime Minister declared the deal advanced the “shared responsibility” for both nations on security, confirming Vanuatu would not allow its territory to be used for “any foreign military base or infrastructure”.
“We respect the right of all nations to make sovereign decisions about their engagement with other countries, but what this does do is to provide certainty for Australia, that there will be no foreign military base,” Mr Albanese said.
Australian policing and development support worth $500 million will be provided to Vanuatu.
However, the funding will be delivered over a longer time frame than the originally planned 10 years, after Port Vila rejected a push to limit foreign investments in sensitive sectors.
Instead, Vanuatu committed to “consult Australia on proposed third party engagement in Vanuatu’s critical infrastructure”, which must remain “free from militarisation, any form of foreign interference or unauthorised access”.
“We give very strict attention to all our critical infrastructure,” Vanuatu’s Prime Minister said following the signing.
Ten months ago, Mr Napat pulled out of a planned signing with Mr Albanese in Port Vila following sovereignty concerns in his country over contents of the draft document, which had been given initial approval at a ceremony on Vanuatu’s Mt Yasur.
For years, Australian officials have privately accused China of trying to block any security deal with Vanuatu, including an early version that was proposed in 2022 but rejected by the country’s Parliament.
In 2019, Beijing caught the Morrison government off guard when it was able to clinch a security agreement with neighbouring Solomon Islands and has since been working to sign its own pact with Vanuatu known as the Namele Agreement, to rival Australia’s.
While some politicians in Vanuatu say the Namele Agreement will be signed soon, Australian officials are hoping to push back the signing ceremony as they press for more information.
On Monday, Mr Napat said the Namele Agreement was “not yet signed” but didn’t indicate a possible timeframe.
“We will share the agreement. There’s nothing to hide. Our Government is transparent and I’m so grateful that the Prime Minister has also given me the clearance to share the Nakamal Agreement,” he said, standing alongside Mr Albanese.
The deal also provides “enhanced” visa arrangements for citizens of Vanuatu to visit Australia but requires Port Vila to differentiate between its natural-born citizens and those who have purchased so-called “golden passports” — such as influencer Andrew Tate. Since coming to office in 2022, Labor has signed sweeping strategic agreements with Tuvalu, Nauru and the Pukpuk defence treaty with Papua New Guinea.
It is also pursuing separate pacts with Fiji and Tonga.
While the Albanese Government continues to engage in what one insider describes as a “knife fight” with Bejing for Pacific influence, China’s largest spy vessel Liao Wang 1 has arrived in the region in recent days for a surveillance mission.
Maritime tracking data provided to The Nightly revealed that the 30,000-tonne, 224m-long Chinese space tracking and intelligence vessel recently made its way past the US territory of Guam.
On Monday the ship was between Solomon Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.
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