Papua New Guinea will gain its own team in Australia’s rugby league in a soft diplomacy deal linked to limiting Chinese influence in the South Pacific.

A team from the Pacific nation will join Australia’s National Rugby League in a $400 million deal that deepens ties while denting China’s regional security push.

A historic $600m deal to give Papua New Guinea an NRL team has dashed China’s hopes for a security pact with Australia’s nearest neighbour under a provision allowing the agreement to be terminated if PNG undermines the nations’ “strategic trust”.

Australia and its partners, chiefly the US, worry that such deals could potentially give China greater influence in a strategically significant region. Australia is Papua New Guinea’s largest ...

SYDNEY: Australia will spend US$385 million to establish a team from Papua New Guinea in its rugby league competition, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday (Dec 12), a move designed to help ward off China. Papua New Guinea has long lobbied for ...

China has pursued its own bilateral security pact on policing with Papua New Guinea and with other South Pacific island nations which U.S. allies, including Australia, fear could undermine ...

Australia deploys rugby diplomacy to tempt neighbour away from China - Australian government will invest £300m in a new rugby league team based in Papua New Guinea. But there’s a catch – and it has no

In separate agreements with Nauru, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, Australia is attempting to edge out China’s influence in the region.

Australia said Friday it had agreed to boost Solomon Islands' police force with a multi-year funding, training and infrastructure package for the Pacific nation, which has fostered close ties with China.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia announced on Friday it will pay for more police in Solomon Islands and create a police training center in the South Pacific island nation’s capital Honiara, where Chinese law enforcement instructors are already based under a bilateral security pact with Beijing.

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia will provide over $100 million to help the Solomon Islands, which also has security ties with China, expand its police force so it can reduce its reliance on external partners, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Friday.

Beijing’s politically focused aid gives the United States a unique opportunity, as it maps where Beijing’s interests are deeply sown or where China is trying to expand its influence.