Papua New Guinean, Chinese and Australian people have long been entangled in the creation of complex histories and political debates concerning the similarities and differences of each group. These debates are fundamental to understanding how a sense of national unity in Papua New Guinea is formed, as well as within analyses of the wider world of strategic power dynamics and influence. The Chinese in Papua New Guinea offers a comprehensive and nuanced examination of the Chinese in Papua New Guinea. Chinese, Papua New Guinean and Australian interactions are analysed in the context of ongoing shifts in colonial power, increased regional engagement with China, and current political instabilities across the Indo-Pacific region. The many ways the Chinese have been defined as actors in PNG’s history and politics are analysed against the backdrop of a rapidly changing global order. The complexity of Chinese experiences within Papua New Guinea is given expression, here, with chapters that stress political and historical heterogeneity, the importance of language for understanding Chinese social relations, and that articulate rich personal experiences of race relations.

‘...a fascinating account of one of the most important figures in PNG's first 40 years of Independence.’ – Sean Dorney, journalistBorn on a remote island in Papua New Guinea to a migrant Chinese father and indigenous mother, Julius Chan overcame poverty, discrimination, and family tragedy to become one of Papua New Guinea’s longest-serving and most influential politicians.His 50-year career, including two terms as Prime Minister, encompasses a crucial period of Papua New Guinea’s history, particularly its coming of age from an Australian colony to a leading democratic nation in the South Pacific. Chan has played a significant role during these decades of political, economic and social change. Playing the Game offers unique insights into one of the world’s most ancient and complex tribal cultures. It also explores the vexed issues of increasing corruption, government failure, and the unprecedented exploitation of its precious natural resources.In the first memoir by a Papua New Guinean leader in forty years, Sir Julius Chan explores his decision in 1997 to hire a private military force, Sandline International, to quell the ongoing civil crisis in Bougainville. This controversial deal sparked worldwide outrage, cost Sir Julius the prime ministership and led to ten years in the political wilderness. He was re-elected as Governor of New Ireland in 2007, aged 68, a seat he has held ever since.Playing the Game is an authentic and compelling account of Chan’s private and political life, and offers a rare insight into how the modern nation of Papua New Guinea came to be, the vision and values it was founded on, and the extraordinary challenges it faces in the 21st century.

In this collection, 17 leading scholars based in Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and China analyse key dimensions of the changing relationship between China and the Pacific Islands and explore the strategic, economic and diplomatic implications for regional actors. The China Alternative includes chapters on growing great power competition in the region, as well as the response to China’s rise by the US and its Western allies and the island countries themselves. Other chapters examine key dimensions of China’s Pacific engagement, including Beijing’s programs of aid and diplomacy, as well as the massive investments of the Belt and Road Initiative. The impact of China’s rivalry for recognition with Taiwan is examined, and several chapters analyse Chinese communities in the Pacific, and their relationships with local societies. The China Alternative provides ample material for informed judgements about the ability of island leaders to maintain their agency in the changing regional order, as well as other issues of significance to the peoples of the region. ‘China’s “discovery” of the diverse Pacific islands, intriguingly resonant of the era of European explorers, is impacting on this too-long-overlooked region through multiple currents that this important book guides us through.’ —Rowan Callick, Griffith University ‘The China Alternative is a must-read for all students and practitioners interested in understanding the new geopolitics of the Pacific. It assembles a stellar cast of Pacific scholars to deeply explore the impact of the changing role of China on the Pacific islands region. Significantly, it also puts the Pacific island states at the centre of this analysis by questioning the collective agency they might have in this rapidly evolving strategic context.’ —Greg Fry, The Australian National University

It is important to see China’s activities in the Pacific Islands, not just in terms of a specific set of interests, but in the context of Beijing’s recent efforts to develop a comprehensive and global foreign policy. China’s policy towards Oceania is part of a much larger outreach to the developing world, a major work in progress that involves similar initiatives in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. This groundbreaking study of China’s “soft power” initiatives in these countries offers, for the first time, the diverse perspectives of scholars and diplomats from Oceania, North American, China, and Japan. It explores such issues as regional competition for diplomatic and economic ties between Taiwan and China, the role of overseas Chinese in developing these relationships, and various analyses of the benefits and drawbacks of China’s growing presence in Oceania. In addition, the reader obtains a rare review of the Japanese response to China’s role in Oceania, presented by Japan’s leading scholar of the Pacific region.

This study examines the adaptation of Chinese as an immigrant minority in Papua New Guinea ...

Despite the difference in their populations and political status, New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea have comparable levels of economic dependence on the extraction and export of mineral resources. For this reason, the costs and benefits of large-scale mining projects for indigenous communities has been a major political issue in both jurisdictions, and one that has come to be negotiated through multiple channels at different levels of political organisation. The ‘resource boom’ that took place in the early years of the current century has only served to intensify the political contests and conflicts that surround the distribution of social, economic and environmental costs and benefits between community members and other ‘stakeholders’ in the large-scale mining industry. However, the mutual isolation of Anglophone and Francophone scholars has formed a barrier to systematic comparison of the relationship between large-scale mines and local-level politics in Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia, despite their geographical proximity. This collection of essays represents an effort to overcome this barrier, but is also intended as a major contribution to the growth of academic and political debate about the social impact of the large-scale mining industry in Melanesia and beyond.

When Australian anthropologist E.W.P. Chinnery took his young Irish bride, Sarah, to Port Moresby in 1921, she did not imagine that the island of New Guinea-one of the most extraordinary regions on earth-would become her home for the next 16 years. Already a keen photographer, Sarah began recording her experiences in a daily diary.