A candid conversation between Australia’s prime minister and a senior US diplomat about a sensitive policing plan for the Pacific Ocean region was caught on camera, causing a stir at a regional summit on Thursday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Deputy Foreign Secretary Kurt Campbell were heard celebrating an agreement at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga, which is seen as a way to fend off similar efforts led by China.
“We’ve made a terrific deal,” Albanese told Campbell, hailing an agreement to establish a police training center and a crisis response force of about 200 personnel.
“This will make a huge difference,” he said, a cup of coffee in his hand.
Campbell described the agreement as “fantastic” and said Washington had considered doing something similar before allowing Australia to come forward.
“We’ve given you the whole lane, so you take the lane,” Campbell urged Albanese, an interaction filmed by a reporter.
Albanese took the opportunity to jokingly ask if Washington would like to help finance the project: “I’d be willing to pay half the cost, if you’d like.”
“It’ll only cost you a little bit.”
Australia has earmarked US$271 million for the initial phase of the project.
The exchange will bolster China’s oft-repeated allegations that Australia is acting at the behest of the United States in the region, and that both countries are busy countering Beijing’s growing influence.
Sydney has attempted to portray the police initiative as coming from the Pacific Islands – despite the fact that Australia funded the project and hosted the training facility in Brisbane.
Albanese was furious when asked later on Thursday if the two had committed the offence of “speaking loudly about what is to be kept silent”.
He claimed, “It came from the Pacific Ocean. And I know of a video of a private conversation. Kurt Campbell is my friend, the two of us are having a conversation.”
“People try to read something into it and, to be honest, you get quite bored,” he said.
“It’s led by the Pacific region, it’s led by police ministers who have been meeting on this topic for over a year,” he said.
China’s Pacific allies – notably Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands – had expressed concern that the policing plan represented a “geostrategic containment security doctrine” designed to encircle Beijing.
China attempted but failed to sign a region-wide security pact in 2022, but has since been arming some under-resourced Pacific police forces with martial arts training and a fleet of Chinese-made vehicles.
Although all forum members have supported the agreement in principle, national leaders will have to decide how much, if any, they will participate in it.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
