Australia will spend US$385 million to establish a team from Papua New Guinea in its rugby league competition, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Thursday, a move designed to help ward off China.

Papua New Guinea has long lobbied for a side in Australia’s National Rugby League but safety fears and a lack of funding in the Pacific nation had thwarted the idea until now.

Australia will spend Aus$600 million on the franchise as it looks to bolster ties with a northern neighbour that has also been courted by China.

“We are united by a love of rugby league,” Albanese told reporters.

“I am delighted to announce the Australian government is supporting a PNG team to join the National Rugby League competition.

“I know it will have millions, literally, of proud fans barracking for it from day one.”

Rugby league borders on a national obsession in Papua New Guinea, where adults and children play on muddy fields using plastic bottles stuffed with grass.

Promising athletes are snapped up to play professionally in Australia and England.

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said the team — which is due to enter the competition “no later” than 2028 — would “unite” the nation.

“To embrace a team from Papua New Guinea is monumental,” he said at a press conference alongside Albanese.

“What you are gifting to us in the licence to have a team goes to the heart of uniting our diverse country.

“It is national development, national unity, regional unity. All is dovetailed into this one team to unite our country.”

The side will be based in Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby, a hardscrabble city with a reputation for violence and poverty.

Foreign players and their families will be housed in gated compounds and offered broad tax incentives to sweeten the deal and build a competitive roster.

– Soft power –

Australia has been signing security deals, dishing out aid funding and ramping up diplomatic visits to cement its influence in the South Pacific.

It is not the first nation to use the “soft power” of sports diplomacy in the region.

China spent about US$53 million building a 10,000-seat athletics stadium in Solomon Islands ahead of the 2023 Pacific Games.

Solomon Islands broke off diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 2019 and signed a security deal with China in 2022.

Thursday’s rugby league deal was announced as a long-awaited bilateral security agreement between Australia and Papua New Guinea came into force.

Signed in December last year, it aims to help Papua New Guinea’s overwhelmed security forces contain arms trafficking, drug smuggling and tribal violence.

“Australia and PNG are vital to each other’s future. Australia is proud to be PNG’s primary security and development partner,” said Albanese.

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