I am unsure if the topic of Indo-Pacific geopolitics has ever made the rugby pages in the long history of The Irish Times.
This political and sporting saga weaves together the most unlikely of players, from the Communist Party of China, to the massive island of Papua New Guinea, the administration of US President Joe Biden and the Australian Labor Party government, headed by prime minister Anthony Albanese.
The other big player in this unique tale of political chess is a name that we would rightly not expect to appear on the agenda of a White House Security Council meeting – Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL).
This unusual story has its genesis in the early days of the Covid pandemic when the then US president Donald Trump controversially suggested that Beijing had accidentally released the Covid virus from its laboratory in the city of Wuhan.
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How Australia used rugby league to tackle China’s Pacific power play
The then Australian Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison sprinted to the nearest microphone to align himself with Trump, telling the world’s media that a full inquiry was required to find the truth behind the source of the virus.
In one stroke of political ineptitude, Australia alienated the Communist Party of China. As Australia’s largest trading partner, China held a much larger and blunter instrument of retaliation.
This was during the peak years of the Chinese foreign affairs philosophy termed “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy”. In rugby terms, it was like Willie John McBride’s famous 99 call with the 1971 Lions. China would respond to any public slight or political criticism with a 99 call and start punching, using whatever fists were available.
The Wolf Warrior response to Morrison’s comments was to cut all ministerial-level communication and ban or place crippling tariffs on all imports of Australian beef, crayfish, barley and wine.
[ Braced for battle: China’s ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy goes globalOpens in new window ]
As China was by far the largest market for all of these industries, the economic effects for the growers were catastrophic. The last of these sanctions were only lifted earlier this year.
The situation also came dangerously close to military interaction, with footage of a Chinese fighter jet coming within metres of an Australian air force surveillance plane and a Chinese naval vessel using electronic jamming equipment against Australian surveillance aircraft that could have rendered the plane uncontrollable. All of these encounters were in neutral international waters.
The gloves were off – frighteningly so.
While no damage was sustained in these encounters the Wolf Warrior actions of cyber espionage were a different topic.
The Australian intelligence service offered a rare public warning that foreign actors, notably the Communist Party of China, were actively involved in espionage within the Australian political and university systems.
Strangely, very little coverage of this diplomatic bullying was being reported in Ireland. Perhaps, sitting between the fading Soviet and US empires, Ireland has scant knowledge of China’s aggression in the south.
Moving quietly, meeting with the leaders of the islands in the Pacific Rim, China then started to play chess, offering a range of services.
Australia, the US, New Zealand, Canada and the UK are part of an intelligence-sharing community known as The Five Eyes.
[ Australia performs diplomatic tightrope act between China and USOpens in new window ]
All of those eyes were closed until 2022 when the Solomon Islands accepted an offer of policing support from China. This meant there were Chinese boots on the ground in the Pacific.
Situated within striking distance of Australia and the major US military bases of Guam and Hawaii, any Chinese military footprint in the Solomons or any other Pacific nation would place these bases open to attack.
Enter Anthony Albanese. When he came to power in 2022 he said that the three great institutions of his early life were the Catholic Church, the Australian Labor Party and the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league team, which is now partially owned by Russell Crowe.
Of course that is a politician speaking. My own truth of the real three great childhood institutions are the Catholic Church, the Labor Party and the Balmain Tigers rugby league club. For any prime minster, two out of three is pretty good.
What it does prove is that on the east coast of Oz, which faces out on to the Pacific, rugby league plays a huge part in many people’s lives. Like hundreds of thousands of others, I enjoy both rugby and rugby league.
At this point, Albanese’s government got smart and followed the Chinese by switching from checkers to chess.
He launched a major diplomatic charm offensive with multiple visitations across the Pacific from high-profile US and Australian politicians to try to counter Chinese advances. His government also re-established ministerial-level relations with China’s Communist Party. While public offerings of assistance were more in the traditional form, such as guaranteeing the Pacific Islands access to a safe Australian-based banking system, behind the scenes a card was being played that the Chinese did not hold.
Unlike many other smaller Pacific Islands, Papua New Guinea is a giant land mass. It cuts Australia off from the rest of Asia, acting as a protective barrier, as it did during the Japanese invasion in the second World War.
Containing vast natural resources, it is a strategic and highly underdeveloped economic jewel.
The one thing that unites the 11 million people living in this vastly complex society that contains more than three hundred languages is a fanatical love of rugby league. It is Papua New Guinea’s national sport.
While the Chinese may have been offering airports, highways and ports, linked to a giant, binding debt, the likes of which have burdened many African countries with, the Australian government played a master stroke and offered a deal worth 600 million Australian dollars over 10 years to fund a Port Moresby-based Papua New Guinea team to enter into the NRL competition from 2028.
The real genius of the deal, which is all about stopping China from gaining a foothold in this key location of the Pacific, sits within the fine print of two separate agreements signed by the Papua New Guinea government which has agreed to look to Australia – and, by connection, to the United States – as its prime provider of security.
If any deal for policing or military support from China is accepted by the Papua New Guinea government, as happened with the Solomon Islands, then all funding for their NRL team will be immediately terminated.
With hopes of cash flowing into the Papua New Guinea economy from increased tourism and the uniting effect of national pride in having a home-grown NRL team, the deal brought delight to the people of Papua New Guinea.
The power of sport. Who said rugby players were dumb?
While the rumours of a Papua New Guinea team have been rife for some time, the scale of the political caveats in the deal stunned the political establishment of the Pacific region. It also prompted the same incredulous question, simultaneously, in Washington and Beijing: “What the hell is rugby league?”
If the Papua New Guinea venture is successful – and all indications suggest it will be – then rugby league may go on to play a key role in more geopolitics across the Pacific that could have the 13-a-side game being used as a highly effective tool to link Pacific countries more closely with Australia and the US.
When the Papua New Guinea-NRL deal was announced, the Australian minister for defence, Pat Conroy, said during an interview on ABC that Australia is now engaged in an ongoing and constant struggle with China for influence in the Pacific.
Rugby league has been used to generate a big, and unexpected, win in that contest.
