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Evan Vucci/AP
US President Joe Biden speaks during an event to present the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy to the Air Force Academy in the East Room of the White House, Friday, April 28, 2023, in Washington.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will travel to Papua New Guinea next week to meet US President Joe Biden and Pacific leaders as the superpower seeks to strengthen its ties in the region.
Biden sent Hipkins a formal invitation to the United States – Pacific Summit in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on Thursday afternoon, the prime minister’s office confirmed. He will leave Wellington on May 21.
The Pacific region is increasingly the focus of competition between China and the United States, and its partners but is also facing a raft of issues, and is at the forefront of climate change and rising sea levels.
The ramped-up efforts to exert influence in the Pacific is creating an escalating contest between the US and China. New Zealand is highly dependent on China for trade and is also a strategic partner to the US.
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Biden will attend the summit after going to the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Hiroshima, Japan, and on his way to the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Sydney, Australia.
The US President hosted more than a dozen Pacific leaders and envoys at the White House in September last year for the first United States – Pacific Summit.
ROBERT KITCHIN/STUFF
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will travel to Papua New Guinea next Sunday. (File photo)
There, he announced the Pacific Partnership Strategy – worth US$800 million (NZ$1.34 billion) – to help the US compete with China’s growing influence in the region.
The Pacific also faces the existential threat of climate change, and is recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and its effect on tourism revenue and business.
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