Via The Sunday Times, a report on a Chinese plan to build a new port city in Papua New Guinea:

A Chinese plan to build a city with a large port on Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) impoverished south coast, less than 50 miles from Australian territory, has raised alarm in Canberra.

Security agencies are fearful of a $39 billion New Daru City proposal that would sit strategically on the 93-mile wide Torres Strait that separates Australia from the island.

Peter Dutton, the home affairs minister, said that he was “obviously very keen” to discuss the proposal with the PNG government after The Australian reported on the development.

“We will have a look at it,” he said. “There are all sorts of sovereignty issues and there are local issues in terms of landowners and land rights etcetera that I think would provide a significant hurdle.”

The proposal, put to the PNG government by WYW Holding, a Hong Kong-registered company, comes amid Australian fears of China’s militarisation of neighbouring waters. Canberra has warned that Beijing might be seeking a naval port in the South Pacific.

WYW Holding wrote to James Marape, the PNG prime minister, in April to seek his support for an arrangement by which his country would take over the assets of the development after an unspecified period of Chinese ownership.

The developer said that the 100 sq km site would include fisheries and agricultural processing facilities with provision for “intensive manufacturing”.

The Fujian Zhonghong Fishery Company is also proposing to build a “multifunctional fishery industrial park” near Daru, where the governor, Toboi Awi Yoto, backs Chinese investment. He has criticised Australian officials, saying: “All they want is for us to be subsistence farmers and fishermen”.

Michael Shoebridge, a director at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told The Australian that the Chinese government was looking for deals across PNG to secure strategic and economic advantage.