17-06-2024: The announcement that the Australian federal government will fork out $600 million of taxpayers’ money to fund a National Rugby League (NRL) football team in Papua New Guinea (PNG) came as a shock to many. Social media users responded immediately with comments laced with profanities such as “I love my Rugby League but I want my taxes used on something f***ing useful…education, roads, mental health” and “Why the f**k are we paying so much just to barely survive. Food, rent, petrol, everything…where was the f***ing vote?[1] Others were flabbergasted that taxpayers money would help fund the NRL, a corporation which announced a record breaking $700 million in revenue with an operating surplus of $58.2 million for the 2023 season.[2] This comes at a time when the Australian masses are enduring a grinding cost of living crisis, with over 120 000 people homeless on any given night.[3] Unfortunately, the welfare of working people and those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale is very far from the aims of the political elites in Canberra.
Target China
There is another agenda for the Australian ruling class with its efforts to expand the NRL into the Pacific. Ben Fordham of radio 2GB in Sydney spelled it out just in case it was not clear. He wrote, “Australia and China have spent the past few years in a battle stance…there’s an intense struggle for influence playing out in the region…China wants a security footing in the Pacific, that’s what this is about.” The aim is to keep PNG politically and culturally close to Australia, and “when viewed as a China issue, and not a rugby league one, the $600 million doesn’t seem so much”.[4] These brazen but honest comments lay bare the agenda of both the Labor and Liberal parties, as both of them have implemented the Sports Diplomacy 2030 policy launched by Canberra in 2019. Supposedly about “maximising trade, tourism and investment opportunities” or even promoting “gender equality, disability, inclusion, social cohesion and healthy lifestyles”,[5] this is barely a shroud for Australian capitalism in its improbable battle to contain the economic, technological and diplomatic influence of the giant People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the Asia Pacific and internationally.
Australian NRL supremo Peter V’landys appears to have brokered the deal with the Australian government, which would lead to a PNG team entering its competition in 2028.[6] Yet even within Australia’s mainstream media, there are questions being asked about how this would work, and how it would benefit people in PNG. Former Olympic swimmer Liesel Jones stated on radio that there are those in PNG who do not believe an NRL team would benefit them. She said that the main problem in PNG are 80% unemployment rates, and that most students finish school at year six, which remains their education level. Also, there are no feeder clubs that could supply players for a top-grade football team.[7] Some in PNG see this as lip service by the Australian government, which may be trying to buy security in PNG, following riots there in January this year. At that time, the police went on strike over not being paid, resulting in chaos in which 16 people lost their lives.[8]
Football vs New Silk Road
While security issues can be a problem in PNG, the Australian elites are more concerned with prying the PNG away from Beijing, even while acknowledging that Australian capitalism can in no way offer anything like what the PRC can in relation to economic and infrastructure building assistance. Nor can it, nor its American or European allies, even begin to contemplate an alternative to the PRC’s flagship multi-trillion dollar New Silk Road or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). 152 countries have now signed on to the BRI, a mega project trade and infrastructure mega network spanning across continents. BRI participant nations now comprise 60% of the world’s population and some 30% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).[9] Not only did the PNG sign on to the BRI in 2018, but it also fervently upholds the One China policy,[10] which enables full political and economic cooperation between the PRC and PNG. Canberra officially recognises the One China policy, but duplicitously backs US government plans to foster “independence” for Taiwan, via war provocations and political intrigue.
Make no mistake, the PRC can offer the BRI to the world for no other reason than its socialistic economy is largely state owned and does not primarily run on the basis of production for profit. This is but one enormous gain of its momentous revolution during the 20th century which triumphed in 1949. The economy is planned and is overseen by a state administration which largely guards the welfare of working people over and above the rights of wealthy elites – the opposite of what is experienced in the West. Today, the benefits of a predominantly publicly owned economy are plain to see. The PRC’s economy recorded a GDP growth rate of 5.2% throughout 2023,[11] which is a massive amount compared to the capitalist Western economies limping along at 1% or less.
Over the period from 2019 to 2023 – even despite insane lockdowns imposed in some cities in China over a dubious virus – almost all economic indicators show an economy which is booming. Labour productivity is increasing, the PRC’s foreign exchange reserves are gaining, the output of grain is increasing, as is the production of major industrial products, energy generation, freight traffic, passenger traffic, export commodities and fixed asset investment.[12] The PRC today produces 31.63% of global manufacturing, which is basically double that of its nearest competitor, the USA, with 15.87%.[13] This is one of the reasons why the West is hell bent on a suicidal and catastrophic drive to conflict with the PRC. The formation of AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, United States of America) is clearly an alliance for war on the PRC – a nuclear armed superpower. With the West’s faltering capitalist economies continuing to be left in the shade by the advances in science, technology, engineering and manufacturing in socialistic China, dangerous violence is the West’s only answer.
Cooperation not conflict
Many in the West cannot comprehend how the PRC could be eclipsing them in many fields, but it is happening before the eyes and ears of everyone. China now has six of the top ten Universities in the world by volume of scientific research output – a field once dominated by prestigious Anglo American higher education institutions such as Cambridge, Stanford, Harvard and MIT.[14] While the elites in Canberra engage in rather desperate counter influence measures such as football, the Australian masses benefit from China based manufacturing in any case. This has been the norm for the last couple of decades, but now that stumbling Australian capitalism has closed down Australian car manufacturing the way is open for PRC made electric vehicles (EVs) to flood into the country, offering quality machines at sometimes half the cost of US or European made EVs.
Australian motoring commentators often make comments about China made EVs being much cheaper because the PRC based companies such as BYD make their own batteries[15] – the largest component of an EV. It is true that having your own battery supply line makes things more cost effective, but this is only part of the equation. A major reason is that PRC based EV firms are state backed, and not just in the form of some government subsidies here and there. The PRC state provides all infrastructure, funds its universities to churn out engineering graduates, and then adds even more financial incentives for EV manufacturers in consonance with an overall economic plan. This is clearly not a “capitalist” state as in the West, but a workers’ state which is potentially a giant leap towards socialism. One result of this state backing is the PRC now comprising 79% of global EV battery production, while its nearest “competitor” is the USA with an underwhelming 6.2%.[16]
The PRC’s vast economic growth is partially based on its development of “clean energy” sectors, such as renewables, nuclear power, electricity grids, energy storage, EVs and railways. In fact, these sectors accounted for ALL of the growth in investment across the PRC in 2023.[17] More than any other country in the world, the PRC is contributing the most towards decarbonisation in efforts to counter potentially cataclysmic climate collapse. At the same time, the PRC remains a bureaucratically deformed workers’ state, due to the ambiguous class nature of its socialist revolution AND the dominance of Stalinist politics wielded by the Communist Party of China (CPC). There is a dire need for a proletarian political revolution on the Chinese mainland to align its socialistic state and economy with a genuinely internationalist Marxist leadership which further undermines world imperialism.
Rugby League is the national sport in PNG, and almost has the status of a religion. NRL football stars generally receive a hero’s welcome when they visit Australia’s nearest neighbour. While working people have no interest in denying PNG more potential access to its favourite sport, workers of the region have a vital interest in preventing conflict between the West and China, not least by demanding the total abolition of AUKUS. Moreover, PNG should not be denied the ability to engage in as much economic and trade activity with the PRC as it finds necessary. In addition, workers in the Asia-Pacific should push back hard against any sport being used to generate anti-socialist hostility towards Red China. Without capitalist generated conflict, working people can share common prosperity.
Workers League
E: workersleague@protonmail.com
[1] https://www.news.com.au/sport/nrl/deal-is-done-australian-taxpayers-to-fork-out-600m-for-png-to-join-nrl/news-story/cbdc1b45274bbe883117ecbd5c6ac2c7 (12-06-2024)
[2] www.nrl.com/news/2024/02/21/game-stronger-than-ever-after-record-breaking-2023/ (12-06-2024)
[3] www.homelessnessaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Homelessness-fact-sheet-2023-1.pdf (12-06-2024)
[4] www.nine.com.au/sport/nrl/news-2024-papua-new-guinea-png-expansion-600-million-australia-government-20240529-p5jhka.html (12-06-2024)
[5] www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/sports-diplomacy-2030.pdf (12-06-2024)
[6] www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/nrl-2024-18th-team-expansion-into-papua-new-guniea-png-a-done-deal/news-story/9e236a256c00c372478e1dd5ff65a5b1 (12-06-2024)
[7] www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/dont-want-this-nrl-team-aussie-greats-shocking-call-on-600m-png-push/news-story/634af348b72e8957d31a2f5e96de0d01 (12-06-2024)
[8] www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-11/16-people-dead-in-png-riots/103308660 (12-06-2024)
[9] www.newseu.cgtn.com/news/2023-10-17/What-is-China-s-Belt-and-Road-Initiative–1nU3ImiHqOQ/index.html (12-06-2024)
[10] www.postcourier.com.pg/png-and-china-remain-upbeat-despite-belt-and-road-initiative-doubts/ (12-06-2024)
[11] www.china.org.cn/china/Off_the_Wire/2024-01/17/content_116947934.htm (12-06-2024)
[12] www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202402/t20240228_1947918.html (12-06-2024)
[13] www.worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/manufacturing-by-country (12-06-2024)
[14] www.news.osu.edu/chinas-universities-grab-6-of-10-top-spots-in-worldwide-science-ranking/ (15-06-2024)
[15] www.carsguide.com.au/car-news/heres-why-chinese-brands-like-byd-and-mg-can-price-their-electric-cars-so-cheap-91451 (15-06-2024)
[16] www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/mapped-ev-battery-manufacturing-capacity-by-region/ (15-06-2024)
[17] www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-was-top-driver-of-chinas-economic-growth-in-2023/ (15-06-2024)
Image: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape (seated, centre) at a rugby league exhibition match. http://www.dailyadvertiser.com.au
Red Fire 