US President Biden’s hinting that Papua cannibals could have eaten his own uncle became an unexpected significant foreign policy issue for the White House leadership. At least Papua New Guinea has taken Biden’s words quite seriously. Why did this subject turn out to be offensive for them and what has US and China’s rivalry to do with this?
‘President Biden’s remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labelled as such’, said Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape. This was how he responded to the leader of the White House who said that cannibals could have eaten his uncle’s body during World War II.
Earlier Biden visited the war memorial in Scranton, a small steelmaker town in Pennsylvania, bearing the names of its natives, the American soldiers who disappeared during World War II. The Finnegans, Biden’s Irish ancestors on his mother’s side, used to live in Scranton. The memorial also holds the name of his uncle (his mother’s brother), Ambrose Finnegan.
According to Biden, Finnegan flew reconnaissance missions over New Guinea. ‘He got shot down in New Guinea and there were a lot of cannibals there at the time’, he added. The US President noted that his uncle’s body was never found. Biden mentioned this casually, as he wanted to criticise Trump who once, allegedly, spoke disrespectfully of veterans.
However, these incidental remarks caused a sharp response of New Guinea’s government. James Marape noted that Papua New Guinea had not started World War II, it had been ‘needlessly dragged’ into this conflict and its remnants are still ‘scattered all over’ the country. Marape urged the US to find its citizens who had died in Papua New Guinea’s jungle and clean up these war casualties. And Marape is right here: this is not just about the remnants of American and Australian soldiers, but also, for example, war-time broken airplanes, which have turned into altars of the well-known ‘cargo cult’ (tribes worshiping objects, which have fallen from the sky).
It is true that Ambrose Finnegan flew reconnaissance flights in the Pacific front during World War II and was killed. CNN found that Ambrose Finnegan was on a courier mission flying an A-20 Havoc light bomber and fell into the water off the coast of Papua New Guinea ‘for unknown reasons’. The crew ‘failed to emerge from the sinking wreck’ and almost all of them were killed. An additional crew member survived the crash but told nothing of cannibals ever after.
Biden’s relations with Papua New Guinea do not work out in principle. In 2023, Biden should have made a visit to PNG’s capital Port Morseby. New Guinea spent much time in thorough preparations for Biden’s visit. A national holiday and days off were announced, and people were flowing to Port Moresby to have a look at the US president. Moreover, a forward flight with the President’s guards on board arrived becoming a landmark occasion itself, with local media making their headlines about it.
When it comes to politics, Biden’s visit was referred to as a historic one, as two security agreements were to be signed. A week before, PNG Prime Minister Marape confirmed he had already signed these agreements and Joe Biden would then also sign them in an inaugural setting surrounded by 18 more heads of government from Micronesia and South Asia. And the then PNG Minister of Foreign Affairs Justin Tkatchenko (a descendant of Benderovites from Australia) talked of American ships, which were going to patrol PNG’s territorial waters. Under the second agreement, the American military would have gained access to several PNG’s ports.
But Biden cancelled the historic visit to Port Moresby at a day’s notice. He suddenly turned out to be busy discussing the US sovereign debt at the Congress, which was way more important than the opportunity to enhance the US influence in this region of the Pacific Ocean at the time of its rivalry with China and the simmering Taiwan crisis.
The called off US President’s visit greatly offended Papua New Guinea and the entire Micronesia. They took this as a deliberate insult and public ignorance of their state.
American leaders have never visited this island state. Main Western media rarely mention it in their headline news. Or, if they do, the reasons are far from being pleasant. As a rule, the mentioned cannibals are in the spotlight (they used to exist and still live their indeed).
For example, bloodshed involving local tribes claiming lives of dozens took place in Enga province this February. This happens all the time not only due to tribalism and personal disliking but also as part of blood revenge or ‘headhunt’ (some tribes measure a man’s status by the number of foes’ heads, and until you get your first head, you cannot even marry), kidnapping of women and other ethnographic features, which shock Europeans. In a sense, Biden’s words are justified in this context.
However, we can also understand PNG PM James Marape who has to struggle with the ‘cannibal state’ tag attached to his country. And, to make things worse, Biden has cancelled his visit refusing to sign landmark agreements. Before, PNG was considered essentially a neutral state having the slogan ‘Friends to all and enemies to none’, and the signing of the security agreements with USA would have changed this status radically.
A year ago, the US was close to hooking PNG and other neighbouring islands, this time not just with money, but also formally, which it especially needs in the context of struggling against China. And now Biden, in a completely unreasonable way, is destroying this opportunity insulting the potential ally out of the blue.
Of course, PNG strongly depends on Australia and is directly within Australia’s ‘responsibility area’ from the Western perspective. But USA needs to strengthen this wing urgently. And now the State Department will have to find an excuse for Papua New Guinea, which was clearly unthinkable before.
We are witnessing a case when the gaffes of the elderly American leader are no longer treated as benign lapses and peculiarities. In the US, many completely ignore ‘Bidenisms’ believing that the incumbent head of state does his main job properly, with everything else not having a point. Well, now it does have a point: Biden’s slip of the tongue led to foreign policy issues arousing for USA.