Is Bougainville the next battleground between China and the U.S.?

The Pacific region is hoping a huge, abandoned copper-and-gold mine will be its ticket for independence from Papua New Guinea. But which superpower will back it?

By
May 1, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EDT
The Panguna mine in Bougainville was closed in 1988 with an estimated $100 billion in copper and gold shut inside. The Bougainville government hopes that reopening it — with either U.S. or Chinese help — will fund its independence from Papua New Guinea. (Torbjörn Wester)
12 min

ARAWA, Papua New Guinea — On a warm morning in November, a barrel-chested and battle-scarred man arrived to Capitol Hill for a meeting he hoped would help save his struggling homeland.

Ishmael Toroama was introduced to two members of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party as the president of Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific. But his previous occupation was evident in the arm that hung limply at his left side as he shook the lawmakers’ hands.