Documents Reveal China’s Plan to Build Island City Off Australian Coast

A private Chinese company is planning to build a new city on the Papua New Guinean island of Daru—right on the nation’s sea border with Australia, and only about 124 miles from the Australian mainland.

“New Daru City” will include an industrial zone, a business and commercial zone, a residential area, a resort and a seaport sprawling out over an area of 40-odd square miles, according to leaked documents seen by the ABC. Daru Island, a low-lying landmass in the Torres Strait, is just six square miles in size.

The multi-million-dollar project appears to have been put forward to PNG’s Prime Minister, James Marape, by Hong Kong-registered company WYW Holding Limited in April of last year. WYW’s CEO, Terence Mo, said in a letter to the Prime Minister that his company’s “investment and development plan” included “broad ranging ideas” for the development of several areas in PNG’s Western Province—and that he had entered into “preliminary discussions” with representatives of that region.

A spokesman for Marape told the ABC the Prime Minister was “unaware” of the project, but noted that “if a foreign investor wants to come to PNG with multi-million kina investments, PNG will not stop them … on the condition our legal laws are complied with and local Papua New Guineans benefit.”

Daru is one of the few island in the Torres Strait that is governed by Papua New Guinea rather than Australia—and this isn’t the first time a Chinese company has shown interest in the area. 

Toward the end of last year, community leaders in Australia’s far north raised alarm over border security following news that a Chinese fishery company had signed a memorandum of understanding with the PNG Government to build a $204 million “comprehensive multi-functional fishery industrial park” on Daru, as part of its controversial Belt and Road Initiative scheme.

At the time, former PNG government adviser Jeffrey Wall questioned the company’s motives in establishing multi-million-dollar fishing infrastructure in an area not known for commercial fish stocks.

“We should be absolutely alarmed not only because it is strategically located close to Australia, but there is potential for conflict in the Torres Strait,” he told the ABC. “It’s the town nearest to Australia and it’s only several kilometres from some of our islands in the Torres Strait.

“It’s an area that’s porous and therefore would be open to drug smuggling and people trafficking, which has been happening—it’s a very vulnerable spot.”

The proposal for New Daru City appears to be in its early stages, and it’s as yet unclear whether the project will come to fruition.

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