Just a few thoughts and points.
Papua New Guinea
PNG was not "quite" an Australian territory and more of a protectorate. It was a British colony transferred to Australia in 1905 so that Australia could administer the island.
We still have extensive diplomatic, economic and military ties with PNG including defence agreements but those agreements continue to be a compromise between what is best for Australia and what's best for PNG e.g. Australia sitting back and doing nothing when Indonesia invaded and annexed the West Papua region of the island which was a Dutch territory at the time.
There is no certainty that Australia would militarily intervene if Indonesia decided to invade and annex the rest of the island.
Indonesia would have to threaten mainland Australia before we'd take military action against them. The government reasons that our economy is intertwined with Indonesia (much of the shipping to Australia passes through Indonesian waters) so it wouldn't want to jeopardize that unless there was no other option. There's been enough criticism by Indonesia and Malaysia of Australia as a whiteman's imperialist country that we don't play hardball with them very often.
Korea
There is absolutely no particular reason that Australia would send military forces to any new conflict in Korea. Australian involvement in the 1950s Korean War was as part of a UN force and during a time when the dominant political thinking of the time was the Domino Theory of Communism.
Australia might support medical, economic and policing actions in any new Korean conflict but it would be unlikely to commit military forces unless it was as part of a UN mission.
China
Over the last decade or more, China has been actively courting nations in the Pacific Ocean to secure mining and agricultural access. While they have many such resources themselves they appear to be interested in acquiring more to protect themselves from potential shortages, price increases and so on (given their massive population). For example, there has been much interest from China in acquiring cattle stations in Australia to secure food resources for themselves. While these farms would be worked and managed by Australians, the cattle raised on these stations would all be delivered to China and not sold on the local market.
While China hasn't aggressively pursued these yet, they have been using what amounts to bribes and bullying. For small Pacific island nations, they have been making roads and buildings and supplying aircraft and vehicles and even shop goods not commonly found on the islands. Larger nations like Australia are given the typical business ultimatum, "Sell your product to us at this price, or we'll buy it from someone else".
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