Wang Yi, Chinese Foreign Minister, February 12, 2016, in Munich, Germany. MICHAEL DALDER/ REUTERS
China announced Tuesday, April 19, that it had signed a comprehensive security agreement with the Solomon Islands, at a time when several Western countries, led by the United States, are lending Beijing military ambitions in the Pacific. The agreement was signed by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Solomon Islands counterpart Jeremiah Manele. No information was given about the exact place and date of the signing.
The Chinese embassy and Solomon Islands officials had previously signed a memorandum of understanding to deploy Chinese police and military as needed to protect infrastructure and social order, but the agreement had not been ratified by governments.
A preliminary version of the agreement was leaked in March. The document then caused a shock wave because it included proposals to authorize Chinese security and naval operations in the Pacific archipelago.
The Solomon Islands were rocked by deadly riots in late 2021, fueled by resentment among sections of the population against China’s growing influence. In Honiara, the capital of this South Pacific archipelago, Chinese-owned businesses had been vandalized and burned.
China was one of the players in the region, sending peacekeeping forces to the Solomon Islands at the request of the government. Beijing, which had dispatched police trainers and riot gear, has since tried to strengthen its protection system on the island.
This is “normal” cooperation between two sovereign and independent countries, a spokesman for Chinese diplomacy, Wang Wenbin, defended. The agreement will support “long-term stability” in the Solomon Islands, he argued.
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An American delegation is expected in Honiara
In early April, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare pledged that he would not allow a Chinese military base to be built in his country, but that was not enough to allay fears from Australia and its allies. Australia, a large neighbor of the Solomon Islands, is 1,500 kilometers from the archipelago.
Canberra and Washington have long worried about the possibility that China could establish a naval base in the South Pacific that would allow it to project naval power well beyond its borders.
In recent weeks, Australia and the United States have stepped up diplomatic efforts to dissuade the Solomon Islands from rapprochement with Beijing. “We believe that signing such an agreement would risk increasing destabilization within the Solomon Islands and would set a worrying precedent for the entire Pacific Islands region,” US diplomatic spokesman Ned Price said on Monday.
In the process, the United States announced it would send a senior diplomatic delegation to tour the Pacific, with the Solomon Islands as a priority, to counter Beijing’s ambitions. Last week, the Minister for International Development and the Australian Pacific, Zed Seselja, was sent to Honiara for an unusual meeting with the archipelago’s Prime Minister.
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Historical rivalry
For three days in November, unrest shook the country of 800,000 people. The causes of this violence were manifold. Along with anger at the government and economic hardships compounded by the pandemic, there was the historic rivalry between the people of the country’s most populous island, Malaita, and those of Guadalcanal, home of the country’s administrative capital.
But Prime Minister Sogavare has also been accused of wanting to forge closer ties with Beijing after abruptly severing long-standing ties with Taiwan in 2019. China refuses any diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, which it considers part of its own territory. Beijing’s communist power makes it a prerequisite for establishing diplomatic relations with other countries.
At a time when Washington is trying to bolster its presence in the region to counter Chinese influence, the United States announced in February that it would reopen an embassy in the Solomon Islands after 29 years of closure.
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