Solomon’s Prime Minister Manasse Sogaware defends the security pact his government signed with China on Tuesday.
Sogaware told parliament that an agreement with Beijing was needed to address the “internal security situation” in the Solomon Islands.
The Pacific island nation has long battled political unrest, most recently in November 2021, when protesters marched on Honiara’s Chinatown and attempted to storm Sogawara’s residence.
A contingent of Australian police has helped restore stability at the request of the government. Australia also led a multilateral mission in 2003 following the violence and coup of the late 1990s.
Canberra raised concerns about the China Pact when the project expired online in March and was trying to encourage Sogaware to rethink the plan. The United States and New Zealand have also expressed concern amid fears that this could lead to the establishment of a military post in China’s Pacific.
Mark Harrison, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Tasmania, told Al Jazeera that the deal was a “disaster” for Australia, whose relations with Beijing have long been strained.
“This is another difficult step for Australia to reassess its future in a China-dominated region,” Harrison said. “Australia has completely misjudged the consequences of China’s rise in the early 2010s and the reassessment has been slow and ambiguous and there is still a long way to go.
What is the security situation in the Solomon Islands?
The Solomon Islands, with a population of less than 700,000, are a chain of hundreds of islands east of Papua New Guinea in the Pacific.
The capital, Honiara, is on the island of Guadalcanal, the site of a brutal – and extremely significant – battle between American and Japanese troops during World War II.
Australia has long provided security assistance to the Solomon Islands, led the multilateral RAMSi force, which was deployed to restore stability in 2003 after severe unrest. [File: Torsten Blackwood/AFP]
The former British colony has been battling unrest since the late 1990s, when ethnic tensions erupted in violence and a coup brought Sogaware to power for the first time in 2000.
As the country is on the verge of near political and economic collapse, Australia and New Zealand have deployed troops, stability has been restored and a peace agreement has been signed.
The calm did not continue.
In 2003, following a request from the Government of the Pacific Islands Forum, the main diplomatic group in the region, a multinational regional mission to assist the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was set up, with Australia leading the deployment.
RAMSI remained in the country for nearly 14 years, despite Sogaware’s attempts to oust the mission when he was in power.
Sogaware was re-elected prime minister in 2019 and months later severed Solomon Islands’ long-standing diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of Beijing.
The move was unpopular with everyone in the Solomon Islands, and Daniel Suidani, the Malay province’s prime minister, rejected the change, saying he would push for the independence of Malaita, the country’s largest province.
The riots in November also reflected the continuing consequences of the decision to change diplomatic ties.
Sogaware would not move. It is invested in China and China is investing in it. Does this put the citizens of Sols under the yoke of the People’s Liberation Army – the armed wing of the Communist Party? Although Solse’s sovereignty is respected, it has regional implications. What’s next in China’s field of vision?
– Dr. Shailendra B. Singh (@ShailendraBSing) April 20, 2022
What’s in the pact?
The text of the pact has not been published.
The expired project suggests that it will allow Chinese warships to stop in Solomon Islands and Chinese police to be deployed at the request of the archipelago to maintain “social order”. Neither Party will have the right to disclose missions publicly without the written consent of the other.
“We intend to strengthen and strengthen our police capacity to deal with any future instability by properly preparing the police to take full responsibility for the country’s security responsibilities, in the hope that we will never be obliged to invoke our bilateral security agreements.” Sogaware explained to parliament on Wednesday, saying the pact was in line with international and domestic law.
Earlier, Sogaware said Solomon had “no intention … of asking China to build a military base” and stressed on Wednesday that the deal was “driven by our national interests”.
A team of Chinese police officers is training local Solomon Islands officers in training, skills in unarmed combat and the use of weapons such as batons and rifles. [File: Royal Solomon Islands Police Force]
Opposition leader Matthew Weil was skeptical.
“All the drivers of instability, insecurity and even threats to Solomon Islands national unity are entirely internal,” Well was quoted as saying by the Solomon Star on Wednesday. “This means that the deal, allowing for military positions on the part of China, has nothing to do with the national security of the Solomon Islands. I doubt that the provision for this in the deal is involuntary, rather it is calculated for geopolitical effect. On the part of Prime Minister Sogaware, this is mercenary, on the part of China it is too good an opportunity to be missed.
Asked by Weil if he would release the text of the agreement, Sogaware said he would talk to China.
What are the fears of other countries?
Australia, which has a 2017 security agreement with Honiara, is the strongest critic of the agreement, but countries elsewhere in the Pacific, including the United States and New Zealand, have also expressed concern.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who is in the midst of a joint election campaign, said on Wednesday that the signing of the pact showed “intense pressure” from China by Pacific island nations.
Foreign Minister Maris Payne, in a joint statement with Zed Sheselya, Minister for International Development and the Pacific, said that while Australia respected Honiara’s “right to make sovereign decisions”, she was “deeply disappointed” by the pact on China.
“We are concerned about the lack of transparency with which this agreement has been developed, noting its potential to undermine stability in our region,” the statement said, adding that Canberra was seeking “further clarity” on the terms of the agreement and the consequences of it. him. for the region.
The opposition Labor Party, which hopes to overthrow Morrison’s coalition, described it as “the biggest failure of Australian foreign policy in the Pacific since the end of World War II”. Shadow Foreign Minister Penny Wong noted that Australia had ignored warnings from Well as early as last August about a potential security pact.
In a statement Wednesday, officials from Australia, the United States, New Zealand and Japan expressed “shared concerns about the security framework and its serious risks to the free and open Indo-Pacific region.”
For the record, I am concerned about China’s growing presence in the Pacific. But Australia needs to fundamentally rethink how we understand and engage with Pacific nations and peoples to deal with this:
– Joanne Wallis (@JoanneEWallis) April 20, 2022
The official announcement of the pact comes when Kurt Campbell, coordinator of the US National Security Council in the Indo-Pacific region, and Daniel Crittenbrink, his assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, pay an official visit to Solomon, Fiji and Papua New. Guinea.
The United States has already announced plans to reopen its embassy in Honiara, which has been closed since 1993.
What about China?
China is already the Solomon Islands’ main export destination, buying about 65 percent of Honiara’s exports in 2019, followed by Italy’s 9 percent. Australia is the destination of less than 1% of Solomon’s exports.
China is also a source of just under a quarter of the country’s imports, followed by Australia with 13 percent.
Announcing the security agreement, Beijing described it as “normal exchange and cooperation between two sovereign and independent states.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Western powers were “deliberately exaggerating tensions” over the pact.
China’s state media has described Beijing as a benevolent power in the Pacific, suggesting that the United States wants to build military power in the region.
“The Solomon Islands must realize that they are under the special attention of Washington because the United States wants to use them as a pawn to limit China,” the tabloid Global Times reported Wednesday.
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