Beijing’s Solomons strategy has outflanked Canberra

Having dropped the ball on relations with Solomons Islands locals in a way that allowed China to build its influence in the Pacific nation, the Albanese government seems determined to compound the error. Giving the cold shoulder to the Solomons Islands leader described as Australia’s “best friend in the Pacific” is not what we should be doing if we are serious about countering China’s malevolent influence in our region.

It is utterly incomprehensible and deeply concerning that, as Stephen Rice reported on Monday, Daniel Suidani, who was deposed last year as premier of Malaita, the Solomons’ most populous province, because of his anti-Beijing views, is having difficulty getting an appointment to meet officials at the Australian high commission in Honiara. Mr Suidani remains an influential political figure despite the skulduggery that led to his removal from office, apparently at Beijing’s behest. He is regarded as the Solomons’ “most strident anti-Beijing warrior”.

As Rice reported, Mr Suidani “wants to tell the Australian government why it is losing the war for hearts and minds to the inducements” of the Chinese Communist Party – a meeting that should be a sine qua non for our bilateral relationship in challenging times, if ever there was one. But, incredibly, he can’t even get a foot in the door of our high commission. His requests for a meeting have been “fobbed off”. Inevitably Mr Suidani is wondering, as Rice reported, “if the thaw in Australia’s previously frosty relationship with China has left the Albanese government lukewarm about countering Beijing’s push for dominance in the South Pacific”.

Whatever the answer to that is, it suggests that despite the Albanese government’s confident assertions when it took office that it would set a new course that would undercut Chinese influence in the Solomons and across the South Pacific, Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are on the same shortsighted trajectory of neglect and incomprehension that previously has played into Beijing’s ambitions for a Chinese military base on our doorstep. That neglect opened the door to Chinese influence. Australia is in danger of doing more damage if it refuses to even hear the views and insights of leaders such as Mr Suidani just because he is opposed to the trenchantly pro-CCP clique in Honiara surrounding Solomons leader Jeremiah Manele and his predecessor as prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, China’s main man who, as Finance Minister, holds the purse strings.

Mr Suidani’s story is one that demands attention, not only from officials at our reluctant high commission in Honiara but also from the Prime Minister and Senator Wong. His account of the murky security pact the Sogavare government concluded with Beijing, and the way what was supposed to be no more than a “small team” of Chinese police stationed in the island state has grown exponentially, is alarming. Officers of Beijing’s notorious Ministry of State Security, which is responsible for repression in China, are deployed across the Solomons, providing weapons and training to locals. Chinese ambassador to Solomon Islands Cai Weiming has handed out water tanks, solar lamps and fishing nets to people on Malaita. That and details of the notorious $90m CCP slush fund being paid to pro-Beijing MPs for what is euphemistically termed “constituency development” should be sounding alarm bells in Canberra.

Instead, the most influential anti-Beijing voice in the Solomons – “our best friend in the Pacific” – can’t even get a meeting with our high commission. That does not reflect well on the Albanese government.