Solomons’ China deal is bigger than party politics

The tightening hold China has placed on Solomon Islands through its Belt and Road diplomacy and a new security agreement presents a challenge that transcends the party politics of the domestic election campaign. At play is a calculated push by China to confront US dominance in the Pacific, greatly extend its defensive line outwards, and assert itself as a regional power. At stake are grave issues that go to the heart of our own national security interest and that demand statesmanship not only from Scott Morrison but also Anthony Albanese. The likelihood that the deal will pave the way for Beijing to establish a military base in the Solomons, barely three hours’ flying time from our shores, is real and imminent.

No one will begrudge the Opposition Leader his right to criticise the government over its handling of Pacific relationships. But he must be careful not to play into China’s hands as it seeks to consolidate the hold it has gained over Solomon Islands and to suborn other similarly corrupt and vulnerable Pacific Island states into falling for Beijing’s self-serving debt-trap diplomacy. As the Prime Minister warned on Wednesday, there are signs Papua New Guinea is facing such pressure, a prospect that should add immeasurably to concern not only in Australia but also in the US and in states across the Pacific over the fallout from the Solomon Islands deal.

Beijing’s pact with Honiara could hardly be more geopolitically significant for the challenge it presents to longstanding US hegemony in the region. It has gone far beyond the threat posed to vital sea lanes through the South China Sea. China is now poised to ensconce itself in the heart of the South Pacific, with regimes such as Solomon Islands easy prey for its strategic ambitions. There is little new in these tactics. They were first seen on a grand scale in Africa in 1969 when legions of Chinese workers arrived to build the 1860km TAZARA railway through the heart of the continent. In the decades since, dozens of African leaders have fallen for bribes that have enriched themselves and left their countries crippled and in hock to Beijing.

In Solomon Islands a similar scenario has emerged – what political commentator Celsus Irokwato Talifilu, an adviser to the premier of the Solomons’ Malaita Province, has described as “a corrupt political elite”. “The nation is now an oligarchy, not a democracy,” Mr Talifilu says. “Now they are trying to steal our territorial sovereignty for private sale. The corrupt central government is no longer accountable to the people of the Solomons.”

China thrives amid such brazen corruption. That was seen clearly amid last November’s riots in Honiara when China paid almost $68,000 as a bribe to MPs to secure their votes to defeat a motion of no confidence in the government of Manasseh Sogavare, Beijing’s loyal facilitator in the Solomons. Yet it was the Morrison government that answered Mr Sogavare’s desperate call for help during the rioting, sending in troops and police on a mission that saved the Solomons Prime Minister from what otherwise would have been certain defeat. Australia did the same between 2013 and 2017 when the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands propped up a constitutional system, bequeathed at independence in 1978, that was not working.

Through countless natural disasters since the Solomons’ independence, Australia has always been first to help the elected government of the day in Honiara. Yet it is Mr Sogavare who, with bogus pretensions that his country’s foreign policy is one of “friends to all, enemies to none”, has opened the door wide to Chinese expansionism on our doorstep. There should be no surprise in this, given the way he abruptly turned against decades of close ties and help from Taiwan in favour of Beijing in 2019.

Mr Sogavare’s foolishness in becoming Beijing’s pawn would be hard to exaggerate. He is betraying the freedom and sovereignty of Solomon Islands and its people. He has failed to learn the lessons of countries such as Sri Lanka, which last week announced that it is in such a mess that it is defaulting on all its foreign debts, largely because of the massive burden of Chinese debt diplomacy. The extent to which China already has its claws deep into the Solomons has been seen by the way it is providing the facilities needed for the 2023 Pacific Games as a way of delaying elections due in Solomon Islands that might otherwise end Mr Sogavare’s time in office. For Australia, the US and countries across the region, the strategic challenges that loom ahead following China’s thrust in the heart of the Pacific could hardly be more significant.