China vehicle gifts fuel arms race with Australia for Solomons influence
Just days after Australia gave Solomon Islands’ police force an arsenal of military-grade weapons, Beijing has one-upped it.
China has donated water cannons, motorcycles and four-wheel drives to Solomon Islands’ police just days after Australia gifted the force an arsenal of military-grade weapons.
The one-upmanship comes just weeks ahead of the anniversary of the 2021 Solomon Islands riots, providing the country’s Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, with potent options to suppress future unrest.
The latest support was unveiled in Honiara on Friday, with the handing over of keys to the vehicles, and a martial arts demonstration by a Chinese police officer.
The two water cannons, 30 motorcycles and 20 four-wheel drives will be added to the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force’s growing fleet.
Two days earlier, Australia handed 60 semi-automatic rifles and 13 new vehicles to the force.
Strategic Analysis Australia director Michael Shoebridge said Australia and China were now locked in competition to be Mr Sogavare’s “security partner of choice”, cementing his power as “as an anti-democratic leader” who was prepared to use force and intimidation against his people.
“It seems our desperation to stop Beijing being Mr Sogavare’s major source of arms and training means we have to provide assault weapons to his police, while Beijing provides truck-mounted water cannons,” Mr Shoebridge said.
“The main losers here are the democratic voices in the Solomons parliament, like opposition leader Matthew Wale, and the Solomons people themselves who are presumably the targets for these assault weapons and water cannons.”
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles insisted Australia was not trying to compete with China for the island nation’s friendship, saying Pacific countries were free to engage with any country they wanted to.
“We’ve just got to focus on our own relationship with the Solomon Islands, and indeed with all the countries of the Pacific,” Mr Marles told ABC radio. “I genuinely do believe that if we are present and if we are engaged with the countries in the Pacific, they’ll want to work with us.”
Mr Marles said Australia was the “natural” security partner for the Pacific. “We’ve been working with the Solomon Islands police force over a very long period of time. I’m confident that if we do that we will be the natural partner of choice,” he said.
Rioters – predominantly residents of Malaita Province who opposed Mr Sogavare’s rule – burned down public buildings and Chinese-owned businesses during civil unrest from November 24-27 last year.
By March, Mr Sogavare had signed his controversial security pact with Beijing.
Australia has been determined to reassert its role as Solomon Islands’ main security partner ever since.
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