Penny Wong tells Pacific nations ’deals with China will have consequences’
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has urged Pacific nations to consider the “consequences” of security deals with Beijing, as China works to secure a region-wide China-Pacific pact.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has urged Pacific nations to consider the “consequences” of security deals with Beijing, as her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi works to secure a region-wide China-Pacific security, policing and economic pact.
Speaking in Fiji ahead of a meeting with the country’s Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, Senator Wong said Pacific nations would “make their own decisions about who they want to partner with”, but Australia believed the region should look after its own security.
Her comments, on the second day of her trip to Fiji, came as Mr Wang completed a visit to Solomon Islands, which has signed a controversial security pact with Beijing that Australia and the US fear could open the way to Chinese bases in the country.
Mr Wang is undertaking an unprecedented eight-nation trip through the region, and hopes to get agreement at a meeting in Fiji on Monday for a sweeping development and security pact with 10 Pacific nations.
Senator Wong said: “Obviously, we‘ve expressed our concerns publicly about the security agreement between Solomon Islands and China. And the reason we have is we think there are – as do other Pacific nations – we think there are consequences.
“We think it is important that the security of the region be determined by the region and historically that has been the case, and we think that's a good thing.”
It came as Beijing warned “smears and attacks” on its security agreement with Solomon Islands were “doomed to failure”.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the agreement would assist Solomon Islands to improve its “policing and law enforcement capabilities”, while “protecting the safety of Chinese citizens and institutions” in the country.
“Wang Yi stressed that Pacific island countries are sovereign and independent states and are not anyone’s ‘backyard’,” it said in a statement.
Mr Wang and his Solomons counterpart Jeremiah Manele sealed at least five agreements during the visit, including a Blue Economy deal, first revealed by The Australian, to build wharves, shipyards, submarine cables, and “deep-sea fishing bases”.
Agreements on health co-operation, disaster risk reduction, civil aviation co-operation, and freer movement of officials between the two countries, were also signed.
Mr Wang promised China would build a new “National Referral Hospital Comprehensive Medical Centre” in Solomon Islands, and offered Chinese expertise to train the country’s athletes ahead of next year’s Pacific Games.
“The two ministers acknowledged the relationship between Solomon Islands and China is one that is based on the principles of equality, mutual benefit and respect for each other’s sovereignty and remains firm in the fast-changing international system,” a joint statement read.
Mr Wang was expected to push for another bilateral security agreement with Kiribati, which he was due to visit after Solomon Islands.
Senator Wong told the Pacific Island Forum secretariat in Suva on Thursday that Australia’s new Albanese government would do more in the Pacific region and “do it differently”, taking “real action” on climate change and supporting partners “with no strings attached”.
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