Solomons MPs ‘warned’ Australian officials of China security pact talks

The Solomon Islands Opposition Leader warned Australia last year the Sogavare government was negotiating a security agreement with Beijing.

Matthew Wale says ‘I told the Australian high commissioner that there were discussions on something that would lead to a security agreement that may be open to security assets and shore base facilities was in the making’. Picture: Facebook.

Solomon Islands Opposition Leader Matthew Wale says he warned Australia last year the country’s Sogavare government was negotiating a security agreement with Beijing that could lead to the establishment of a Chinese base there.

Mr Wale said he issued the warning to Australian high commissioner Lachlan Strahan seven months ago, and watched Mr Strahan take notes on their conversation.

“As far back as August last year, I told the Australian high commissioner that there were discussions on something that would lead to a security agreement that may be open to security assets and shore base facilities was in the making,” he told The Australian.

“I was already at that time aware (of the plan) because I was informed by somebody who was in those discussions.”

“At that stage internal discussions between key ministers were happening, and exploratory – that’s the way it was put to me – ‘exploratory discussions’ were being held with China.”

Another prominent Solomon Islands opposition MP, Peter Kenilorea, said he issued a similar warning in the middle of last year, though in less specific terms.

“I did tell the Australian high commission mid-last year that I felt Sogavare was leading us towards a situation that would justify closer security ties with China,” he told The Australian.

Australian strategists have warned the framework agreement between the two governments, revealed last week, would offer an “open door” to a permanent Chinese military presence 2000km off Australia’s northeast coast.

Mr Sogavare – a longtime critic of Australia who has forged strong relations with China – on Friday refused to back away from the agreement, his office citing “soft and hard security threats facing our country”.

Australia warned it would be “particularly concerned” at any arrangement that allowed the establishment of a foreign base in the Solomon Islands, with Scott Morrison declaring on the weekend that Mr Sogavare was “very aware of our views on this”.

Mr Wale said he found it “a little frustrating, really” that Australia had failed to head off the plan, given it had advance warning of the negotiations.

Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said Mr Morrison needed to explain when the government knew about the proposed Solomon Islands-China security pact, “because it certainly seems like it was caught on the back foot when the draft agreement emerged last week”.

“Mr Morrison talks of the Pacific being a family – perhaps he should have been talking to this family more, to ensure Australia is the partner of choice in the region,” Senator Wong said.

Asked about the warnings, a government spokesman said Australian officials in the Solomon Islands regularly engaged with Solomon Islands MPs “on issues of interest to Australia and our region”.

“We continue to engage in an open and transparent manner at all levels with the Solomon Islands government on its security arrangements,” he said.

The Morrison government announced last week, after the Chinese security agreement was made public, that Australia’s international assistance force would remain in the Solomon Islands until the end of 2023.

Mr Wale said there was a danger now that Mr Sogavare would push ahead with his publicly stated plan to defer next year’s national election, under the cover of a security blanket provided by Australian and potentially Chinese personnel.

He said Australia had allowed itself to be “hoodwinked” by Mr Sogavare into providing security forces to quell riots against him last year, declaring “there is no doubt Australia saved Sogavare in November of 2021”.

He said if the security agreement was signed, the Solomon Islands would become a “vassal state” to China. It would also escalate the tensions between the nation’s most populous province, Malaita, and the national government, which led to the civil unrest.

“Malaita sees this as a direct threat, that (Mr Sogavare) wants China here so they can take on Malaita, and put Malaita in its place,” Mr Wale said.

“So I think this is a direct threat to our national unity.”

Mr Sogavare has declared he wants to delay the 2023 election because of a clash with the Pacific Games, which the country will host in November and December next year.

He needs a three-quarters majority vote in parliament to change the constitution to extend his term.

Mr Wale predicted Mr Sogavare would secure the necessary votes using Chinese money, as he did last year to fend off a no-confidence vote in his leadership.

The Australian revealed in December that payments from a Chinese slush fund were used to lock in the support of MPs in the vote behind the Prime Minister.

Mr Wale said: “That’s how he is going to get the election postponed. He will just tell his MPs, ‘If you support it, you’re going to get money from the (Chinese-funded) National Development Fund’.”

Labor Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers said it was “no coincidence” that China was getting closer to some Pacific nations when the federal government was cutting foreign aid to the region.

But the government’s spokesman said that Australia had provided strong support to the Solomon Islands, and “to suggest otherwise is misleading and deceptive on the part of Labor”.

Under its “framework agreement” with China, the Solomon Islands government could ­“request China to send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces to Solomon ­Islands”.

It says China “may, according to its own needs and with the consent of the Solomon Islands, make ship visits to carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in, Solomon Islands”.