Solomon Islands inks security deal with China, ignoring Australian protests

Singapore: Solomon Islands has initialled a security deal with Beijing, paving the way for China to take its first major stake in the Pacific and testing Australia’s century-long influence over the region.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele will now formally sign off on the deal after details of the draft agreement were ironed out on Thursday by officials from both sides.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, left, and Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare in Beijing. Credit: AP

Honiara’s Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet said in a statement on Thursday that officials have “initialled elements of a bilateral security cooperation framework” with China. The office said the government would continue to work with all partners “in providing a safe and secure nation where all people are able to co-exist peacefully”.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the agreement was “beyond reproach”.

“It is beneficial to social stability and lasting security of Solomon Islands and the common interest of regional countries,” he said.

But the imminent signing of the deal is a firm rejection of days of lobbying from Australia and New Zealand to reconsider and a failure of decades of engagement with the Pacific region. China will now be elevated alongside Australia as Honiara’s major partner less than three years after Solomon Islands switched its diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China.

If finalised, the draft agreement would allow Chinese navy ships and defence forces to be based in Solomon Islands to protect billions of dollars in Chinese infrastructure investment in the developing country. The deal followed protests and riots in November in which Chinese buildings in Honiara were attacked.

“Solomon Islands reiterate that the framework of cooperation is to respond to Solomon Islands’ soft and hard domestic threats,” the Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet said. “Solomon Islands continue to roll out the implementation of its national security strategy and uphold its foreign policy of friends to all and enemies to none.”

Lieutenant General Greg Bilton, the Australian Defence Force’s Chief of Joint Operations, told reporters in Canberra on Thursday that any stationing of Chinese navy vessels in the Pacific nation would “change the calculus” for Australia’s defence forces.

“We would change our patrolling patterns and our maritime awareness activities,” he said.

Honiara, the capital, is less than 2000 kilometres from Australia’s east coast. Solomon Islands is a key strategic point in the Pacific, providing access to shipping lanes from Australia and New Zealand up through Asia. The presence of Chinese navy ships would drain Australian defence resources and potentially cut off supply lines in the event of a conflict.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Foreign Minister Marise Payne, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta urged Solomon Islands to remember their contributions to the Pacific in the days before the deal was signed.

But Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare described their warnings about China’s intentions in the region as “nonsense” in a speech to Parliament this week, arguing that they had been consumed by “geopolitical and ideological hatred”.

“The time has come for nation-states to face the realities about all the nonsense we are made to believe,” he said.

China has militarised three islands in the disputed South China Sea and flown hundreds of warplanes toward Taiwan’s airspace over the past year.

Sogavare explicitly linked Chinese investment in the nation’s infrastructure to the proposed security deal and suggested Beijing would be given the right to protect its investments by force.

“Lack of development, especially in major infrastructure in our provinces continues to plague us. Lack of development leads to security issues,” he said. “That affects our national security.”

Defence Minister Peter Dutton said China had targeted Australia, Japan and India.

“I mean this all adds up to a course of conduct that China’s embarking on,” he said on Thursday. “The aggression that we’re seeing in the South China Sea, the military presence now in 20 points in the South China Sea, the East China Sea activities against Japan, are all deeply concerning.”

Dutton said Australia did not believe it is in the best interests of Honiara to be engaging in an exercise that could lead to a military presence in Solomon Islands.

“Frankly, I think that’s the view of many of the neighbours and others within the Indo‑Pacific, and we’ve been very clear about that,” he said.

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