Editorial | Why the tiny Solomon Islands matter – to East and West

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s first overseas visit after winning the recent general election was not to his country’s chief security partner, the United States, nor to its biggest trading partner, China. It was to the Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean. But the visit had a lot to do with the China-US battle for influence in the region. What sets the small nation apart is that it is one of six in the Pacific – and 17 overall – that still recognises Taiwan rather than China. The US wants Australia to use its influence in the region as a big aid donor to ensure none switch allegiance to Beijing.

In its campaign to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, China has been courting Solomon Islands politicians with grant and aid overtures to drop Taipei and sign up to its Belt and Road Initiative, like Pacific island neighbours Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. Opinion among Solomons politicians is split. The government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has not ruled out a switch, putting it in the middle of the struggle for influence between Washington and Beijing. According to Australian media reports, the US has accused China of destabilising the Pacific by trying to poach Taiwan’s remaining allies. Morrison’s replies to questions after his talks with Sogavare did not buy into this. But he said Australia would not exert pressure on the Solomon Islands on what was entirely a matter for the Solomons. Indeed, Morrison asserted a stance in the Pacific independent of regional rivalry between the US and China, saying that “Indo-Pacific states” had to focus on their own perspectives and insights. This reflects Australia’s need to balance relations with the two big powers and the reality of China’s rising influence. Interestingly, he praised a recent speech at the Shangri-La security dialogue by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who hoped smaller states would not have to choose sides between the US and China.

Sogavare admits he is under pressure to rethink relations with Taiwan from politicians who say investment in the impoverished nation might boom. But Morrison’s symbolic post-election visit to the Pacific – the “front and centre of its strategic outlook” and the recipient of more than a third of its foreign aid – has wider implications.

Locals say that in a country of six main islands and hundreds of smaller ones, it raises the question of coal-exporting Australia’s domestically conflicted climate-change and energy policies. Some islands are literally disappearing off the map. Development issues such as health and youth unemployment remain important. But ultimately, if climate science is right, the Solomons’ greatest need for aid – from East or West – could be in meeting the threat to whole communities of rising sea levels attributed to global warming.