News of China’s security pact with Solomon Islands generates suspicion, offence and backtrack

Name: Australian troops and police deployed to Solomon Islands amid general unrest and Chinatown blaze
Uploaded: 2022-04-02T22:00:11.000Z
Duration: 3 min 1 s
Description: Australian troops and police deployed to Solomon Islands amid general unrest and Chinatown blaze

A draft agreement between China and the Solomons signed on Thursday intends to address the islands’ ‘soft and hard domestic threats’, says Honiara

In response to criticism and scepticism, Solomons PM says agreement does not invite Beijing to establish a military base

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Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) are trained by China Police Liaison Team officers in unarmed combat skills, advanced use of long equipment and crowd control. Photo: RSIPF

Kristin Huang

Published: 6:00am, 3 Apr 2022

The security pact between China and the Solomon Islands will become both a key foothold and a new obstacle in Beijing’s push to expand its presence in the South Pacific, according to analysts.

A draft version of the security deal, which was initiated by representatives of both sides according to the Solomon Islands government, was signed by China and the Solomons on Thursday.

The Solomon Islands is a nation across an archipelago in the southwest Pacific Ocean, around 2,000km (1,240 miles) northeast of Australia, a country whose ties with China have been in a downward spiral since the pandemic.

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Australian troops and police deployed to Solomon Islands amid general unrest and Chinatown blaze

The agreement between Beijing and Honiara is intended to “respond to the Solomon Islands’ soft and hard domestic threats”, with the Solomons continuing to roll out its national security strategy and uphold its “friends to all and enemies to none” foreign policy, according to Honiara.

In Beijing on Thursday, Chinese foreign affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin said the agreement did not target any third country. He said the Pacific nation was “a stage for international cooperation, but was not any country’s ‘backyard’”.

Wang’s remarks were a counter-attack to criticism of the agreement, especially from Australia, whose Prime Minister Scott Morrison said “there is great concern across the Pacific family because we are in constant contact with our Pacific family”, according to Sky News.

New Zealand used a similar tone when it said on Monday the country was gravely concerned about possible militarisation of the Pacific following a decision by the Solomon Islands government to form a security partnership with China.

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