Getting closer
China makes inroads in the Solomon Islands

TO THE ALARM of Australia and New Zealand, the Solomon Islands has reached a security agreement with China. The prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, confirmed this on March 29th, furious that a draft of the agreement had been leaked a few days earlier. It envisaged the arrival of Chinese military personnel and police and occasional “ship visits” in order “to protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects in Solomon Islands”. Already, China has started training the local force in riot control and handling replica weapons, after years when Australia and New Zealand have taken primary responsibility for dealing with unrest in the Solomon Islands and for reforming the police force.

The Solomons switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019. Since then China has begun repairing the country’s only gold mine and taken over Taiwan’s financing of controversial “constituency development funds” for MPs, and the state-owned China Civil Engineering Corporation has started building a stadium for the South Pacific Games next year. China’s Pacific expansion does not offer commercial rewards as big as those available in Africa or South-East Asia, but it does bring important prizes in its long war of diplomatic attrition with Taiwan. Kiribati, too, switched recognition to China in 2019, leaving only four Pacific countries still aligned with Taiwan (Nauru, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Palau).