Solomon Islands Leader Calls for Concern over China Security Deal


MELBOURNE, Australia — In a heated speech confirming that the Solomon Islands had drafted a security agreement with ChinaThe island nation’s leader said on Tuesday he was “ready to sign” the deal, criticizing it as “humiliating” concerns by Australia and New Zealand that the deal could destabilize the region’s security.

It was Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s remarks to Parliament that last week was the first time he had addressed the leak of a draft security agreement. The draft, shared by opponents of the accord and confirmed as legitimate by the Australian government, has caused alarm in a region where concerns over China’s influence have grown for years.

The draft suggests that Chinese warships could enter the country or that Chinese troops could intervene in times of crisis and put them at the gates of Australia and New Zealand.

According to the leaked document, “The Solomon Islands may request that China, according to its needs, send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces to the Solomon Islands to help maintain social order, protect the life and property of people. ” Confidentiality was required, “None of the parties will disclose cooperation information to a third party.”

In his speech, Mr. Sogavare described the leakers of the draft agreement as “crazy” and “foreign intervention agents”. He said the search for “liberal hegemony” had failed and criticized foreign powers for assuming that the Solomon Islands could not act in their own interests.

Mr. Sogavare declined to provide further details on the content of the agreement, which he said was completed, but added that there was no pressure from Beijing and “he has no intention of asking China to build a military base in the Solomon Islands.”

He insisted it was “utter nonsense” to say that China poses a security threat in the Pacific. “We find it very humiliating to be stigmatized as unfit to manage our sovereignty issues or to have other motives to pursue our national interests,” he said.

He said the needs of the Solomon Islands are beyond what could be provided by a single partner country. He said Solomon Island’s foreign policy strategy is to be everyone’s friend and no one’s enemy, and that it will not be drawn into any geopolitical conflict.

But Matthew Wale, leader of the opposition party in the Solomon Islands Parliament, said he feared the deal could be used for anything. “This has nothing to do with the national security of the Solomon Islands,” he said.

“We’re seeing actions like the potential militarization of the region,” said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Australian authorities have expressed concern over the potential to lead to the establishment of a Chinese military base, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison lobbied in phone calls in Papua New Guinea and Fiji on Monday to pressurize the deal to be cancelled.

In a daily briefing on Monday, Wang Wenbin, spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, dismissed concerns about the agreement and said, “Countries involved should earnestly respect the sovereignty and independent decisions of the Solomon Islands, rather than deciding what others should and should not do. from an important and condescendingly privileged position.”

It has been losing ground for years in Australia, the Solomon Islands and the wider region. Smaller Pacific countries have long complained that “Australia shows contempt, paternalism and general disrespect,” said Tess Newton Cain, project leader for the Pacific Center at Griffith University in Australia.

Australian leaders have previously joked about rising sea levels in Pacific nations, saying nations will survive climate change because their workers must “reap the benefits.”

Mr. Sogavare has long telegraphed his country’s shift to China. In 2019, he said he would end 36-year diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the self-governing island China claims to belong to, in order to establish official ties with Beijing.

Mihai Sora, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute and a former Australian diplomat stationed in the Solomon Islands, said the alarm triggered by the security agreement showed that countries like the United States needed to engage more deeply with the region.

“What he says is why the Pacific Islands have for years looked beyond these traditional partnerships like Australia, because they’re not looking for more help; “They’re looking for economic relations, and that’s a narrative that China can present in a much more convincing way.”

During a visit to Fiji last month, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that the United States will open An embassy in the Solomon Islands after closing an embassy in the 1990s.

Griffith University professor Dr. Cain said of Mr. Sogavare: “While they acknowledge that great power struggles continue among Pacific Island leaders and that there may be great powers, he is the last to make this clear. or their interest in the region may or may not increase, they see the region as a peace zone.”

“They don’t see themselves as prizes to fight for, and they don’t want to take sides or take sides.”



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