The Solomon Islands and China have entered into a policing agreement and are discussing a wider military pact that will allow China to establish its first military presence in the Pacific region, news agencies are reporting.
The negotiations to allow China to set up military bases and deploy troops drew immediate concern from the U.S. and Australia, Radio Free Asia reported March 23. The Solomon Islands are only 1,050 miles from the northeastern coast of Australia, which has provided security support to the Solomon Islands for years.
“That is our backyard, this is our neighborhood," Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews said in the RFA report, "and we are very concerned of any activity that is taking place in the Pacific Islands."
Australia and the Solomon Islands signed a bilateral security agreement in 2018, Reuters reported. In 2019, Australia led a policing action to help quell riots in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara which broke out after the government announced it was changing its diplomatic ties to Beijing from Taiwan. The prospect of China establishing military bases close to Australia "is a very serious development in Australia's defense and national security," Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told RFA.
The U.S. has been working to establish stronger relationships with Pacific island nations to counter China's increasing presence there, news agencies report. In February, during a trip to the Solomon Islands by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the U.S. announced it will reopen the U.S. embassy there, which has been closed since 1993, Reuters reported.
Kurt Campbell, Indo-Pacific coordinator for the Biden administration, said in January the U.S. has “enormous moral, strategic, historical interests” in the Pacific but needs to do more to assist Pacific island nations, RFA reports.
Meanwhile, China has been pursuing closer ties with the Pacific island nations in recent years, Reuters reports, offering the poor countries infrastructure loans, economic assistance and military support, according to RFA.
Analysts have called the remote Pacific islands “ground zero” for U.S.-China strategic competition, according to RFA.
