By Staff Writer.
China’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed China has signed a controversial security pact with the Solomon Islands. The signing follows a last-minute dash to the Solomons by Australia’s Minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja and comes ahead of a scheduled visit later this week by White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell.
During a media briefing on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and the Solomon Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Trade Jeremiah Manele “officially signed the inter-governmental framework agreement on security cooperation between the two countries the other day.”
Wang Wenbin denied reports the Chinese Foreign Minister visited the Solomons just days ago. News of the security pact, leaked online in late March, caused serious concern in Australia, New Zealand, and the US.
“The two sides will conduct cooperation in such areas as maintenance of social order, protection of the safety of people’s lives and property, humanitarian assistance, and natural disaster response, in an effort to help the Solomon Islands strengthen capacity building in safeguarding its own security,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said yesterday.
“The China-Solomon Islands security cooperation is open, transparent, and inclusive and does not target any third party. It proceeds in parallel and complements Solomon Islands’ existing bilateral and multilateral security cooperation mechanisms.”
Australia, New Zealand, and the US are concerned the security pact will allow the Chinese to establish a permanent military presence on the Solomons, something the Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare denies will happen. But leaked copies of the draft agreement reveal the Chinese will have a lot of latitude in the Solomons. The draft document had officials around the Pacific scrambling to counter the Chinese push.
“We believe that signing such an agreement could increase destabilization within the Solomon Islands and will set a concerning precedent for the wider Pacific Islands region,” says State Department spokesperson Ned Price.
Confirmation from Beijing of the signing has sparked a firestorm of reaction in Australia and the US. Labor Opposition Foreign Affairs spokesperson calls the signing of the security pact Australia’s “worst failure of Australian foreign policy in the Pacific since the end of World War II.”
“Our region has become less secure, and the risks Australians face have become much greater,” Ms Wong told the ABC on Friday. “We live in a very risky world, where the strategic circumstances we face are more uncertain than any time since World War II. There are many things the Australian Government needs to do – one of them is to secure our region. The Government has abjectly failed.”
The Australian Government says it is “deeply disappointed” that the Solomons signed the security pact. But on Friday, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the Solomons Islands is a sovereign nation, and other nations must respect their decision to sign the agreement.
“I spoke and engaged at length with my colleague (in the Solomons). The Prime Minister has been in contact with Prime Minister Sogavare… We have been in very close contact with the Solomon Islands Government.”
Minister Payne says Senator Wong’s claim that the region is now less secure is an “unfair assertation.”
“We are concerned by the lack of transparency and unspecified nature of this agreement,” says a spokesperson for the US National Security Council overnight, while confirming the high-level visit by US officials would still go ahead. “The reported signing does not change our concerns and that of regional allies and partners, and it does not change our commitment to a strong relationship with the region.”
