A leaked draft security pact between China and the Solomon Islands has led to a fair bit of panic among defence circles. Morrison government ministers are warning the agreement could pave the way for a Chinese military presence in the country.
Under the agreement, leaked by an adviser to a regional government in the Solomon Islands, China could be allowed to base navy ships off the coast of the country, and allowed to send armed police and military personnel at the Solomon Islands’ government’s request.
Almost immediately, Australia’s High Commissioner Lachlan Strahan tweeted that Canberra would be stepping up further in the country, helping to build a radio network, a second patrol boat outpost, and around $20 million in budget support.
It’s a sign that Australia is worried about the implications of a greater Chinese military presence in a country where we’ve always been the main security provider. Experts say that while we shouldn’t react with too much hysteria about the agreement, it is the latest step in an increasingly deep relationship between Beijing and Honiara.
The background
Late last year, Prime Minister Scott Morrison sent Australian troops to Honiara to help curb civil unrest in the capital. The source of that unrest was broad dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s leadership — issues around corruption, lack of service delivery, and controls on the media.
But another key source of malcontent was Sogavare’s increasingly close relationship with China. For decades, the Solomon Islands had recognised Taiwan’s independence, but switched that recognition to the People’s Republic of China in late 2019.
According to Griffith University Pacific expert Tess Newton Cain, that move was controversial, in part because of Taiwan’s historic support for the country, but also since Sogavare was viewed to have “railroaded” through the change without properly hearing advice from relevant inquiries.
China’s relations with the Solomon Islands have been deepening, particularly in the areas of infrastructure provision.
“What we’ve seen since 2019 was an increasing closeness between Beijing and Honiara, with increased infrastructure particularly around the 2023 Pacific Games,” Newton Cain said.
“We’ve also seen a deepening security relationship, particularly around the provision of personnel.”
Earlier this year, China provided police officers to help train local law enforcement in the aftermath of the riots. Last week, a shipment of fake guns sent from China led to controversy about Beijing trying to funnel arms into the country. When Sogavare, who drove the China pivot, faced an unsuccessful no-confidence motion last year, he reportedly used a Chinese slush fund to buy support.
What it means for Australia
The news from the Solomons Islands was met with a bit of anxiety among the government. On Q+A last night, Trade Minister Dan Tehan said he worried the agreement could undermine the Solomon Islands’ sovereignty.
According to Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews, the move was concerning, because it expanded China’s presence in “our backyard”.
A heightened Chinese presence in the country is a big step, because Australia has always been the Solomon Islands’ primary security partner, and sent troops on a 14-year peacekeeping mission in the country between 2003 and 2017. China’s agreement with the Solomon Islands is the first security pact of its kind with a Pacific country.
Australia-China Relations Institute director James Laurenceson told Crikey that some of the reaction to the pact exposed the hypocrisy at the heart of Australian foreign policy: “We talk up these countries’ sovereignties. Just on a first-principles level, if the [Solomon Islands] government wants to increase cooperation with China, we should be respectful of that.”
The agreement would pose a diplomatic challenge for Australia, Newton Cain said.
“It’s a fine line for Australia to work in terms of maintaining their primary position in the country, while being very careful in not be seen as undermining Solomon Islands’ sovereignty.”
The Solomon Islands’ turn toward China is also a sign of a developing country, in need of better infrastructure, turning towards a country that’s willing to help. Former Labor leader Bill Shorten accused the government of being “asleep at the wheel” in the Pacific, saying, “I think this is a major foreign policy blunder and when we’ve got these sort of agreements being signed in our backyard, that’s the day job of the Morrison government.”
Newton Cain explained how Australia had gotten a bit complacent about the Pacific. In that vacuum, given the Solomon Islands’ needs, it isn’t surprising they’ve increasingly let China in the door.
“The Solomon Islands would say to Australia, possibly with some legitimacy, ‘You made a fortune out of your relationship with China. Why shouldn’t we benefit?’”
As Kevin Rudd pointed out this morning. Australia has gone out of its way to disengage with the Pacific, cutting aid, getting rid of our ABC presence, only putting our boots on the ground for policing and not for development and giving gratuitous advice from time to time, this being one of them, finally realising that we, Australia under the LNP, have forgotten about diplomacy. DF is correct, abandoned by ‘friends’, the country has to flirt with ‘our enemies’ to get any response at all. If the Solomons changes sides, it’s due to their own interests, not ours. Whether it turns out well for them remains to be seen.
All Australian governments for the last 53 years, including Kevin Rudds, have allowed Indonesia to colonise a country the size of France that’s just 250km north of Australia. I’m talking about the western half of the island of New Guinea, a country called West Papua.
If you’ve never heard of it, that’s because Indonesia has prohibited foreign correspondents from reporting from there for the last 53 years since they stole this land through a sham vote approved by the general assembly of the United Nations.
Hundreds of thousands of indigenous West Papuans have been killed or disappeared. Indonesia has granted 500,000 Indonesians property and residential rights on the island, which is now a majority muslim country.
Next time a journalist engages with Mr Rudd, or any other Australian prime minister from the last 53 years, please ask him or her why their government allowed this to pass without protest or comment.
“Allowed” Indonesia to colonise? Why, those naughty little Indonesians. How dare they colonise somewhere without asking our permission first! Who do they think they are – the British?
Nice attempt at diversion. However, a more pertinent scoring point would be cuts in foreign aid that have occurred under Labor. Labor is not completely blameless in the diminution of Australia’s standing in the Pacific.
Nonetheless, most of the damage has occurred on the watch of Liberal Party white supremacists.
The post before mine made the point about foreign aid cuts, Graeski, which is a good one, since foreign aid was the key to Australia’s influence in the region.
My point about West Papua is that Australia’s non-action is an even bigger abrogation of opportunity to influence the region. Instead, we’ve stayed mute while another medium power, Indonesia, colonises our nearest neighbour.
Your “naughty little Indonesians” sarcasm is unwarranted. I am not patronising any country. I am saying it is a travesty that West Papua was re-colonised the moment it escaped colonisation by the Dutch.
West Papua is entitled to independence according to the charter of the United Nations. That Australia stood by, and continues to stand by silently whilst the charter is violated is a failure by Australia to “influence its region” that is far greater than its mindless cuts to foreign aid.
Really! What do you think little minnow Australia was going to do about it? A tiny population with a tiny armed force. You really don’t think Indonesia takes us seriously, do you? If anything this wide open, unpopulated country would look very enticing when the sh*t hits the fan in a few decades time.
Actually at that time Australia could have been a lot more vocal about it. The West Papuan Act of Free Choice vote was overseen by the UN. Both the US and Australia could have influenced how the UN assisted Indonesia in taking over West Papua.
Furthermore, Australia is not a little minnow where Indonesia is concerned. We train their defence forces. We give them a lot of aid. They rely on trade with us. Population is not relevant. Wealth is. Indonesia takes us very seriously indeed.
Agreed – Australia [both parties including under the Rudd era] has merely allowed the Dutch to be replaced by Indonesians in subjugating a Micronesian population – West Papua, which has no connection with Indonesia.
Australia should support Papua New Guinea when it invades West Papua to to liberate the subjugated and persecuted Micronesians
PNG would need a serious military upgrade to be able to storm the border and liberate its brethran, Desmond. Who knows what options will be available to them 10 years from now. Indonesia is building 4,300mk of roads through the forest in order to monetize the West Papua lands, and selling access to South Korean firms to clear fell and strip mine the forests, turning it into oil palm monoculture.
West Papuans are Melanesian. The ancient ancestors of Pacific islanders embarked from the island of New Guina north and east across the pacific, and south and east to Australia.
The name Melanesia (in French, Mélanésie) was first used in 1832 by French navigator Jules Dumont d’Urville: he coined the terms Melanesia and Micronesia along the preexisting Polynesia to designate what he viewed as the three main ethnic and geographical regions forming the Pacific.
If I were you I’d learn a bit more about this issue before making comments that showcase your colossal ignorance about Indonesia and West Papua.
The Indonesians were ‘allowed’ to take Irian Jaya because the powers that be in the ‘west’ said that they could when the Dutch left, and Australia fell into step with that. To ignore that is to ignore history. There was absolutely no rationale for Indonesia to take a geographically and ethically different country and they have engaged in what some have described as genocide ever since while the ‘west’, that includes us, sit on their hands.
I’m pretty sure most Crikey readers are aware of the West Papua situation.
Thank you for sharing that, Woopwoop.
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make to me with your comment. Could you kindly elaborate?
If you’ve never heard of it seemed a bit condescending.
I see what you are saying in the context of most Crikey readers having heard of it, thanks.
Most other media consumers i.e. 7, 9, Newscorp haven’t heard of it. I’m really aiming my comments at the journalists employed by those mainstream news organs who also sneak peaks at Crikey to help them to know what’s going on.
I think ordinary Australians would like to know what’s going on 250km north of the Queensland border. I think they’d be horrified and they’d want their government to say and do as much as it could, whether they vote Labor, coalition, Palmer, Lambie or Hanson, albeit for different reasons.
Just a quick comment Frank to say (for what it is worth), that I think you have made some excellent points here in your posts. I do not find your remarks sarcastic or condescending. Please keep posting.
Cheers.
Given the replies to Franks’ comments, I’m not sure that is the case at all.
And what, precisely, could a “middling power” like Australia do to prevent Indonesia from doing anything it wishes to do? Protest or comment? Meaningless. For many years, Indonesia was considered the “threat” to Australia rather than China. Now we train with their military. We are inconsequential outside of our borders.
Are you saying, lexusaussie, that Australia has no power or influence, so it should tolerate Indonesia’s breaches of the UN charter, and support its military?
Or are you saying it’s difficult to know where to start?
It is difficult to know where to start, because the crime is so daunting and so audacious, until we consider that all reasonable governments, including the Indonesian government, say they support press freedom and do not support colonialism.
The ban on foreign correspondents operating in West Papua is the most powerful tool Indonesia has in its endeavour to extinguish the West Papuan people. Without press scrutiny, Indonesia can literally do whatever it likes.
Did you know that Indonesia hosted the United Nations World Press Freedom day in 2017 — in Jakarta?
What would it have taken Australia to point out publicly at that event that Indonesia was not being consistent with its own support for World Press Freedom by banning foreign correspondents from West Papua for 53 years? It would have cost nothing, won respect in the region, and challenged Indonesia to answer to itself. That would be a great start.
Supporting a resolution in the UN for a special rapporteur to be given access to West Papua would be another easy next step for Australia. If Australia were to work with its partners e.g. USA, UK and Holland, it could get enough support for such a resolution to put Indonesia in the spotlight.
Press Freedom isn’t just a token. It would be a big step forward because it would enable the world to tally up how many deaths have occured, how many hectares of land have been stolen and deforrested, and how many billions of dollars in gold and nickel have been stolen from the West Papua people.
If reasonable people could access that information freely, there would be a next step after that, and and another and another, limited only by the public’s imagination.
Without that first step, the world’s imagination is in the dark, and Australia is losing influence in the South Pacific every day.
If Indonesia is allowed to prosper for another 53 years unimpeded by scrutiny, who do you think will control the South Pacific?
All that would have done is put yet another Asian country offside with us. Australia is a rude, mouthy country by Asian cultural standards and all we achieve by approaches that you propose is enmity.
Look how Indonesia responds whenever we have criticised them. There have been some very strained periods since 1949, most notably the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation, the East Timor crisis in 1999, the issues of West Papua, asylum seekers, and the disclosure Australia’s wiretapping on some Indonesian officials in 2013.
We are not in a position to deter Indonesia (or any other country excluding New Zealand) militarily and we don’t understand what Diplomacy with Asian countries means and haven’t for many years. You don’t come out with Press Releases, bullhorns and start telling Asian countries what to do. You approach them respectfully and raise your issues politely and in private. To do otherwise results in a situation similar to what we currently have with China.
As to the future in Asia, it will be Asia in control of its own destiny and not some “white” Christian country of 25 Million, that still thinks they are a part of Europe, notwithstanding where it is located geographically.
As I said to someone else further up, go away and learn a bit more about this, and our relationship with Indonesia. The ignorance displayed in these comments is just embarrassing.
Yes you are embarrassing and intolerant of anyone that dares to disagree with the “font of all knowledge on everything” aren’t you?
Mostly Julie bishop I believe.
The LNP have never been interested in government of any kind. Their agenda appears to be strictly to enrich themselves personally by selling favourable legislation to billionaires in return for post political perks like directorships. If one of said billionaires had a stake in the Solomons they may have been more interested but only if the billionaire asked them to. They dont appear to be able to do anything proactively.
It’s tempting to draw a comparison with how Russia felt about Ukraine wanting to join Nato. Not that I’m saying they’re the same, supporting anything or anything, just pointing out there are some similarities.
Agree except it won’t be played that way in the West. It will be pushed as “Chinese Interference”.
Yes it’s the same.
Cuba was the same for Kennedy.
it was the first thing that came into my mind – mainstream media will never draw the comparison. I did read somewhere that this is OUR backyard!!!!!
Well amongst other things it’s another demonstration of the incompetence and hypocrisy of the government. Plenty of bellicose BS about China, lots of high sounding words dusted off from cold warrior mantras of their youth. But where the rubber hits the road, where there is actually a contest with China for influence, at a level at which we are suited to meet them, missing in action.
The logic of Coalition slogans would suggest it is important to support democracy and rule of law in the South Pacific, by aid and by example. However, that clearly is beyond the patronising, lazy and pathetic grandstanding for electoral purposes, efforts of the Coalition. Watch now for some cack handed patronising or threatening statements from a Joyce or Dutton that will serve to alienate Pacific Islanders. Jeez, if I was China I know who I would want winning the next election and it wouldn’t be Labor.
“. . . . what does that mean for the Pacific”?
It should mean Pacific Nations together sit down and fully consider ‘their’ future priorities. Only then, speak very strongly so that China, Australia and USA forced to listen. It is ‘their’ backyard!