News of a security agreement between the Solomon Islands and China has caused unrest in the West. The US and its allies must do more for the small Pacific countries to stem Beijing’s advance.
So far, Australia has seen itself as a security guarantor in the South Pacific, including on the Solomon Islands. At the end of 2019, Australian soldiers were deployed there after violent riots broke out in the capital Honiara.
Many mysterious names can be found on nautical charts. In the South Pacific, north of Guadalcanal, the main island of the Solomon Islands, there is a body of water called “Ironbottom Sound”. The name “Eisenboden Bay” comes from the fact that here on the seabed the wrecks of around 50 warships lie. During World War II, the United States and the Japanese Empire fought a devastating naval battle in these waters.
The Solomon Islands consist of several hundred islands, on which a total of almost 700,000 people live. Today, around eighty years after the great naval battle, the archipelago is once again the scene of a geopolitical showdown, albeit a bloodless one. In April, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare signed a security agreement with China. The USA and Australia in particular are alarmed.
The excitement in Canberra and Washington is great because the expanses of the Pacific Ocean have been firmly in Western hands since the end of World War II. The United States controls important islands in the North Pacific with Hawaii and Guam. Contractually they are responsible for the defense of Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.
In the South Pacific, Australia took on the role of the American deputy sheriff. Australia is by far the most populous and wealthy country here and is in the regional organization Pacific Islands Forum the leading party. In addition, New Zealand and France with their overseas territories are important players in the region.
In other words, the western countries were free to do whatever they wanted in the Pacific for decades. They supported the small countries in the great ocean with development aid, rushed to the rescue in the event of natural disasters and helped with the use of natural resources. This in turn meant that Ngerulmud, Honiara, Nuku’alofa or Rarotonga (just a few of the capitals totally unknown in this country) often had to accept facts that distant governments had decided over their heads. For example, the major industrial nations took the existential threat to the Pacific countries from climate change far too little seriously.
Is China planning a military base?
The old top dogs are nervous since the People’s Republic of China has become more and more present in the region. Beijing has risen to become one of the largest donors, is building a lot of infrastructure, and some countries – such as Tonga – are deeply indebted to China. In 2019, Beijing persuaded Kiribati and the Solomon Islands to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan and recognize the People’s Republic.
Which brings us back to the security agreement between the Solomon Islands and Beijing. Up until now, Australia saw itself as a guarantor of stability in the Solomon Islands. So Canberra led from 2003 to 2017 Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (Ramsi) on. The mission ended a period of serious unrest and helped establish state institutions such as the police and the courts. When unrest broke out again last November, Australia sent police officers and soldiers again at the request of the Solomon government.
The rioters had their sights set particularly on Chinatown in the capital, Honiara. In the future, Beijing wants to better protect its interests and the approximately 3,000 Chinese citizens who live in the Solomon Islands. According to the agreement, Chinese police officers should be able to support the Solomon authorities in the event of a crisis, albeit only by invitation. The devil is likely to be in the detail: the exact content of the agreement is secret.
The news that Chinese security forces are now operating in the Solomon Islands hit Australia like a bomb. The most important shipping routes from Australia’s east coast with the major cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to Northeast Asia run through the Solomon Sea. At the bottom of these waters lie the major undersea cables connecting Australia to the global internet.
The suspicion that China would like to build a military base in the Solomon Islands quickly arose. Both Beijing and Honiara deny this. But Canberra is not reassured: the 1600 kilometers between the Solomon Islands and the Australian mainland are a stone’s throw in the endless expanses of the ocean. A military presence in the Solomon Islands would give Beijing the opportunity to closely monitor Australia’s cooperation with its strategic partners such as the US and Japan and to disrupt it in the event of a crisis.
It is not the first time that suspicions have been raised that Beijing is planning a military presence in the South Pacific. In 2018, a port facility in Vanuatu was renovated with Chinese help. Since the quay is significantly longer than all the cargo and passenger ships that dock there, it was quickly speculated that it could be designed for Chinese warships. Last year it was revealed that Beijing was planning to expand an airfield on a remote Kiribati atoll. Here, too, the question arose as to what the motives were.
Beijing’s assurances that its intentions in the South Pacific are all peaceful ring hollow in Western ears. For years, China’s propagandists have maintained that it will not militarize the artificial islands in the South China Sea. Today they are fully developed military bases. The People’s Liberation Army has thus brought this important body of water under its control.
The West felt too safe in the Pacific
That’s why the fall of the Solomon Islands should be a wake-up call for Western countries, most notably Australia and the US. If they want to prevent the South Pacific from falling fully into Beijing’s orbit, they have to go on the offensive.
For a long time, the West was too sure of its regional supremacy. Just two examples: In 1993, the USA closed its embassy in Honiara – when the agreement with China became known, Washington had to send an envoy in a hurry. He came too late, Prime Minister Sogavare had already signed.
For its part, Canberra in 2017 allowed the public broadcaster ABC to halt its shortwave broadcasts in the South Pacific due to cost concerns. Thus, the populations of the regions lost an important independent source of information. Chinese state radio now broadcasts on various of the frequencies on which ABC used to be heard.
The two examples show a basic problem: Political decisions justified in the short term have long-term strategic effects. As long as countries in the region have doubts as to whether Western engagement is really sustained, they will be careful not to alienate China. Because China will remain a player in the region, and an increasingly important one at that. For example, if a Western government cuts aid money, it has to think carefully about what that means in the long term.
Development aid is a main pillar of Western engagement in the South Pacific. Australia alone is raising a third of the money; New Zealand and Japan also each spend more than China. And: Since practically all countries in the region are poor, the support is also necessary. The need for investment is huge, especially when it comes to infrastructure: airports, ports, undersea cables, power supply, measures to mitigate the consequences of climate change – the list is long.
But aid money also has something paternalistic about it; old colonialist role models are only slowly disappearing. China can argue that it doesn’t have that colonialist baggage. And it can refer to its own economically successful development path.
The countries of the Pacific are independent actors
The Pacific countries need economic prospects. It is true and important if, for example, Australia helps to monitor the vast sea areas. Illegal fishing – especially by Chinese boats – causes enormous damage to the countries that own these resources. But that’s not enough: Investments are also needed in the local processing chain, such as fish factories, so that the local population can benefit directly.
To further prop up the fragile economies of the Pacific countries, Washington, Canberra, Wellington and their partners should offer preferential trade terms, market access, technology and knowledge transfers. This requires effective coordination between the various actors. A starting point could be existing security arrangements such as the Quad (with the US, Australia, Japan and India) or Aukus (US, Australia, UK). Because the Solomon Islands show what is strategically at stake.
In all geopolitical considerations, however, one thing must not be forgotten in the western capitals: the Pacific countries are not pawns that can be moved back and forth at will. Even if they are small and far away: they are independent actors with their own wishes and needs. These must be taken seriously.