New Zealand wants transparency over new China-Solomons pact
New Zealand is calling on China and the Solomon Islands to reveal the details of their latest security agreement, sealed in Beijing this week.
Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is in China and signed several deals, including police co-operation, which has New Zealand, Australia and the United States concerned.
Aotearoa is aware of reports referencing a number of Solomons-China agreements signed during Sogavare’s visit to Beijing, including a policing implementation plan and the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta said on Thursday.
“The lack of transparency on the policing implementation plan is concerning,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Sogavare switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to Beijing when he came to power in 2019.
The new agreement, reached between Sogavare and Chinese Premier Li Qiang, will allow for Chinese police presence in Honiara until 2025.
The police co-operation pact followed last year’s controversial security deal signed in Honiara in April.
That deal allowed Sogavare to call on Beijing at any time for military and police assistance.
China and the US have been in a geopolitical power struggle for influence in the Pacific for the last two decades.
But the US-China competition has intensified since Beijing secured the security deal in 2022, which Washington fears will see Chinese presence growing in the region.
New Zealand is calling on both China and the Solomons to provide transparency of their intentions to Aotearoa and the region.
“We are aware of reports about a number of Solomon Islands-China agreements signed during Prime Minister Sogavare’s visit to Beijing, including a policing implementation plan and the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,” MFAT said.
“We would like the text to be made public in order to understand any security implications for the region.”
Last month, Sogavare called for a review of a 2017 security treaty with Australia, which had provided policing support to the Solomon Islands including the deployment of police personnel during the 2021 riots in Honiara.
China has since increased its police training in the Solomons.
A spokesperson for Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Canberra was aware of a policing implementation plan linked to a deal signed between China and the Solomons in March 2022.
“We are concerned that this development will invite further regional contest,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
But Sogavare has defended the new agreements, saying China’s strategic interests were being “misunderstood”.
The Solomons’ leader told Chinese media the agreements included a bilateral framework of co-operation, formalising a non-reciprocal trade arrangement, taking part in the first high-level forum on shared action for global development, and signing a biosecurity arrangement including aviation arrangements to facilitate movement of people and goods and services.
Sogavare said the partnership with “your great country China is the way to go forward.
“It is really unfortunate… all the nonsense we are hearing is basically that, a misunderstanding of what China is doing.
“China has no other strategic interests other than Taiwan and, of course, the South China Sea.
“Any country in the world will not be comfortable if you start to intrude into areas which are seen as existential threats by any country. And China is no different,” Sogavare said.
His visit also coincides with the opening of the Solomon Islands embassy in Beijing on Friday. The prime minister leaves China on Saturday. (Courtesy Stuff)
