China announced on Tuesday (19) the signing of a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, a country in the South Pacific region, close to Australia and New Zealand. The treaty raised concerns about the movement of Chinese troops in the region and about Beijing’s military ambitions in the Australian backyard.
The agreement outsources security in the archipelago and puts Chinese security forces at the disposal of the Solomonic government to protect the country’s infrastructure and ensure order in the event of internal uprisings, according to the little that has been released so far.
In practice, it also expands the Chinese military presence to a new region of the Pacific, in addition to the already contested advance on the South China Sea, in the region between the Philippines and Vietnam, criticized by Southeast Asian nations.
The pact announced on Tuesday was signed by Chinese foreign ministers Wang Yi and Solomon Islands foreign ministers Jeremiah Manele, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told reporters in Beijing. He did not say exactly where or when the signing of the agreement took place.
In March, a preliminary version of the treaty was leaked to the press and provoked a series of criticisms as it contemplated the possibility of Chinese military deployments in the region of Australian influence.
In response, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said in early April that he would not allow the construction of a Chinese military base in the country, but that was not enough to calm Australia and its allies, who are mobilizing to put pressure on the country. country government. The archipelago is just over 1,600 kilometers from the closest point on the Australian coast.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Tuesday she was “deeply disappointed” and continued to seek to understand the terms of the deal. “We are concerned about the lack of transparency in the development of the treaty, given its potential to undermine stability in our region,” she said in a statement.
Last week, Zed Seselja, the Australian minister for International Development and the Pacific, visited Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, to ask Sogavare not to sign the pact.
Cornered by the Chinese advance, the United States decided to reinforce its presence in the country and announced a visit with high-ranking members of the government to the capital this week, where they also intend to reopen the American embassy.
“Despite comments by the Solomon Islands government [de que não permitirá a instalação de uma base militar chinesa]the broad nature of the security agreement leaves the door open for the deployment of Chinese military forces” to the archipelago, said Ned Price, a spokesman for the US State Department. destabilization in the Solomon Islands and set a worrying precedent for the wider Pacific Islands region,” he said.
The United States is Australia’s allies in the so-called Quad, a group that also includes Japan and India and whose main objective is to contain China’s presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Beijing reacted to diplomatic pressure. “Deliberate attempts to inflate tensions and mobilize rival camps are doomed to failure,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for Chinese diplomacy, said on Tuesday.
China is also due to send a delegation to Honiara in May, and the Solomon government remains denying that the pact will allow China to install a military base in the country. Douglas Ete, deputy and chairman of the public accounts committee of the country’s Parliament, said that the May visit will close agreements to increase cooperation in trade, education and fisheries, but that it does not include the installation of military bases.
Until 2019, the Solomon Islands recognized the government in Taiwan, not Beijing, as the legitimate representatives of China — with the Communist Revolution of 1949, the deposed government went into exile in Taipei and remains claiming control over the entire mainland, without international recognition. .
With the change from 2019 on the recognition of the communist government, Prime Minister Sogavare was the target of a vote of no confidence in Parliament (which he won) and of large street demonstrations, which ended up being demobilized with the help of anti-protest equipment sent by Beijing.
