Since the centre-left Labor government’s May 21 election victory in Australia, Wong has flown to Japan, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and New Zealand to parry China’s growing military and diplomatic influence.
Wong is to meet with her Solomons’ counterpart and pay a visit to Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who has fumed over foreign criticism of the China deal.
“We are being treated as kindergarten students walking around with Colt 45s in our hands, and therefore we need to be supervised,” he told parliament in early May of the foreign pressure, including from Australia’s former conservative government.
“We are insulted.”
China’s South Pacific ambitions suffered a setback in late May when 10 Pacific island nations rebuffed its push for a wide-ranging regional security pact.
Behind the scenes, Pacific leaders expressed misgivings about being pulled into Beijing’s orbit.
But China has secured strong relations with the Solomons, where Beijing has an embassy and is financing a national stadium complex reportedly worth US$53 million to host the 2023 South Pacific Games.
The Solomon Islands government severed ties with Taiwan in September 2019 in favour of diplomatic relations with China, a switch that unlocked investment but stoked inter-island rivalries.
Last November, protests against Sogavare’s rule flared in Honiara, during which much of the city’s Chinatown was torched. Australia led an international peacekeeping mission to help restore calm.
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