Australia and New Zealand have urged China to release the details of a new policing pact with the Solomon Islands, saying that Beijing’s latest push for influence threatens to inflame tensions in the South Pacific.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare signed a raft of deals during a trip to Beijing this week, including an agreement allowing China to maintain a police presence in the developing Pacific nation until 2025.
China has lavished attention on the Solomon Islands since it severed ties with Taiwan in 2019, pledging large amounts of aid and bankrolling a series of critical infrastructure projects.
A spokesperson for Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢) on Tuesday said that there were concerns the police cooperation plan between Solomon Islands and China would “invite further regional contest.”
“Solomon Islands and China should provide transparency of their intentions to Australia and the region by publishing the agreement immediately, so the Pacific family can collectively consider the implications for our shared security,” the spokesperson said.
The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs also expressed unease.
“We would like the text to be made public in order to understand any security implications for the region,” a spokesperson for the ministry said yesterday.
The Solomon Islands sits at the center of an escalating tug-of-war as China vies for regional influence with Australia and the US.
Australia’s own longstanding security pact with the Solomon Islands was recently put under review, stoking fears that the island nation was drifting closer to China’s orbit.
Although Sogavare has repeatedly said his country is “friends to all,” a video posted by Chinese state media showed him telling officials “I am back home” after touching down in Beijing earlier this week.
Solomon Islands opposition politician Peter Kenilorea Junior said he had a “gut feeling” that Sogavare wanted to shift the country’s stance closer to China.
“This choice has been made a long time ago,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “Arriving in China and saying that, ‘I’m home,’ it’s very clear.”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS