China’s security deal with the Solomon Islands is the first, but unlikely to be the last
China’s security deal with the Solomon Islands is the first, but unlikely to be the last
The Chinese government announced on 19 April that it had Signed a historic security agreement with the Solomon IslandsThe agreement is the first of its kind that China has agreed to with any country, and underscores its ambitions to play A Security Role in the Pacific, The final version has not been made public, but according to a draft leaked last month, it would pave the way for China to deploy its security forces there. The Solomon Islands can request police and military personnel “to help maintain social order”, while China can visit ships and use its ports for logistics. It would give Chinese ships a strategic foothold in the Pacific, in an area close to Australia and Guam, where the US has a naval base. The two countries surprisingly expressed concern with Washington this week, even sending a senior official and Indo-Pacific coordinator, Kurt Campbell, to the Solomon Islands, which would lead to a settlement as well as resupply the US embassy there. planning to open. China questioned the intention of the visit, noting that the embassy had been closed for 29 years, but the US had now “suddenly” taken an interest.
The significance of the agreement goes beyond immediate regional security concerns in the Pacific. For decades, China insisted it would never open a military base abroad. Then, in 2017, the PLA used its first overseas base in Djibouti. The Solomon Islands government said that the agreement does not mean that China will build a base there. Although Chinese military planners have clarified that further bases – for its navy – are in the works, experts have suggested possible locations in Pakistan, Cambodia and Equatorial Guinea (in the Atlantic). However, the agreement relates to the second major pillar of China’s accepted “peaceful rise” theory, which was popularized by the “Panchsheel” or “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” – “non-intervention”. internal affairs of other countries. The deployment of security forces in a foreign country certainly does not match that idea. China has already started doing this elsewhere, albeit on a limited scale. Chinese media have referred to China-Pakistan patrols in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, while reports have suggested the deployment of security forces in Tajikistan near the Wakhan Corridor connecting Afghanistan and Xinjiang. China’s previous commitments on military bases and non-intervention were intended to show the world that Beijing would not seek to become a global “hegemony”, its preferred term to describe the US, but it was a concern for Xi Jinping. Not the subject, those who have made it clear are of the view that “the East is rising and the West is shrinking” and that China should be uninterested in going into a “central phase”. The latest security agreement is unlikely to be final.