What you need to know about Solomon Islands
A new world order is coming into being in Oceania, it seems, with Solomon Islands as the epicentre of geopolitical competition between China and the US.
This font-size:inherit;font-weight:inherit;text-underline-position: under; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> nation of almost 1,000 islands (of which only 147 are inhabited) and 650,000 people, in the South Pacific, hasn’t exactly been a global player since it gained independence from Britain in the 1970s. It’s “one of the poorest countries in the region with a low level of human development”, font-size:inherit;font-weight:inherit;text-underline-position: under; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> according to the United Nations. So why the international political squall?
The reason is that -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> China has just signed a -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> new security agreement with Solomon Islands, which has caused much spluttering in the US, Australia and New Zealand. Under the terms of the deal, China’s navy will now be able to dock vessels roughly 1,250 miles north-east of Australia, in a region that Australia’s home affairs minister recently described as “ font-size:inherit;font-weight:inherit;text-underline-position: under; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> our backyard ”.
And Chinese police, rather than Australian police, will now train Solomon Islands’ security forces. It’s a sign that Canberra’s traditional influence in the South Pacific is waning — and the blowback remains intense.
A senior US official in the Pacific -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> refused to rule out military action against Solomon Islands if it allows China to establish a military base there. And Australia’s defence minister, Peter Dutton, declared that his people should “ -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> prepare for war ” to counter China’s actions in the region.
Short of actual war, there has been a verbal fusillade. Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison warned that a Chinese base would be a “ -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> red line ”. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin has accused Western powers of “deliberately exaggerating tensions” over the pact.
In the Solomon Islands parliament, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare denounced “ -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> those who brand us as backyard .” That’s a place, he said, “where rubbish is collected and burnt […] where we relieved ourselves.” Instead, said Sogavare, Solomon Islands demands respect “as a sovereign impartial nation with one equal vote in the United Nations”.
Devastating legacy
“There’s not that much money to be made in Solomons, with the exception of a few mines, but they’re not actually that significant,” University of Queensland professor Shahar Hameiri told openDemocracy. “Australia has spent way more money in Solomons [since independence] than you’d ever extract out of it. Historically, it has been a very dependent country.”
Hameiri should know. He studied Solomons for his -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> doctoral thesis on state-building and the distribution and exercise of power between states. But other than academics with expertise in the Pacific region, knowledge of Solomons Islands is severely limited.
To the wider world, it is a distant signpost of historical conflict, as the site of some of the fiercest battles between US and Japanese troops in the Second World War. The font-size:inherit;font-weight:inherit;text-underline-position: under; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> Battle of Guadacanal , on an island west of Honiara, the country’s capital, proved decisive for the Allied forces.
But it’s not all in the past: the -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> devastating legacy of war continues to make headlines because Solomon Islands still lives with — and dies from — thousands of unexploded bombs. As recently as last May, a -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> Solomon Islander died from an exploding WWII artillery shell, prompting calls for the US to clean up “your mess”. It is telling that the Solomon Islands government website actually offers the chance to obtain a “ -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word”> WWII Scrap Metal Export Permit ”.
But Solomon Islands is about more than just bombs. The unspooling story about the great power competition in the South Pacific archipelago is part of a much older one, of colonial conceit and arrogance. Here are three key points that help make sense of both Solomon Islands’ history and current political developments:
