China’s security export

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: China’s global reach.

Last month, the Solomon Islands announced plans to sign a security deal with China. Now that might seem a strange partnership, given that the Solomon Islands are almost 5,000 miles from the Chinese mainland, northeast of Australia.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: The island nation’s leaders say the deal is only about diversifying security agreements and allowing China to protect its investments in the country.

But analysts say Beijing has much bigger plans.

WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis reports.

AMY LEWIS, REPORTER: Foreign ministers from China and Solomon Islands signed the new security deal last week, rejecting concerns from both Australia and the United States. In keeping with China's other security deals, the final draft is unlikely to be made public. But Matthew Wale saw a leaked copy of the draft. Wale is Solomon Islands' opposition leader.

MATTHEW: It provides for, you know, Solomon Islands to request Chinese police and military and other security forces to come to Solomon Islands and aid Solomon's government to maintain social order.

In September 2019, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan and established formal diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China. Protests over the decision last November turned violent, and riots resulted in the looting and burning of Asian-owned businesses in the country’s capital, Honiara. Australia and New Zealand sent troops to help quell the unrest.

In February, China sent a group of nine police advisers to the islands, ostensibly to improve the local police force’s anti-riot capabilities. The leaked draft of the security deal expands that advisory role to include the possibility of an active military presence.

It also gives China permission to transit through the Solomon Islands. Matthew Wale says that would allow Beijing to temporarily station navy vessels in the region.

MATTHEW: It's fairly vague and is opaque enough that, you know, transiting could be a day. It could be a month.

While the new security deal is vague, Wale worries about what his country’s laws might allow.

MATTHEW: Our constitution in Section 19 provides that if there was a deal between our government and a foreign power on military assistance, we don't have domestic law that regulates military activity. And therefore, the law of that foreign power would be deemed Solomon Islands’ law.

Wale believes Sogavare’s motivation for the deal with China has to do with power and money.

MATTHEW: Well, Sogavare’s only ideology is to hold on to the prime ministership.

And, China gets things done quickly. That could increase Sogavare’s popularity with islanders anxious to see infrastructure and other improvements.

MATTHEW: You know, the normal process for World Bank, IMF, Australia, New Zealand, or U.K., U.S. to work would be, you'd have pre-feasibility studies. There, then you'd have feasibility studies, then you'd have financing studies, then an environment impact assessment study, and all the rest of it. China just brings in a ship with cement and steel and all the other stuff and gets on with it.

Tarcisius Kabutaulaka is an associate professor and political scientist at the University of Hawai’i and a graduate of Australia National University. He grew up in the Solomon Islands, and his research focuses on China in the Pacific.

Kabutaulaka says switching diplomatic relations may have been an inevitable step.

TARCISIUS: Although Solomon Islands had had diplomatic relations with Taiwan since the 1980s, Solomon Islands hardly trades with Taiwan. However, since the 1990s, if you look at Solomon Islands trade, both export and import, it's predominantly to China, to PRC. And most of the export is dominated, of course, by timber, because of the logging industry, but also because Chinese companies became involved in the logging industry.

For its part, China is interested in protecting its investments.

TARCISIUS: The U.S. has an estimated 750 bases in about 80 countries. But China has been very good at doing other things other than having a military base. It's building alliances with other countries that would then connect the security apparatus of those countries to China’s security apparatus.

A few thousand ethnically Chinese people live in the country of 700,000. The PRC wants control of its own citizens, even when they aren’t in China. Kabutaulaka says that’s the most likely reason for Beijing's interest in sending security forces to the islands, since the country really doesn't have a pressing need for police training.

TARCISIUS: Solomon Islands mostly has very good social order. It is only the disorders in Honiara, that attracts a lot of international attention. Most of the country is not rioting. Most of the country is not burning down shops.

Right now, local communities provide their own policing. Kabutaulaka isn’t just worried about what China will do on a global scale. He’s also concerned about the harm its governing mindset might bring to the people of the islands themselves.

TARCISIUS: China comes from a different idea of policing altogether. The state has overriding power, and the state will reach out and punish you if you break the laws. And so that's my concern is that over time such training could potentially change the way in which we think about, and the philosophies, the ideas that inform our policing.

But opposition leader Matthew Wale hasn’t given up hope.

MATTHEW: We're a people of hope. God is sovereign, he’s in control. He's at work in ways that we do not see or understand. And even in the most frustrating of times, he's always at work. And that gives me great hope.

For now, Wale is focused on next year’s elections. He hopes Sogavare calls for them as planned.

MATTHEW: I think the vast majority of our people right across our islands are extremely concerned. And I trust in their judgment, to be able to return leaders that will hopefully have the spine to stand up and review a lot of these decisions.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.