Former foreign minister wins support of 31 legislators in 50-member house in an election closely watched by China, US and Australia.
Legislators in the Solomon Islands have elected former Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele as their new prime minister.
Manele, who has pledged to continue the Pacific nation’s China-friendly foreign policy, won 31 votes in a secret ballot on Thursday.
His opponent, longtime opposition leader Matthew Wale, secured 18 votes.
The vote in the 50-member parliament took place amid heightened security in the capital, Honiara, with squadrons of police patrolling the parliamentary grounds to ward off potential unrest.
Manele, speaking outside the parliament, praised the fact there was no repeat of past violence.
“The people have spoken,” he said. “We have shown the world today that we are better than that.”
Manele’s appointment comes after a national election last month failed to deliver a majority to any political party. The two camps had lobbied to win support from independents in the 50-member chamber ahead of Thursday’s vote for the prime minister.
The election is being closely watched by China, the United States and neighbouring Australia because of the potential impact on regional security after outgoing Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare struck a security pact with China in 2022.
Sogavare, who built close ties with Beijing during five years in power, did not seek re-election to the top political office and his party backed Manele. The politician was foreign minister in 2019 when Solomon Islands turned its back on Taiwan and established diplomatic relations with Beijing.
Manele’s OUR party, which has pledged to develop the island nation’s infrastructure, won 15 seats, and gained four seats under a renewed coalition with two micro-parties. It needed support from independents to reach the 26 seats needed for a majority. A total of 49 votes were cast with one legislator absent.
Lowy Institute research fellow Mihai Sora, a former Australian diplomat in the Solomon Islands, said Manele has “a strong track record of working well with all international partners”, compared to Sogavare who was “a polarising figure”.
Australian National University’s Pacific expert Graeme Smith said Manele was capable and “a big change in style” for the Solomon Islands.
Manele has pledged a “government of national unity” that would focus on improving the economy and “progress on our road to recovery” after the COVID-19 pandemic. He said bills on a value-added tax, establishing a special economic zone and rules around national resources would be at the top of the new government’s agenda.
Wale, the opposition leader who heads a 20-seat coalition of parties called CARE, said on Wednesday that the government had failed to create jobs, and the economy was dominated by logging and mining companies, which shipped resources to China, while health clinics were unable to obtain basic medications such as paracetamol.
A United States development aid agency whose return to the Solomon Islands has been delayed for years without explanation found “overwhelming support and enthusiasm” for its work, with the Pacific island nation’s leader telling officials “We need you”, a previously unreleased report shows.
The Peace Corps’ findings bring into focus the agency’s unexplained failure to resume operations in the archipelago nearly five years after it announced its return amid jockeying for influence between the US and China.
The “Solomon Islands Re-entry Assessment Report,” obtained by Al Jazeera via a freedom of information request, paints a picture of emphatic support for the agency resuming operations in the country after a two-decade absence, both among the local population and within the government.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is quoted in the report telling Peace Corps representatives, “We need you,” while Attorney-General John Muria is quoted as saying the agency “really had a lasting impact on people and communities in Solomon Islands”.
“On the ground, the assessment team was welcomed openly and enthusiastically by the Government of Solomon Islands at all levels from the Prime Minister to the provincial level,” the agency said in the report.
“The team enjoyed support in equal measure from other development partners, non-governmental organisations, international volunteer organisations, service providers and vendors, former Peace Corps staff, and community members who were taught by Peace Corps Volunteers.”
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has forged closer ties with China [cnsphoto via Reuters]
The Peace Corps, which withdrew from the Solomon Islands in 2000 amid ethnic violence, commissioned the report to examine the feasibility of resuming operations in the country after receiving a formal invitation from Honiara to return in February 2019.
In August, the assessment team submitted its report recommending the agency’s return after concluding the Solomon Islands offered an “enabling environment in which Volunteers can have meaningful work and serve safely with the necessary medical care and logistical support”.
“From the Prime Minister and national and provincial government ministries to service providers, local community members, and former Peace Corps staff, the team was warmly welcomed and strongly encouraged to bring Volunteers back to the ‘Hapi Isles,’” the report said.
“Peace Corps has had a lasting impact in the country and our absence is noticeable, particularly in the education sector.”
The Peace Corps publicly announced the re-establishment of its Solomon Islands programme that October, with the first volunteers scheduled to arrive in mid-2021.
The Solomon Islands, located about 2,000 kilometres northeast of Australia, is one of the poorest countries in the Pacific, with its population suffering from limited access to high-quality education and healthcare.
While the Solomon Islands closed its borders for more than two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency’s ongoing absence and the current status of its planned return have not been publicly explained.
Although the Peace Corps temporarily suspended operations in the Pacific during the pandemic, its volunteers have since returned to neighbouring countries including Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.
Other comparable agencies have also resumed work in the Solomon Islands, including the Australian Volunteers, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Korea International Cooperation Agency, and New Zealand’s Volunteer Service Abroad.
The US Congress has allocated just $500 to the Peace Corps’ work in the archipelago for the fiscal year of 2024, suggesting there is little prospect of its imminent return.
In December, Al Jazeera reported that opposition politicians in the Solomon Islands and US observers suspected that Sogavare’s government was deliberately stalling the agency’s return to curry favour with China, which has made major inroads in the archipelago in recent years.
Sogavare severed ties with Taiwan in 2019 to recognise China and signed cooperation agreements with Beijing on security and policing in 2022 and last year, prompting alarm in the US, Australia and New Zealand.
Despite being one of the world’s smallest countries with a population of about 720,000 people, the Solomon Islands has become a focal point for the heated competition for influence between Washington and Beijing due to its strategic location in the Pacific.
The status of Honiara’s relations with Beijing is currently in the balance as Sogavare vies to form a government with opposition MPs after general elections this week that produced an inconclusive outcome.
Sogavare is seeking a fifth term in office, but he is being challenged by at least three opposition leaders, including Peter Kenilorea Jr, who has pledged to restore ties with Taipei.
The Peace Corps and the Solomon Islands government did not respond to requests for comment.
Catherine Ebert-Gray, who served as US ambassador to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu from 2016 to 2019, expressed hope the agency would be able to resume its work in the country.
“I am hopeful the next parliament and government will renew their interest in returning Peace Corps volunteers to rural villages to support the nation’s environmental, health and education plans,” Ebert-Gray told Al Jazeera.
Sogavare vies with opposition parties to form governing coalition after inconclusive election.
The Solomon Islands election has delivered no clear winner leaving pro-China Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in a race with rival opposition politicians to form a coalition to lead the Pacific island nation.
Election results on Wednesday showed Sogavare’s OUR party won 15 out of 50 seats in the national parliament, while major opposition parties secured 20, and independent and micro-parties 15.
United party leader Peter Kenilorea Jr, who has promised to switch ties back to Taiwan, and Democratic Alliance Party leader Rick Hou told the Reuters news agency the situation was fluid as politicians lobbied independents to secure the 26 seats needed to form a government.
Analysts previously told Al Jazeera that while the international community might be focused on China relations, Solomon Islanders were more concerned with “bread and butter” issues such as the cost of living, health and education.
Sogavare, who was narrowly re-elected to his seat, said he remained in control of the country, and security.
“I exercise full executive power when it comes to security, when it comes to safety of this country, I continue to run the country,” he told the Tavuli News in an interview, saying he was concerned about possible riots.
Honiara was rocked by rioting in 2021 when protesters targeted businesses in the capital’s Chinatown and tried to storm Sogavare’s residence. Peace was restored with the help of a contingent of Australian police following a request from the government.
Sogavare said his party had the support of two micro-parties, and would woo independents, claiming the opposition parties were divided over who they would back as prime minister.
“There’s huge competition on the other side, something will break,” he said.
The CARE coalition of Matthew Wale’s Solomon Islands Democratic Party, U4C and former prime minister Rick Hou’s Democratic Alliance Party is on 13 seats.
Kenilorea Jr said his party, which won seven seats would “align with like-minded groups”.
The Solomon Islands has a population of 760,000 people across hundreds of islands, and the period after elections can be tense as politicians try to cobble together a governing coalition.
Police and defence forces from Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji are assisting with election security, at the invitation of Sogavare’s government.
Police put down a minor outbreak of violence between two villages on the island of Malaita over the weekend that was caused by an election result.
The people of the Solomon Islands are set to vote for their next government on April 17, in an election that could have repercussions for the rest of the Asia Pacific region due to the country’s close relationship with China.
The Pacific state’s 760,000 citizens are spread across its 900 islands and 28,230 square kilometres (10,900 square miles) of territory, making this one of the most logistically challenging elections in the world. It will take several weeks to collect all the ballots and then wait for the country’s 50 MPs to form a government before they choose the next prime minister.
Neighbours like Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea have sent police to help with security during the election period as elections in the past have been followed by periods of unrest.
The election is taking place a year later than usual so the Solomon Islands government could focus its resources on hosting the 2023 Pacific Games, a move which raised more than a few eyebrows among observers.
What’s at stake in the election?
The election has been described as “perhaps the most important to [the] Solomon Islands since independence” by Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, an associate professor and former director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawaii, because of the country’s ongoing economic problems and its role in the greater rivalry between China and the United States.
For foreign observers, the major issue is the Solomon Islands’s ongoing relationship with China and whether Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare will be re-elected.
For many foreign observers, Solomon Islands relations with China are a key issue [CNS photo via Reuters]
Sogavare is best known overseas for switching diplomatic recognition in 2019 from Taiwan to China.
The controversial decision stirred unrest and in November 2021, protesters targeted Honiara’s Chinatown and tried to storm Sogavare’s residence. Peace was restored with the help of a contingent of Australian police following a request from the government.
Then in 2022, Sogavare signed a secretive security pact with Beijing causing alarm in Australia, New Zealand and the US. The countries feared China could one day build a naval base there, dramatically increasing Beijing’s military reach. The island chain lies about 2,000km (1,200 miles) east of the Australian city of Brisbane and just more than 6,000km (3,728 miles) southeast of the Chinese city of Shanghai.
One of Sogavare’s rivals for the top job, Peter Kenilorea Jr, an outspoken MP and the son of the country’s first prime minister, has pledged to switch ties back to Taiwan.
For Solomon Islanders, however, “bread and butter” issues trump all else, according to Graeme Smith, a fellow at the Australian National University’s Department of Pacific Affairs. “I don’t think that the China thing is really that central of an issue. Normally, what people are excited about in their daily lives are health, education and transport,” he told Al Jazeera.
Although it is rich in natural resources, the Solomon Islands ranks just 155 out of 199 countries in the United Nations’s Human Development Index. Critics have also accused the government of economic mismanagement and corruption, further exacerbating these problems.
Kabutaulaka told Al Jazeera that one of the key group of issues for Solomon Islanders is the government’s ability to provide social services like health, education, and rural development – or conversely, whether they have failed to do so. Another group of concerns is whether voters think their chosen MP will be able to access and share state resources.
“It’s not so much about the China relationships or relationships with the US, it’s going to be about the ability of those elected and their willingness to assist people locally or assist their communities,” he said.
Voters boarding a ferry to return to Malaita Island for the election [Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP]
How does the election work?
Polling stations open at 7am on Wednesday, (20:00 GMT on Tuesday) and close at 4pm (05:00 GMT).
Some 6,780 election officials will be involved – twice the number of the 2019 election because voters will also be choosing new provincial assemblies and the Honiara City Council.
Voters must be citizens and at least 18 years old. Election day is a public holiday to allow those who have registered “to exercise their democratic voting right”, according to the Electoral Commission.
To show they have voted, each person dips the little finger of their left hand into a pot of ink.
The election operates under the first-past-the-post system, which means the candidate who gets the most votes is elected.
How is expected to win the election?
Sogavare is considered a frontrunner but he will be challenged by several opposition figures including Kenilorea Jr, Gordon Darcy Lilo, another former prime minister, and Matthew Wale, the leader of the opposition. Whether the opposition can work together will determine Sogavare’s future.
Politics in the Solomon Islands is dominated by individual leaders rather than political parties and this election should be no different, according to Smith. Some Solomon Islanders could be ready for a change.
“In most of the Pacific states, political parties are almost irrelevant themselves each election, it’s really just about after the election, who’s the most charismatic individual in the room that can convince the majority of MPs to follow him,” he told Al Jazeera. “When the government is eventually formed, it could end up having people from all different parties.”
How do Solomon Islanders feel about China?
Even before the Solomon Islands’s switch to Beijing in 2019, the growing number of businesses owned by ethnic Chinese was a source of controversy and targeted in riots in 2006, 2019 and 2021 due to their perceived economic and political clout.
For most voters in the Solomon Islands, it is not China but ‘bread and butter’ issues that matter [Mick Tsikas/AAP Image via AP]
Since formal diplomatic ties were established in 2019, China’s track record has been mixed, according to experts. Its main achievement so far has been building a $119m stadium to host the 2023 Pacific Games – great for the capital Honiara but of little concern to people in the country’s other provinces.
Honiara’s switch to Beijing has also not translated to the economic growth many Solomon Islanders might have hoped it would, according to the University of Hawaii’s Kabutaulaka. This year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is predicting Solomon Islands’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by just 2.4 percent after a disastrous pandemic when the economy contracted.
China has also shaken up local politics, according to experts.
In 2021, after China took over funding from Taiwan, payments for the first time went only to 39 of 50 MPs rather than all of them, according to news reports. The constituency funds, however, were controversial long before the diplomatic switch and remain a sticking point as potential source of corruption.
Will there be unrest?
Elections in the Solomon Islands, like many countries, can bring long-simmering issues to the surface. Sogavare’s last win in 2019 led to rioting and protests, which also targeted many Asian-run businesses, a theme that was repeated in 2021 when at least three people were killed.
Analysts note that unrest typically does not occur during the national voting period but begins to flare up as the new government is formed several weeks later. In short, if unrest happens, it will not be until sometime in late April or early May.
The economy is expected to grow only by 2.4 percent in 2024 [Saeed Khan/AFP]
The chance of violence this time is small but elections can become a lightning rod for political grievances, according to Ride.
“Throughout the post-election process, there is heightened risk of social unrest, such as rioting and looting,” Ride said in a report for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute ahead of the April 17 election.
“Research across the Pacific indicates that the probability of such conflict rises amid political transition when crowds gather amid grievances about governance and foreign control and interference,” she said.
Taipei, Taiwan – New Zealand lobbied France’s territories in the Pacific to respond to news of a controversial security pact between China and the Solomon Islands that set off alarm in Western capitals, newly released documents reveal.
Within days of a draft version of the security pact leaking online in March 2022, representatives of New Zealand, Australia and France were meeting to discuss the implications for the region, the diplomatic cables obtained by Al Jazeera show.
While the precise nature of the discussions is unclear due to redactions in the documents, the cables suggest Wellington hoped officials in French Polynesia and New Caledonia would take a position on the China-Solomon Island agreement.
New Zealand diplomats in New Caledonia’s capital Noumea noted in their reports to Wellington that neither French Polynesia nor New Caledonia “is likely to take a public position” on the deal.
After a meeting with New Caledonia’s High Commissioner Patrice Faure on March 30, New Zealand officials reported that they had relayed an unspecified “suggestion” to their French counterpart, “noting the need for the first response to be from Pacific leaders and from the [Pacific Islands Forum]”.
“We suggested it would be helpful for Faure…”, the New Zealand diplomats said, referring to suggested action whose details are redacted in the documents.
“Faure undertook to do so, as well as to speak to High Commissioner Sorain, his counterpart in Papeete, with the same aim in mind,” the diplomats said, referring to High Commissioner of French Polynesia Dominique Sorain.
New Zealand officials held three meetings in total with officials from the French overseas territories between March 29 and March 30, the documents show, including discussions with President of French Polynesia Édouard Fritch and Francois Behue, the head of the regional cooperation and external relations department in New Caledonia.
Australia’s then Consul General in New Caledonia, Alison Carrington, joined the Kiwi diplomats in their meetings with Faure and Behue, according to the documents.
[New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade]
New Zealand and Australia’s foreign ministries, and France’s high commissioners in New Caledonia and French Polynesia, did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.
News of the Solomon Islands-China security pact in 2022 prompted alarm in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, which have long regarded Pacific Island nations as their geopolitical back yard.
Western officials have raised concerns that China could use the pact to establish a military foothold in the Solomon Islands – which lie about 2,000km (1,242 miles) from Australia and 3,000km (1,864 miles) from major US military installations on Guam – which both Beijing and Honiara have denied.
Then-New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden called the deal “gravely concerning” and warned it could lead to the “militarization” of the Pacific, echoing similar warnings from the US and Australia.
France was comparatively muted in its response to the pact despite the presence of more than half a million French citizens and 2,800 military personnel spread out across the Pacific.
While New Caledonia and French Polynesia have elected legislatures that handle domestic issues, Paris handles the territories’ security and defence.
New Caledonia, home to a French military base, lies less than 1,400km (870 miles) south of Solomon Islands and its native Kanak people share ethnic ties with Solomon Islanders.
Anna Powles, a senior lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University, said the diplomatic cables suggested that Wellington wanted to send a “clear message to Paris that any response needed to be Pacific-led”.
Powles said that neither France nor its overseas territories have been very active at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), although French President Emmanuel Macron has made the Asia Pacific a central part of his foreign policy strategy since 2018.
France is not a member of the forum but it indirectly has a seat at the table through its overseas territories.
French President Emmanuel Macron has sought to boost his country’s influence in the Pacific [Ludovic Marin/EPA-EFE]
Macron’s attempts to work more closely with members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – made up of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the US – in the region took a hit after a submarine deal with Canberra fell apart in 2021, leading to the formation of the AUKUS security alliance between Australia, the UK and the US, although relations have improved since then.
In December, France hosted the South Pacific Defence Ministers Meeting in Nouméa, joined by Australia, Chile, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga, with Japan, the UK and US attending as observers.
France’s bid to expand its influence in the Pacific also comes as pro-independence movements are under way in New Caledonia and French Polynesia, where Paris fears growing Chinese influence.
Macron warned last year about a “new imperialism” in the Pacific in remarks believed to have been aimed at China, although he did not mention Beijing by name.
Cleo Paskal, a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the diplomatic cables appeared to show New Zealand trying to skirt around the French bureaucracy.
“I would have thought that if they were taking France seriously… they could go to the French Embassy in Wellington. It feels at best clumsy and not necessarily with a full understanding of the complexities of France’s relationship with China,” Paskal told Al Jazeera.
Paskal said it was difficult to gauge New Zealand’s intentions as Wellington had at the time been working to improve relations with Beijing, while the Pacific Islands Forum has had little to say about issues involving the Solomon Islands and China.
“Frankly, I don’t know what they’re doing. The PIF never came close to making a statement like this, the only regional leader that made a statement on this was [President] David Panuelo from the Federated States of Micronesia, and he was not given a lot of open backing from across the region at all,” she said.
“New Zealand was trying to normalise relations with China and rallying the PIF to say something. It’s not congruent with things that were publicly known about New Zealand’s position at the time and PIF’s position still.”
Taipei, Taiwan – In October 2019, the United States announced that the Peace Corps, the storied volunteer programme established by John F Kennedy, would return to the Solomon Islands after a two-decade absence.
The announcement was the latest in a flurry of moves by Washington to counter China’s growing presence in Pacific island nations like the Solomon Islands, a sparsely populated but strategically located archipelago that lies about 2,000km northeast of Australia.
More than four years later, the Peace Corps has yet to arrive, even as volunteers have returned to other nations in the Pacific such as Fiji, Tonga and Samoa following the suspension of operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the meantime, the Peace Corps continues to miss deadlines to secure funding from the US Congress to support its work in the Solomon Islands. Just $500 was allocated for the programme’s work in the archipelago of about 700,000 people for the fiscal year 2024.
Neither Washington nor Honiara have officially given any indication that the return of the Peace Corps is not proceeding as planned.
But behind the scenes, there are suspicions that the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is deliberately stalling for political reasons – specifically, to placate China, which has made major inroads in the archipelago in recent years.
“The Chinese influenced the Solomon Islands cabinet’s decision to pause approval for the Peace Corps to return to the islands,” a former US official, who is familiar with the negotiations to bring back the Peace Corps, told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.
The ex-official said that, based on discussions with officials involved in the negotiations, the agreement appeared to have been postponed “indefinitely”.
“Initial euphoria over the US announcement that Peace Corps Volunteers would return was dampened by senior Solomon Islands officials as they introduced delay after delay in negotiating the Peace Corps agreement,” the former official said.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (left) has forged closer relations with China and its leader Xi Jinping [File: cnsphoto via Reuters]
The US State Department and US embassy in Honiara, which was opened in February, did not reply to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
The Peace Corps declined to provide a comment, although its 2024 budget report released in March stated the agency was “close to finalising agreements” with the Solomon Islands.
China’s embassy in Honiara said the return of the Peace Corps was a matter for the governments of the Solomon Islands and the US, and that inquiries should be directed to the “relevant stakeholders”.
Peter Kenilorea Jr, an opposition MP in the Solomon Islands, said the unexplained delays reflected the “geopolitical climate” under Sogavare.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything negative about the Peace Corps’ work in the past, so for me, I think it just underscores that this delay is about politics and has very little to do about the work that the Peace Corps would be bringing In,” Kenilorea Jr, who did not specifically point to China as a possible factor in the delays, told Al Jazeera.
The Peace Corps’ apparent difficulties in the Solomon Islands point to the seeming limits of Washington’s ability to stymie China’s rising influence in the Pacific.
Beijing’s inroads in the region have been especially visible in Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, where Sogavare has pursued deeper relations with his Chinese counterparts in earnest since his election to a fourth stint in power in 2019.
Solomon Islands President Manasseh Sogavare cut ties with Taiwan in 2019 [File: Sam Yeh/AFP]
Sogavare has defended his government’s deepening relationship with China, insisting his country does not choose sides between great powers and accusing the US and its allies of “un-neighbourly” criticism.
In August, the Solomon Islands leader declined to meet with two visiting US lawmakers, one of whom later likened Beijing’s relations with the country to a “viper slithering around its prey”.
During a visit to the US in September to speak at the UN General Assembly, Sogavare skipped a meeting at the White House between US President Joe Biden and other Pacific leaders.
Sogavare, who had met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in July, told reporters he hoped to avoid a “lecture” by the Americans.
Celsus Talifilu, a former political adviser in the Solomon Islands, said it was “hard to deny the strong possibility” that the government is dragging its heels due to its relationship with China.
“Basically, the current [ government] is a pro-China government and anti-Western, especially the likes of Sogavare himself,” Talifilu, whose former boss, Daniel Suidani, clashed with Honiara over its China policy while serving as governor of Malaita Province, told Al Jazeera.
For Sogavare, the delays may help bolster a narrative that the US has neglected the Pacific, said Graeme Smith, an associate professor at Australian National University’s Department of Pacific Affairs.
“There’s more than an element of truth about it,” Smith told Al Jazeera.
“By delaying the Peace Corps, they can still effectively run the narrative that the US is still neglecting them.”
Even before the diplomatic shift under Sogavare, the US was not popular with everyone in the Solomon Islands.
The islands were a major battleground for US and Japanese forces during World War II, resulting in the killing of thousands of innocent civilians. Tens of thousands of unexploded munitions were left behind from the war, killing or injuring residents to this day.
Solomon Islands was the site of fierce fighting between the United States and Japan during WWII [File: Madeleine Coorey/AFP]
For countries like the Solomon Islands, which may have felt like junior partners in their relationships with the US, Australia and New Zealand, China’s expansion into the Pacific changed the dynamic by offering an alternative source of funding.
Among other benefits, China provided the Solomon Islands with a $66m loan to build cell phone towers and $120m to build new facilities for the recently concluded 2023 Pacific Games.
Western officials fear such largesse is an example of China laying the groundwork for an expanded military presence in the Pacific, possibly including a naval base in Solomon Islands or another Pacific island nation.
Cleo Paskal, a non-resident senior fellow for the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the only party that benefits from the Peace Corps not returning is China.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] sees anything good being developed by someone else, as damaging to PRC interests,” Paskal told Al Jazeera, adding that, based on her discussions with officials, there is an assumption within the US government that politics are at play.
“Think about it. We talk about the Peace Corps being part of US soft power. Why would China want to facilitate something that helps the US? Given how pro-PRC this administration is, it’s not surprising if there is stalling. It blocks out the US and gives China the time to embed unfettered.”
Despite the geopolitical stakes involved, US officials believe that Sogavare’s tilt towards Beijing may be as much about domestic politics as international relations.
“Prime Minister Sogavare has no choice but to cleave to the People’s Republic of China [PRC] for his political survival and legacy but not all Solomon Islanders support the Sogavare-PRC symbiotic relationship,” US diplomats said last year in a cable obtained by Al Jazeera via a freedom of information request.
ANU’s Smith said Sogavare’s approach to governance had won him significant attention from both the US and China, including meetings with Xi, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and US presidential adviser Kurt Campbell.
“By doing this, he gets the attention, he gets the headlines. Whereas if he didn’t do all this what pantomime would he have?” Smith said.
“This never happened in the past. It was just literally crickets in Honiara, and suddenly, he’s at the centre of geopolitical events.”
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