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Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa has warned that China and other outside powers could cite the need to protect their infrastructure projects in the Pacific as a front for establishing a security presence in the region.
Key points:
- Fiame Naomi Mata'afa says China is not the only major power that may want increased military access to the Pacific
- She echoed concerns about China potentially exploiting its new deal to upgrade Solomon Islands wharves
- The Samoan PM also says the fraught appointment process for the new head of the Pacific Islands Forum was handled badly
Her comments came after Solomon Islands announced that a Chinese state-owned company had won a contract to upgrade Honiara's port in an Asian Development Bank-funded project.
The Samoan PM stressed that China was not the only major power that might want to secure further military access to the Pacific "under the guise of protecting [their] assets".
However, she said, Beijing's move to strike a security pact with Solomon Islands after the 2021 riots – which devastated several Chinese-owned businesses in Honiara — could still establish a new precedent.
"It was presented that China was wanting to bring in security personnel [to Solomon Islands] in a sense to protect those assets — physical and human," she told journalists in Canberra.
"Now it occurred to me … that many countries, particularly in assistance projects, develop assets and have their personnel in receiving countries.
"Now is this going to be a trend where because one country has assisted and has assets, that this becomes an opportunity or a window by which security personnel come in?"
China and Solomon Islands have both repeatedly and forcefully denied that there's any prospect of China establishing a military base in the country.
China may use wharf deal to move navy into Pacific
Fiame also fielded a question on the move by Solomon Islands to award the China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) a major contract to upgrade Honiara's international port and two other smaller ports.
The project is being funded as part of a broader, $170-million Asian Development Bank project to upgrade roads and wharves across the country.
Some Australian analysts have warned that China might try to exploit Solomon Islands' wharves as "dual-purpose" facilities, which could allow the People's Liberation Army Navy to gain access to the region.
Fiame echoed that concern, and suggested Australian officials were also watching the project carefully.
"This is a commercial port, although I think the fears are that it might morph into something else … a dual-purpose [facility]," she said.
"I suppose we have to address that, if and when it might happen."
However, she also stressed that the Solomon Islands government had a sovereign right to make the decision, and pointed out that other countries already hosted other nations' military bases across the region, in a thinly veiled reference to the United States.
The debate over the port comes after a series of high-level visits to Solomon Islands, which has become a locus for fierce strategic competition from a host of countries, including both the US and China.
Both Japan's foreign minister and the White House Asia Pacific tsar Kurt Campbell visited Honiara earlier this week to meet with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.
Mr Campbell stressed a host of new US initiatives in Solomon Islands, including Washington's move to reopen its embassy in Honiara.
He also reiterated that Mr Sogavare had assured him that Solomon Islands would not permit China, or any other country, to establish any sort of military facility in his country.
PIF leadership could become issue at next meeting
During her press conference, Fiame also fielded questions about the decision by Pacific leaders to anoint former Nauru president Baron Waqa as the next secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
Several human rights activists have fiercely criticised the decision, saying Mr Waqa presided over multiple human rights abuses while in office.
Fiame suggested the appointment process — which emerged out of a complex dispute over regional leadership — had been badly handled when Pacific leaders met in Fiji earlier this year for a special retreat.
"The issue of the [secretary-general's appointment] was not on the agenda, per se, but it somehow got onto the agenda," she said.
Federated States of Micronesia's president, David Panuelo, has already suggested that Micronesian leaders — who nominated Mr Waqa for the position — could potentially reconsider the appointment.
Fiame said Mr Panuelo's comments were "a demonstration that perhaps their process wasn't as robust as it could have been".
"So it could well be an issue, which might come up when we meet in Rarotonga in September," she said.