{"id":161633,"date":"2023-06-29T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=920592"},"modified":"2023-06-29T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T00:00:00","slug":"australia-solomon-islands-to-review-security-pact-after-china-moves-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/06\/29\/australia-solomon-islands-to-review-security-pact-after-china-moves-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia, Solomon Islands to review security pact after China moves in"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

\u201cWe wanted to make completely clear that from the perspective of Australia, we stood ready for that support to be provided for as long as possible.\u201d
\nThe peacekeeping force \u2013 which also includes police and military from New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea \u2013 was activated after Mr Sogavare called for assistance under the bilateral security treaty with Australia in Honiara.
\nRiots had broken out in Honiara following initial peaceful protests against Mr Sogavare\u2019s decision to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China. Honiara\u2019s Chinatown was targeted in the unrest with Chinese businesses and a police station among the buildings burnt down.
\nDespite the deployment of the Australian military and police to help Mr Sogavare maintain his grip on the power, he secretly negotiated a security agreement with Beijing, with news of the pact damaging the Morrison government when it emerged on the eve of the 2022 federal election.
\nMr Sogavare justified the Chinese deal by claiming Australian forces had failed to protect Chinese-funded infrastructure but failed to offer proof of such inaction.
\nThe Chinese agreement has seen Beijing send police to train Solomon Islands officers, as well as provide replica rifles for training, water cannons and motorbikes. It also allows Chinese warships to stop over to resupply although Mr Sogavare insists he will not allow a permanent Chinese military presence.
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\nUnder its treaty, Australia has also provided guns to Solomon Islands police.
\nA statement issued by Mr Sogavare\u2019s office following his meeting with Mr Marles on Wednesday said he called for a review of the \u201ccurrent security treaty between the two countries to take into account the changing security challenges faced by both countries\u201d.
\nMr Marles said Mr Sogavare did not outline changes he wanted to the treaty but Australia was \u201cexcited\u201d by the review.
\n\u201cThe bilateral treaty that we have between our two countries is now a number of years old,\u201d Mr Marles said.
\n\u201cIt really does need to be reviewed to take into account the contemporary security environment and the contemporary assistance that is being provided by Australia in support of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force. When the bilateral treaty was first signed SIAF didn\u2019t exist.\u201d
\nThe Lowy Institute\u2019s Pacific Islands research fellow Mihai Sora, a former Australian diplomat posted to Honiara, said since signing its agreement last year, \u201cChina has become an increasingly active security partner through the support they are providing to the police force\u201d.
\n\u201cThat would be the concern of the Australian government, that we are seeing China push into that security co-operation space, potentially at the expense of the relationship Australia has been establishing in police support in Solomon Islands over the last decade,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cAustralia\u2019s position would be looking to shore up its role as the security partner of choice.\u201d
\nAustralian personnel were deployed as peacekeepers to Solomon Islands between 2003 and 2017 for the RAMSI operation.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe wanted to make completely clear that from the perspective of Australia, we stood ready for that support to be provided for as long as possible.\u201d
\nThe peacekeeping force \u2013 which also includes police and military from New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[413,65,144,325,194,1108,64],"tags":[2086,3472,3610,10331,10315,2240,3563,10327],"class_list":["post-161633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising","category-beijing","category-china","category-education","category-news-chinese-law","category-police","category-taiwan","tag-australia","tag-chinese","tag-diplomacy","tag-elections","tag-media-intelligence","tag-military","tag-new-zealand","tag-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161633"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161633"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161634,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161633\/revisions\/161634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}