China’s Solomon Islands Agreement: What China in Djibouti Presages
04/14/2022
Recently, the Solomon Islands leadership announced a security arrangement with China. As noted by The Economist in an article published on April 2, 2022:
“To the alarm of Australia and New Zealand, the Solomon Islands has reached a security agreement with China. The prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, confirmed this on March 29th, furious that a draft of the agreement had been leaked a few days earlier. It envisaged the arrival of Chinese military personnel and police and occasional “ship visits” in order “to protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects in Solomon Islands”. Already, China has started training the local force in riot control and handling replica weapons, after years when Australia and New Zealand have taken primary responsibility for dealing with unrest in the Solomon Islands and for reforming the police force.”
But what does this mean for Australia?
In an article written by Michael Shoebridge and published by the ASPI Strategist on April 11, 2022, the author provides a very good analogy from how China has worked its Djibouti arrangement to further shape its global presence and ability to project authoritarian rules of the game.
That article follows:
https://sldinfo.com/2022/04/chinas-solomon-islands-agreement-what-china-in-djibouti-presages/
