As Australia found this week, money can buy many things, but it can’t buy loyalty. At least, not from the grasping, tin-pot panjandrums of micro-nations, whose only political compass is, “gimme, gimme, gimme”.
Australia has increasingly focused its $4 billion per annum foreign aid budget in the South Pacific. That includes $332 million to the Solomons in the last two years. Some of that will be used to build a hydro project that will supply 65% of the electricity demand of the capital, Honiara.
But if the Australian government thought that that would earn the loyalty of the Sogavare government, they’ve had a rude awakening. The Solomon Islands government has just announced a security pact with China which will most likely result in the communist giant — and vociferous critic of the Australian government — building a base in the islands, just 2,000 km from Australia. With the stroke of a pen, China has expanded its military sphere in the Pacific 6,000 km from the Chinese Mainland.
So, why is Sogavare allowing China to effectively run his country’s military and policing?
Political instability has been a regular problem in the Solomons, dating back to their independence in 1978, with regular outbreaks between 1998 and 2003. Based on domestic island and ethnic rivalry, this resulted in the need for an international peace-keeping force to maintain order, finally leaving only in 2013. Despite their presence, major rioting occurred following the general elections in 2006 with local concerns that Chinese businessmen (who dominate all the major industries) had paid bribes to fix the result. The MPs, who themselves also each have a significant discretionary funding, have made little attempt to deal with endemic corruption or surging youth unemployment. A steady influx of Asian immigrants acquiring land and businesses has further inflamed tensions.
Rioting once more broke out in 2019, following Prime Minister Sogavare’s re-election for a fourth term. Again, it was suspected that the vote had been rigged with Chinese money; multiple Chinese businesses were burned down. After 36 years, the prime Minister then cancelled the political recognition of Taiwan, substituting Mainland China in its place; a rumoured figure of $500 million in Chinese aid had been suggested as an incentive […]
Underlying this long-standing tension is a contest between the more numerous Islanders on Malaita, who continue to support Taiwan, and the Island of Guadalcanal with its Capital, Honiara. The democratic process continues to be undermined by parliamentary vote-buying, while Prime Minister has discretionary access to a China-bankrolled National Development Fund; the opposition leader has described votes for cash, at election time as well as in the Parliamentary voting.
Call me a cynic, but this sounds awfully like a bought-and-paid-for politician calling in his patrons for protection.
Although China only spends a fraction of the money that the US or the EU does, and not much more than Australia, it uses its money with devastating strategic intent. China’s “aid” is essentially debt-trap diplomacy funding neo-colonialism. While the World Bank and IMF have also long been criticised for imposing debt on the developing world, neither of them take over the assets of other nations as “compensation”.
After decades of financial support, amounting to $50 billion to the Pacific, this attitude does not bode well, and raises questions about the purpose of aid donation. What it should not do is undermine democracy, particularly when it bites the friendly hand that has fed it.
Spectator Australia
If the Solomons have been plagued by unrest for the last few decades, we can only imagine what awaits when Chinese military and police are openly deployed on the islands. Which will, naturally, only mean that China has to deploy more troops… just to keep order, you understand.