The riots in November also reflected the continued fallout from the decision to switch diplomatic ties. The move was not popular with everyone in the Solomon Islands and Daniel Suidani, the premier of Malaita province, rejected the switch, saying he would push for independence for Malaita, the country’s largest province. Sogavare was elected prime minister again in 2019 and months later moved to cut the Solomon Islands longstanding diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of Beijing. RAMSI remained in the country for nearly 14 years, despite attempts by Sogavare to expel the mission whenever he was in power. In 2003, after the government requested assistance from the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s main diplomatic grouping, a multinational Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was established with Australia leading the deployment. With the country in a state of near political and economic collapse, Australia and New Zealand deployed troops, stability was restored and a peace accord signed.
The one-time British colony has struggled with unrest since the late 1990s when ethnic tension erupted into violence and a coup brought Sogavare to power for the first time in 2000. Australia has long provided security assistance to the Solomon Islands led the multilateral RAMSi force that was deployed to restore stability in 2003 after serious unrest The capital, Honiara, is on the island of Guadalcanal, the site of a ferocious – and hugely significant – battle between US and Japanese troops in World War Two. The Solomon Islands, with a population of less than 700,000, is a chain of hundreds of islands lying east of Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean. “Australia completely misjudged the implications of China’s rise in the early 2010s, and the reassessment has been slow and equivocal, and still has a long way to go.” What is the security situation in the Solomon Islands? “It is another difficult step for Australia in reassessing its future in a China dominated region,” Harrison said. Mark Harrison, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Tasmania, told Al Jazeera the deal was a “disaster” for Australia whose relationship with Beijing has long been strained. The United States and New Zealand have also expressed concern amid worries it could lead to China setting up a military outpost in the Pacific. Australia had also led a 2003 multilateral mission following violence and a coup at the end of the 1990s.Ĭanberra raised alarm about the China pact when the draft was leaked online in March, and was trying to encourage Sogavare to rethink the plan. The Pacific island nation has long struggled with political unrest, most recently in November 2021 when protesters targeted Honiara’s Chinatown and tried to storm Sogavare’s residence.Ī contingent of Australian police helped restore stability following a request from the government. Sogavare told parliament the agreement with Beijing was necessary to deal with the Solomon Islands’s “internal security situation”. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has been defending the security pact his government signed with China on Tuesday.