Is Anyone Listening to the Pacific Islands?

In April 2022, Solomon Islands and China signed a security deal that, according to a leaked draft, read in part: “Solomon Islands may, according to its own needs, request China to send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces to Solomon Islands to assist in maintaining social order” and “China may, according to its own needs and with the consent of Solomon Islands, make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishments in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands, and the relevant forces of China can be used to protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects in Solomon Islands.” The collective response from the global strategic community was essentially the one expressed in an internal email from Ryan Washburn, USAID mission director to the Philippines, the Pacific Islands, and Mongolia, to colleagues: “Yikes!” It wasn’t that China’s strategic ambitions in the Pacific Islands were a surprise; it was that they now could no longer be ignored or explained away. They floated a “China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision,” supported by a “China-Pacific Island Countries Five-Year Action Plan on Common Development.” Those deals weren’t signed, but it’s unlikely Beijing thought they would be. At the same time, in each of the Pacific Island countries Wang visited, he achieved a range of goals, including signing other deals that, at China’s request, remain secret; muzzling the local press; and blithely ignoring national quarantine restrictions that have for two years kept local families apart – all indications of Chinese influence at the national level. Additionally, for most people living in the Pacific Islands, the two most important things are family and faith – they are the latitude and longitude of people’s identity.