SYDNEY, Australia — Beijing’s security deal
with the Solomon Islands has transformed Australia’s closely-fought election
campaign into a foreign policy battle over Canberra’s complicated relationship
with the Pacific.
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Australia’s Liberal government lobbied hard against
the Solomons signing the pact, alongside ally the US, but neither was
successful in dissuading Honiara.
The final text is not public but a leaked draft sent
shockwaves across the region last month, particularly sections that would allow
Chinese naval deployments to the Solomons — less than 2,000km from Australia.
On the campaign trail ahead of the May 21 polls,
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has faced intense questioning about
his handling of the pact and his government’s “Pacific Step-Up” strategy to
improve ties with the region.
The issue flared up again on Friday when Solomons
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare lambasted Australia over its AUKUS security
deal with the US and Britain, saying he only learned of the agreement through
media reports.
He said the Pacific “should have been consulted to
ensure this AUKUS treaty is transparent since it will affect the Pacific family
by allowing nuclear submarines in Pacific waters”.
Banquets vs barbecues
Pacific expert Tess Newton
Cain of Griffith University told AFP that Australia’s leaders need to improve
their understanding of the region’s culture and customs.
While Beijing tends to fete Pacific leaders with
formal diplomacy and lush banquets, “the (Australian) prime minister invites
the Pacific family round for a barbecue”.
“I think the perception is that plays well to an
Australian domestic audience. But in the Pacific, it can look a little
disrespectful,” she said.
In 2019, Newton Cain led a research group that spoke
to people across the Solomons, Vanuatu, and Fiji where they found many wanted
their relationship with Australia — still considered their most important — to
be better.
“Some people said to us they felt the way Pacific
Islanders were treated by Australians could be condescending, that they felt
they weren’t given sufficient agency,” she said.
Others expressed frustration over difficulties
obtaining visas for Australia to visit family and friends.
Unlike travelers from many countries, Pacific
Islanders are asked for “huge amounts of personal information” including a
guarantee they will not overstay.
“It’s a really intrusive process,” Newton Cain said.
‘Pacific stuff-up’
Australia’s Labor opposition
party has seized on the Solomons-China deal to argue the government’s Pacific
Step-Up — launched soon after its 2019 election win — has failed.
“This is a massive foreign policy failure ... This
is a Pacific stuff-up,” opposition leader Anthony Albanese said.
Labor announced a suite of Pacific-focused policies
after the China pact was revealed, including an annual visa lottery offering
permanent residency to 3,000 Pacific Islanders.
For his part, Morrison has defended Pacific Step-Up,
noting that “after the last election, the first place I went as prime minister
was to the Solomon Islands”.
He has said a Chinese military base in the Solomons
is a “red line”, while acknowledging assurances from Sogavare that this will
not happen.
Asked Saturday about claims by Beijing that
Australia’s response to the deal “amounts to disinformation, defamation,
coercion, and intimidation and exposes a colonial mentality”, Morrison was
blunt.
“Well, the Chinese government would say that,
wouldn’t they?” he said.
Newton Cain believes much can be done to improve
Australia’s ties with the Pacific. Deploying more Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander emissaries across the region would be welcomed, she said.
But she added that Australian diplomats need to
shift away from thinking about the Pacific as their “training ground”.
“This is where Australia lives... We need to be thinking
about these relationships all the time, on an ongoing basis.”
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