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:

Why shouldn’t we believe Beijing’s claims that its security agreement with Honiara won’t result in a base or place to operate its navy from in Solomon Islands? Because we’ve seen this playbook before: in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. And because the Chinese government and military routinely lie about their intentions. Xi Jinping telling Barack Obama in 2015 that China would not militarise the South China Sea while he built military bases on reclaimed land there is one iconic example.

Rumours of a Chinese naval base in Djibouti started in 2014. Djibouti’s government even said publicly it was offering ‘Djibouti as home port to the Chinese navy’, and a draft bilateral security agreement was signed that year apparently talking about military port facilities for China.

Chinese officials downplayed ideas of a base for years afterwards. When foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying was asked about the possibility in May 2015, she said:

China and Djibouti enjoy traditional friendship. Friendly cooperation between the two sides has achieved constant growth over recent years, with practical cooperation carried out in various fields. What needs to be pointed out is that regional peace and stability serves the interests of all countries and meets the aspirations shared by China, Djibouti and other countries around the world.

By November 2015, another foreign ministry spokesperson, Hong Lei, responded to claims that China intended to build a naval base, saying: ‘China and Djibouti are discussing about a logistics centre. It is aimed to provide better facilities so that the personnel on Chinese vessels can get better rest and replenishments.’

This would enable Chinese vessels and personnel on escort duty to better fulfil international obligations, especially on UN peacekeeping missions, Hong said.

In January 2016, Hong announced: ‘China and Djibouti consulted with each other and reached consensus on building logistical facilities in Djibouti, which will enable the Chinese troops to better fulfill escort missions and make new contributions to regional peace and stability.’

When the facility opened in 2017, it was reported by international and even some Chinese media as China’s first overseas naval base, although Beijing officially described it as a logistics facility.

Announcing the initialling of the draft China–Solomons agreement recently, China’s embassy in Honiara said:

As two sovereign and independent countries, China and Solomon Islands are committed to normal law enforcement and security cooperation on the basis of equality, respect and mutual benefit, which conforms to international laws and customary practices. The cooperation is conducive to stability and security of Solomon Islands, and will promote common interests of other countries in the region.

The Agreement will further strengthen the bilateral cooperation between China and Solomon Islands in areas such as disaster response, humanitarian aid, development assistance and maintaining social order, to jointly address traditional and non-traditional security challenges. It will inject important positive energy and certainties into the security environment of Solomon Islands and the region as a whole.

Note the parallels in each case: consensus and respect for sovereignty between two highly unequal partners, along with references to the contributions to regional security that a Chinese military presence will bring.

And the leaked text of the draft China–Solomons agreement echoes the logistics support functions provided in Djibouti to China’s military: ‘China may, according to its own needs and with the consent of the Solomon Islands, make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands.’

That’s a logistics support facility for China’s military. As we’ve seen in the case of the People’s Liberation Army base in Djibouti, whether it’s called a base, a place or a duck won’t matter. If it goes ahead, the Chinese military will have a place to operate across the South Pacific from, supplied by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and his government.

And the way the Djibouti base was negotiated, justified and described publicly should give no comfort to anyone watching this agreement come into being—apart from Beijing, Sogavare and any Solomons politicians benefitting directly from the arrangements and their negotiation.

Of course, there’s a glaring distinction between the Solomon Islands’ place in the South Pacific and Djibouti. The Horn of Africa faced external security threats—piracy and international terrorism—with multinational navy deployments to counter them, joined by the PLA Navy, and sits beside a key global shipping route.

The South Pacific, by happy contrast, is free from external security threats, with only the routine border security issues all states face. That cuts to the heart of Sogavare’s public rationale for the agreement, which he says is to deal with the Solomons’ ‘soft and hard’security threats.

Sogavare’s statement that, ‘Contrary to the misinformation promoted by anti-government commentators, the agreement does not invite PRC or any other countries for that matter to establish its military base here’, means nothing, other than showing he’s well practised in semantics and textual interpretations.

The people of Solomon Islands, the nation’s bureaucracy and police force, and all its Pacific partners and neighbours can see the path China is taking.

For Solomon Islanders, it’s one that leads to the presence of Chinese military power inside their country, operating according to China’s needs. And the security agencies China will send under this agreement—the Ministry of Public Security’s police, the PLA and People’s Armed Police—are responsible for the brutal crackdowns on freedoms in Hong Kong and Xinjiang and for the Tiananmen Square massacre. Their behaviour against their own people surely indicates how they’ll behave when used against Solomon Islands citizens, whether by Sogavare or ‘according to [China’s] needs’.

For other Pacific partners, from Fiji to Papua New Guinea and Nuie, it means bringing this same authoritarian military power to places near them, at the invitation of a government within the Pacific family.

And the contribution we can expect China to make to the South Pacific’s regional security? Military tension and even conflict will be the likely results.

We can see the future for the South Pacific in the Chinese military’s record in the South and East China Seas and Taiwan Strait. An example closer to home was the use of a military laser against a Royal Australian Air Force patrol aircraft off Darwin in February.

The Australian government’s approach has been to keep all projects and programs between Australia and the Solomons running as if none of this is happening. It’s even building a base for the Guardian-class patrol boats Australia has given the Solomons.

Australian, PNG and New Zealand police supported by the Australian Defence Force also continue to work there in accordance with the Solomons’ request for security assistance. This support, ironically, along with Chinese cash, has probably kept Sogavare in power and enabled him to keep negotiating his secret deal with Beijing.

Continuing Australian and regional support is understandable, despite the underlying impression of absurdity. It makes absolute sense to keep engaging with and supporting the Solomon Islands people and their government agencies to build the prosperity and security of our regional partner.

It makes little sense, though, to give Sogavare active support when he’s acting against the region’s security and against key Australian interests by pursuing his China deal.

It’s time to talk to and deal with Sogavare honestly, directly and publicly, in the frank ways his population, other Pacific partners and people in the Solomons parliament and other institutions need to hear. In a recent poll, 91% of Solomon Islanders said they wanted their country to be aligned with liberal democratic countries. Only 9% said they preferred China.

Sogavare is endangering his people’s individual and societal freedoms through his increasingly close partnership with Beijing and its repressive security forces. And he’s bringing real military tension and the prospects of actual military conflict closer to all of us. All for reasons that are incomprehensible aside from personal interest in power and perhaps money.

He cannot have even a whiff of support from Australia or any other Pacific nation as he goes down this path. Leadership engagement with Sogavare or any of his ministers has to at least begin with a public condemnation of his deal with Beijing and a call for him to scrap it.

And visits to Australia or other Pacific partners by Sogavare and his ministers should be on hold while the deal is on the table or in force. The recent letter from Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo shows the way: respectful but firm on the consequences of Sogavare’s actions being far wider than just himself and his nation.

It can’t be business as usual engaging with Sogavare while he damages his people’s freedoms, his country’s sovereignty and the region’s security.

Michael Shoebridge is director of ASPI’s defence, strategy and national security program.

Featured Photo Credit: Photo 178636613 / Solomon Islands China © Anastasiia Guseva | Dreamstime.com

by Pierre Tran

Paris – It looks like Kremlin’s bloody advance through Ukraine has boosted Europe’s resolve to forge its own operational defense and security identity.

The European Union added Feb. 24 a redrafted forward to its Strategic Compass policy paper on defense and security to refer to the Russian assault, which has transformed four million Ukrainian citizens into refugees, fleeing a European nation devastated and partly occupied by troops from just across the border.

While there is clear intent from some European political leaders, there is also skepticism whether that willingness will convert intention into reality.

It remains to be seen whether there will be political leadership in that quest for European capability, and where that direction will come from.

Paris is keen to promote a European military capability – separate but working with Nato, while Berlin has pledged an unprecedented €100 billion ($111 billion) budget to upgrade German military, breaking with a deep and sustained pacifism after the second world war.

Berlin’s budget boost begs the question where leadership in Europe will come from, as Germany will outstrip France in arms spending, a French parliamentarian said.

Rise In Risk

“The war against Ukraine proves that Europe is even more in danger than we thought just a few months ago, when the first draft of this Strategic Compass was presented,” Josep Borrell, EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a revised forward for the white paper published Feb. 21.

“This crisis has made it even clearer that we live in a world shaped by raw power politics, where everything is weaponized and where we face a fierce battle of narratives,” he said. “All these trends were already happening before the Ukraine war; now they are accelerating.”

Defense for Europe was one of the priorities of Emmanuel Macron, French head of state, when he took up in January the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, the policy-setting institution. “Europe must rise to the major economic, educational, migration and military challenges,” he said Dec. 9 2021, ahead of taking up the European Council post.

The European Council of the 27 member states adopted the Strategic Compass, which includes plans to form a 5,000-strong European military force, dubbed rapid deployment capacity. The policy paper also calls for “more and better” spending on defense, greater cooperation, and innovation to cut dependency. That EU plan sets a 10-year road map, seeking European sovereignty.

Macron has promoted in his five-year national mandate the concept of European sovereignty, to reduce a reliance on Nato, seen as dominated by the incumbent at the White House.

A chaotic U.S. evacuation from Kabul and lack of cooperation with allies heightened a perceived need among European partners to strengthen their ties.

There is a European perception of the need to develop the national arms industry, maintaining domestic jobs, rather than buying U.S. kit. The Strategic Compass reflects a view of some in France that Nato is an extension of the U.S. market, helping to boost the bottom line of American companies, while pursuing interoperability of equipment.

France Trims Arms Spending – Just For Now

The armed forces ministry had to scramble to explain why there was a quiet unscheduled €346 million cut in the 2022 defense budget of €41 billion, having to reassure the funds would be restored in July.

Some €202 million of the cut related to arms procurement, with the reduction arising from a switch in spending due to the Ukraine crisis, which pushed up energy prices and called for funds for receiving Ukrainian refugees.

Parliamentarian François Cornut-Gentille said in a March 29 op ed in afternoon daily Le Monde there was need for a “real debate” on defense spending, with the major presidential candidates saying they would increase the military budget.

France goes to the polls April 10 and 24 in a two-step election, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen narrowing Macron’s lead in opinion polls. Le Pen has gained ground as she attacks Macron on the rising cost of living, a switch from the anti-immigration message of the National Rally party.

The chances Macron would keep his promise of a defense budget of €50 billion in 2025 are “extremely weak,” Cornut-Gentille said, due to economic problems arising from Covid. Even if funding were available, the services would still be unable to deter an aggressor, he said.

There is also need to rethink the “relevance” of big ticket programs, such as an aircraft carrier, medium-altitude, long-endurance drone, and future combat air system, he said. Space systems and hypersonic weapons were today’s equivalent of the tanks and aircraft which transformed combat in the 1930s. There should be a policy review on whether France had the right platform for nuclear weapons, with the parliamentarian saying there was no doubt France should hold on to the nuclear warhead.

Parliamentarians recently put the defense ministry on the back foot, pointing up a perceived lack of ammunition stock, with the forces running out within a couple of weeks in high intensity warfare. The ministry spokesman sought to calm fears, pointing up an extra €110 million for building 100 mm, 120 mm and 76 mm shells, with attention to improving production of heavy caliber shells due to problems in the export market.

Meanwhile, the French navy has put to sea three of its four-strong fleet of nuclear ballistic missile submarines, regional daily Le Télégramme reported. Usually, just the one nuclear missile boat would be at sea. In response to the war in Ukraine, France has deployed the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the eastern Mediterranean, dispatched troops to Nato ally Romania, and sent Rafale fighter jets at fellow Nato ally Estonia, with defense minister Florence Parly visiting April 3 French air force personnel posted to the Amari air base in Estonia.

Macron has pledged to increase French military spending to two percent of gross domestic product by 2025, a target for Nato members.

Defense is second in national expenditure after the education budget.

German Budget Boost

A German commitment of hitting the two percent target of GDP will lead to €70 billion of annual arms spending, Cornut-Gentille said, bringing a “new context” for European leadership, as Berlin overtakes the Paris pledge of €50 billion.

Berlin spends some 1.3 percent of GDP on the services, which say they are poorly equipped.

Germany’s spending €100 billion on military modernization is part of the commitment to meet — and exceed — the two percent target, think tank Stockholm Peace Research Institute said March 25. That amount compares to €46.9 billion spent last year and will place Germany third in world arms spending, after the U.S. and China, and up from seventh in 2020.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s announcement of the hefty budget boost surprised the three parties in the government coalition, but they backed the policy shift, and opinion polls showed 69 percent support, up from 39 percent in 2018.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine shocked Germany, and the coalition partners — center-left Social Democrats, market-friendly Free Democrats, and the environmentalist Green party — rallied round Scholz, who dropped a postwar policy of working closely with Russia through Ostpolitik, and maintaining a minimalist military posture.
Tens of thousands of Germans took to the streets in anti-Putin protests, bearing Stop the War banners, and show support for Ukraine.

Putin’s invasion sparked talk of reviving German conscription and a parliamentary visit to Israel to consider ordering Arrow 3, a long-range, anti-missile system, as shield against a Russian attack. Such an arms order would be on top of German plans to buy the F-35 fighter jet to replace the Tornado, to carry U.S.-built atomic bombs for Nato.

Skepticism on the EU Plan

While the war in Ukraine has sharpened an EU search for military capability, such a quest merely repeats the past and lacks credibility where it matters – the commanders, an analyst said. Nato rules the reality game, not the EU.

“What really dooms the operational side of the (Strategic) Compass’s agenda is, of course, the same thing that has crimped the EU’s military aspirations from the beginning – the reluctance of top brass across Europe to take the enterprise seriously,” Nick Witney, senior policy fellow at think tank European Council for Foreign Relations, said March 31 in a research note.

“NATO has always been where ‘serious’ military business is done, where they rub shoulders with (and are told what to do by) the mighty United States,” he said in the note titled, “The EU’s Strategic Compass: Brand new, already obsolete.”

The EU plan lacked credibility as there had been a post-Kosovo plan for a 60,000 intervention force, followed by talk of 1,500-strong battle groups, he said. Neither came to fruition, casting doubt on the EU plan for a 5,000-strong force.

There is a “rejuvenated” Nato, backed by the U.S., but Washington will soon look to the “Europeans to provide their own defense,” with little more than American supply of intelligence and nuclear deterrence, he said. A genuine “member state-owned” drive for defense integration was needed. While there has been discussion, there is little to show for it.

It remained to be seen where that leadership might come from, he said, perhaps a partnership from Scholz and Macron.

More likely, Europeans would wait to see what the U.S. would tell them what to do, while switching focus to the Pacific, he said.

Europe Counts

Another view lies in a larger European role in Nato, and the need for the U.K. to find a place alongside Europe while being outside the E.U.

There is much uncertainty on the future of Nato, and whether the U.S. can be relied upon to back the alliance, a March 29 op ed in London daily The Times said. There is the prospect of Trump’s return to power, the right oscillating between “sneaking admiration” for Putin and Hungarian leader Viktor Orban and insisting America should not be pushed around, the op ed said. Meanwhile, the left is uncertain on militarily supporting liberal democracy, and hesitant on close ties to a European past steeped in “white imperialism.”

“What all this means is that Europe cannot rely on the leadership and support of the U.S. in future as it has done in the past. That leadership and support might be forthcoming. But it also might not,” the op ed said.

There is a call for Europeans to stand up for Europe. “It is perfectly obvious now that we face security challenges in Europe that we must tackle as Europeans,” the op ed said. But it was difficult “to forge a European defense identity” and for the U.K. to find its place after having left the E.U.

There is a call for London to work through Nato “to build common European defence aims” that the U.K. previously rejected, as that was seen as reducing Britain’s independence. “If we do not engage, then these policies will be decided without us.”