American officials seek to solidify Pacific ties as China signs defense agreement with Solomon Islands

American officials are embarking on a marathon of diplomatic visits around the Pacific as they seek to maintain relations in the face of expanding Chinese influence in the region.

The push became more urgent Tuesday as China and the Solomon Islands announced they had signed a new security agreement.

Under the terms of the agreement, China could send military personnel, police and other forces to the Solomon Islands “to assist in maintaining social order” and other missions. The security pact also would allow Chinese warships to use ports in the Solomon Islands to refuel and replenish supplies.

The announcement came a day after the White House said that officials led by National Security Council Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell would visit Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

And last week, U.S. Reps. Ed Case, D-Hawaii, and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., returned from leading a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Palau. Case told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the U.S. has neglected the Pacific islands since the end of the Cold War and that “we need to step up our game.”

“In the last decade we closed embassies, we closed consulates, we closed down the Peace Corps, we reduced offices such as USAID and other nondefense presence in the Pacific islands,” he said. “We have to reverse that, and we’re busy doing that.”

In January, Campbell told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., that despite the United States having “enormous moral, strategic, historical interests” in the Pacific, it hasn’t made them a priority.

“If you look and if you ask me where are the places where we are most likely to see certain kinds of strategic surprise, basing or certain kinds of agreements or arrangements, it may well be in the Pacific,” he said.

Solomon Islands officials confirmed they were pursuing the security pact with China after a draft was leaked in March. Relations between the countries have grown closer since Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare cut off diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 2019.

Sogavare has become a controversial figure, with critics accusing him of authoritarian tendencies.

In 2020 his government made moves to ban Facebook over “abusive language against ministers and the prime minister,” but backed off in the face of international criticism. Last year during a parliamentary session, he warned journalists that his COVID-19 emergency powers could allow him to punish media outlets for publishing “lies and rumors.”

Sogavare narrowly beat a no-confidence vote in December after allegations he was using Chinese money to sway votes in parliament sparked protests that turned violent in November. At Sogavare’s request, Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand sent troops and police to the Solomons in the wake of the riots. China also sent police advisers.

During a Tuesday news briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters that “the two sides will conduct cooperation including maintenance of social order, protection and safety of people’s lives and property, humanitarian assistance and natural disaster response, to help Solomon Islands strengthen capacity building and safeguard its own security.”

This comes after the island nation of Kiribati, about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii, joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative to upgrade its infrastructure, including modernizing what was once a World War II-era U.S. military air base.

“Pacific Island countries have the actual need for diversifying their external cooperation and the right to choose their cooperative partners,” Wang said. “Deliberately hyping up tensions and provoking confrontational blocs wins no support, and attempts to obstruct cooperation with China is doomed to fail.”

Case said the U.S. has taken its relationships in the Pacific for granted.

In the island nations of Melanesia, the U.S. has cooperated closely with the Australian government to the point that American officials have largely relied on Australia to relay messages to island governments. Chinese officials, by contrast, arrive in person promising aid and investment.

Case said Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape told visiting U.S. lawmakers that sort of treatment must end and that they want a “direct bilateral relationship with us on all levels.”

Papua New Guinea shares many U.S. concerns about China’s growing influence in the neighboring Solomon Islands. Like many nations in the Pacific, it has struggled to control illegal and unreported fishing, particularly by China’s massive government-subsidized fleet.

“They definitely don’t want a Chinese military presence in the Solomon Islands,” Case said.

The U.S. has plans to open a new embassy in Papua New Guinea and is working on a new agreement that sets parameters for military cooperation. Papua New Guinea is one of only three Pacific island nations with its own standing military.

While in the Philippines, Case and fellow lawmakers met with military leaders as a joint U.S.-Philippine military exercise was winding down.

Controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has spent much of his presidency criticizing the U.S. while making overtures to China. He even went so far as to hint he might dump a defense pact between Washington and Manila allowing joint military operations, in favor of teaming up with the Chinese military instead.

“Although Duterte was flirting along those lines, he’s definitely turned around and gone the other way, and the Philippine people have, also,” said Case. “Fundamentally, their experience with China was not a good one.”

The Chinese navy has used aggressive tactics in disputed territories in the South China Sea, including harassment and attacks on Filipino fishermen, forcing them out of traditional fishing grounds with warships and Chinese-flagged fishing vessels, contributing to an anti-Beijing backlash in the Philippines.

Duterte in 2021 renewed the security pact with the U.S. at the last minute. However, as his presidency nears an end, an equally controversial candidate to succeed him has moved into the lead.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who died in exile in Honolulu in 1989 after his overthrow, is leading in the polls and has expressed interests in giving closer ties with China a second shot.

Marcos Jr., who met the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong on a trip to China with his father and has touted his friendship with Chinese officials in interviews, argues he can better negotiate with the Chinese government.

The last stop for Case and the delegation was Palau, which was hosting the Our Ocean conference last week with Biden administration climate czar John Kerry in attendance.

“Palau has gone in a little bit of a different direction than some of its partners around the Pacific,” Case said.

Palau is one of three Pacific island countries that has continued to recognize Taiwan as an independent country. China made overtures to the tiny island nation and boosted Palau’s tourist industry. But when Palau refused to cut off diplomatic relations with Taiwan, China banned tour flights to Palau and halted trade.

Since then Palau has strengthened its ties to the U.S., and in 2020 signed an agreement to open a new American military base.

While Palau is concerned about China, its biggest concerns are environmental. During the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in November, Palauan President Surangel Whipps told industrialized nations that their collective inability to drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels was dooming Pacific islanders to sea-level rise.

“We are drowning, and our only hope is the life ring you are holding,” Whipps said in an address to world leaders. “Our resources are disappearing before our eyes, and our future is being robbed from us. Frankly speaking, there is no dignity to a slow and painful death. You might as well bomb our islands instead of making us suffer only to witness our slow and fateful demise.”

But when it comes to combating climate change, it requires buy-in from all parties. China and the U.S. are competing for influence and access to Pacific islands even as their energy consumption threatens to put the smaller nations under rising seas by the end of the century.

“You have to have the largest emitters in the room if you’re truly going to arrive at a set of agreements that will meet the goals that the scientists say we must meet within a very short period of time,” said Case. “That’s really one of the most complicated questions that we have to face.”

He insists cooperation between the U.S. and China is still possible despite their seemingly irreconcilable differences.

“We have done something like that, you know; there are avenues. Until recently we’ve maintained nuclear test bans, for example, and bans on certain types of nuclear weapons — even in the midst of the Cold War, we were doing it,” said Case. “So it’s not impossible to do, but it’s going to be hard to do.”

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Bloomberg News contributed to this report.