Beijing dispatches envoys to Solomons to aid local Chinese

China has sent diplomats to the Solomon Islands to help ensure the safety of Chinese targeted in rioting in the capital of the South Pacific island group.

China's foreign ministry, in a statement released late on Friday, said that two officers from the Chinese embassy in Papua New Guinea arrived on Friday morning in the Solomons' capital, Honiara, and that their dispatch was the latest measure to assist Chinese caught up in the unrest.

Locals looted and burned their way through the capital's Chinatown earlier this week, following rumors that the election of a new unpopular prime minister was tainted by bribery involving both China and Taiwan.

The Solomon Islands is caught in a tug of war for diplomatic influence between China and Taiwan.

Honiara recognizes Taiwan, but China is trying to lure it and other Pacific diplomatic allies of Taiwan away. Both sides accuse the other of spending lavishly to influence the outcome of the tussle.

In a sign of these diplomatic undertones, the foreign ministry statement, which was carried by China's official Xinhua News Agency, said it "will continue to take all measures to ensure the safety of its people there," including those from Taiwan.

Without diplomatic relations with the Solomons, China earlier in the week had appealed to Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Red Cross for assistance in looking after ethnic Chinese and Chinese citizens residing in the Pacific nation.

The Chinese community in the Solomons, as in many other areas of the South Pacific, includes families who have been there for many generations as well as more recent arrivals from China and Taiwan.

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