Australia’s foreign minister has met her Solomon Islands counterpart for the first time since the South Pacific island nation signed a security pact with China.
Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Marise Payne yesterday said she met Solomon Islands Development Planning and Aid Coordination Minister Jeremiah Manele in the Australian east coast city of Brisbane as he transited through the airport on Friday night.
“Australia has been consistent and clear in stating our respect for Solomon Islands’ sovereign decisionmaking, however we have reiterated our deep concerns about the security agreement with China, including the lack of transparency,” Payne’s office said in a statement.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Payne’s office said the pair agreed that Australia remained the Solomon Islands’ security partner of choice and that the Solomon Islands would not host a foreign military base less than 2,000km off Australia’s northeast coast.
Manele could not be contacted for comment yesterday.
Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Dan Tehan told Australian Broadcasting Corp that the two ministers had a “very productive conversation.”
A Chinese base in the Solomon Islands was not in the interests of the region, Tehan said.
“What we want to do is to be making sure that we’re presenting a very strong case as to why it is incredibly important that we don’t see militarization of the Pacific islands,” Tehan said.
Tehan said Payne and Manele also discussed how Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government needed to keep working on the bilateral relationship.
Morrison’s coalition is seeking a rare fourth three-year term in elections on May 25.
The China-Solomon Islands security pact announced last month has become a major focus of the election campaign.
After details of a draft pact were released, Australian Minister for International Development and the Pacific Zed Seselja flew to the Solomon Islands’ capital, Honiara, on April 12 to unsuccessfully ask the government to abandon it.
The opposition Labor Party said at the time that Payne, a more senior minister than Seselja, should have been sent instead.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese welcomed Payne’s meeting with Manele.
“It’s about time,” Albanese said.
Albanese has also criticized Morrison for not telephoning Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare since the pact was signed.
Morrison has said he was following the advice of intelligence officials.
The Labor Party has condemned the pact as Australia’s worst foreign policy failure in the Pacific since World War II. Albanese has promised closer engagement between Australia and its South Pacific island neighbors if Labor wins government.
Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews has suggested that Beijing timed the pact’s announcement during an election campaign to undermine her Liberal Party’s prospects for re-election.
CARROT AND STICK: While unrelenting in its military threats, China attracted nearly 40,000 Taiwanese to over 400 business events last year Nearly 40,000 Taiwanese last year joined industry events in China, such as conferences and trade fairs, supported by the Chinese government, a study showed yesterday, as Beijing ramps up a charm offensive toward Taipei alongside military pressure. China has long taken a carrot-and-stick approach to Taiwan, threatening it with the prospect of military action while reaching out to those it believes are amenable to Beijing’s point of view. Taiwanese security officials are wary of what they see as Beijing’s influence campaigns to sway public opinion after Taipei and Beijing gradually resumed travel links halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the scale of
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
Pope Francis is be laid to rest on Saturday after lying in state for three days in St Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects to history’s first Latin American pontiff. The cardinals met yesterday in the Vatican’s synod hall to chart the next steps before a conclave begins to choose Francis’ successor, as condolences poured in from around the world. According to current norms, the conclave must begin between May 5 and 10. The cardinals set the funeral for Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square, to be celebrated by the dean of the College
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
RSS