The Solomon Islands said on Thursday that it had secured a US$66 million loan from China to fund tech giant Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) plans to build 161 telecommunications towers across the Pacific nation.
The deal marks the first financing the country of islands has received from Beijing since it signed a secretive security pact in April following the severing of diplomatic links to Taiwan.
The Solomons’ government said the deal was a “historical financial partnership” that comes after it cut ties with Taiwan and restored ties with Beijing in 2019.
Photo: AP
However, the Solomons’ growing financial and security links to China have roused concern from the US and its allies. Western officials said that China could use the security pact to build a military base in the country — something Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has repeatedly denied.
Under the terms of the deal, the Solomons is to receive a 20-year concessional loan from state-linked Export-Import Bank of China that would fully fund Huawei’s construction of the towers, the government said in a statement.
Almost half of the towers would be built before the country hosts the Pacific Island Games in November next year, it said.
The towers would allow islanders, especially those in rural areas, to watch the Games even if they are not able to not travel to the capital, Honiara, it said.
Sogavare this month proposed changing the country’s constitution to delay national elections until after the Games, saying the country could not afford both events.
Sogavare’s comments were called a “lame excuse” by opposition leader Matthew Wale, who said that any delay to the polls would amount to “an abuse of the people’s right to exercise their vote.”
The next election — due to be held before September next year — is to be the country’s first since widespread rioting by anti-Sogavare protests broke out in Honiara last year.
It would also be the first poll since Sogavare signed the security pact with Beijing which — according to a leaked draft — allows Chinese security forces to be called in to quell unrest.
If the push to delay elections is successful, the Solomon Islands would not go to the polls until 2024 at the earliest.
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