Yesterday the alarming news broke that the Solomon Islands is planning to sign a security agreement with the People’s Republic of China, opening the way for a permanent military base and intelligence listening posts. The new agreement has implications for the security of the whole of the Pacific.

If a hostile power controls a base on the Solomons, they could block shipping traffic from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean, into the Coral Sea, and beyond. Under the agreement, China will send military personnel, intelligence and information support, police, and other armed personnel upon the request of the Solomons government.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing in October 2019.Credit:AP

The Solomon Islands government will be required to provide legal status and judiciary immunity for the mission. The agreement will be valid for five years, automatically renewed.

The security agreement is meant to be confidential, but the widespread leaking of the draft document from deep within the Sogavare government indicates that even at the highest levels there is serious disagreement with this new development.

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It has been greeted with considerable shock by government leaders in Australia, New Zealand and the US. The 2021 New Zealand Defence Assessment asserts that if a state that did not share New Zealand’s values and security interests – AKA the PRC – set up a military base or dual-use facility in the Pacific it “would fundamentally alter the strategic balance of the region”.

Australia’s 2020 Strategic Update states that Australia is very concerned by the potential of “the establishment of military bases, which could undermine stability in the Indo-Pacific and our immediate region”.

Yet, while both governments raised the concern, their policies actually helped create the crisis in the Solomons today. Australia, New Zealand, and the US need to take a cold hard look at the effectiveness of their people on the ground, policies, and strategies towards the Solomon Islands.

Prime Minister Sogavare’s antagonism towards Australia has been openly signalled for years. Australia and New Zealand’s policy of placating him put their own security interests at risk. Australia and New Zealand have been painting themselves into this corner for a long time. Recent decisions in the past year cemented the situation. Sogavare is extremely unpopular with Solomon Islanders, and last November was facing imminent defeat via a Parliamentary motion of no confidence. Australia and New Zealand, no doubt haunted by the spectre of the PRC taking their place, offered a security guarantee, inserting troops and a show of force. This was crucial in getting MPs to side with him against the will of the people.

The Solomon Islands Herald reported that each Solomon Islands MP who voted against the no-confidence vote on Sogavare received $SBD250,000 ($44,000) from a PRC slush fund. A reported $US1.72 million ($2.29 million) was paid out in total. Thirty-two MPs voted against the motion, 15 for, and two abstained. Soon after, Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times gloated, “Any attempt to undermine the relationship between Solomon Islands and China is doomed to fail.” Within a few months, the Sogavare government had signed a cooperation agreement with the PRC’s Public Security Bureau, who have an intelligence as well as policing function.

A mass cull of sacred cows is needed to address this dire state of affairs.

First to the chopping block: RAMSI, the 2003-2017 Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands. Australia and New Zealand need to stop pretending the Solomon Islands is a functioning state in order to keep up the pretence that RAMSI was a success. It was not. It entrenched the same politics that led to the conflict and what is more, it has cemented the basic economics that have made the PRC dominant in Solomon Island politics.

Second to the chopping block: An over-emphasis on sovereignty being a barrier to doing anything about the crisis. The Solomon Islands is a failed state. It can’t secure its nation as a whole, let alone its capital. It can’t pay public servants. It can’t secure its borders from COVID, and it can’t save its people as they get sick and die of COVID. There are a thousand ways to support the Solomons people that do not shore up a Lukashenko-in-waiting. Australia and New Zealand are studiously avoiding any of these ways.

Third to the chopping block. The Solomon Islands’ hosting of the 2023 South Pacific Games. Australia and New Zealand are being hoodwinked into supporting Sogavare’s pet project. Hosting the South Pacific games has given Sogavare the perfect excuse to delay national elections, to drive a change of the constitution necessary to do so, and probably to change to a five-year term.

When war broke out in 1914 and 1939, governments in Canberra and Wellington knew immediately what to do. Notably, in both wars, the US took several years before coming to the same conclusions. Then, as now, there are vested business interests that do not want to face up to the current geopolitical situation regarding China, let alone Russia. Does it have to take a Ukraine-type scenario for our political and economic elites to face up to the malign actions of the CCP government in our immediate region and take action? Words and hand-wringing are not enough anymore.

Anne-Marie Brady is a specialist on Chinese, Pacific, and polar politics at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand.