Displaying items by tag: Chinese military expansion

On 25 March the Solomon Islands government announced it was ‘expanding’ security arrangements, ‘diversifying the country's security partnership with China’. Beijing is moving from island to island and wants to upgrade an airstrip in Kiribati for civilian purposes; yet the military uses are apparent. Kiribati is 1,900 miles south of Hawaii. A five-year deal, with automatic renewals, will allow Beijing to base its military in the Solomon Islands. If applied to its full extent, the Framework Agreement will give China the ability to sever shipping lanes and air links connecting the USA with its treaty ally Australia and partner New Zealand. For decades the US allowed Canberra and Wellington to manage the Solomons and its region. Beijing, through payoffs now detailed in public, essentially owns the Solomon Islands government. There is also now talk that China will ink a security agreement with Papua New Guinea, just north of Australia.