Australia said Friday it will fund additional police in the Solomon Islands and establish a police training facility in Honiara. This is the capital of the South Pacific island nation, where Chinese law enforcement instructors. These are already stationed as part of a bilateral security agreement with Beijing.
Australia will invest 190 million Australian dollars (USD 118 million) over four years to fund and educate new recruits for the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shares this information. The package would lessen the need for outside assistance.
In the Australian capital of Canberra, Albanese told the reporters,
“My government is proud to make a significant investment in the Solomon Islands police force to ensure that they can continue to take primary responsibility for security in the Solomons.”
In a joint statement on Friday, Albanese and his Solomons counterpart Jeremiah Manele said
“The package would help the Solomons develop a long-term security capability that would eventually lessen its dependency on outside partners”.
Since the 2022 signing of a bilateral security agreement between Beijing and the Solomans by Manele’s predecessor, Manasseh Sogavare. Australia has been actively seeking additional bilateral security agreements with its neighbors who are Pacific island nations.
Australia and other US allies are concerned that the Chinese navy will be permitted to establish a base in the strategically significant Solomons as a result of that agreement.
The opposition party at the time of the pact’s signing, was Albanese’s Labor Party. This was also called Australia’s biggest Pacific foreign policy setback since World War II.
Recent security agreements that Australia has signed with Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, and Nauru essentially grant Canberra the authority. It rejects any agreements those states may wish to make with third parties, including China.
