The largest opposition party, Labor, led by Anthony Albanese, blames the ruling coalition for the diplomatic failure and as part of its election platform has presented support measures for the Pacific. The country’s security stance toward China is becoming a key issue in the upcoming election.
“Mr Morrison just keeps dropping the ball. He went missing while China negotiated and signed a security deal on our doorstep,” Labor’s shadow foreign minister, Penny Wong, said as part of a fierce attack on Prime Minister Scott Morrison on April 26.
On the same day, the party promised that it would boost foreign aid to the South Pacific by A$525 million (US$375 million) over the next four years.
Labor also announced a plan to open an Australia-Pacific defence school to train defence and security personnel of Pacific island nations. Wong mentioned the security pact between China and the Solomon Islands several times, making clear her party’s concern over the expanding influence of Beijing.
Foreign minister Marise Payne immediately hit back. “It’s our view that this is an announcement that lacks substance, that seems to be a list of continuations, carbon copies and of cosmetic changes. We already trained defence and security personnel from the Pacific, particularly through the Australia Pacific Security College,” she told reporters.
The South Pacific has seldom become a focus in Australian federal elections, which are usually dominated by economic policy and climate change. The verbal spats between the ruling and opposition blocs highlight the strong sense of wariness in Australian political circles about China’s increasing influence in the region.
The government of the Solomon Islands denies that China will build military bases, but a draft agreement leaked before the signing included a clause that the island nation will allow the dispatch of Chinese troops.
The Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, asked in a 2018 opinion poll whether China was more of an economic partner or a security threat. About 82% of respondents regarded Beijing as a partner, while 12% said it was a threat. In a 2021 poll, only 34% considered China a partner and 63% saw the country as a threat.
After China announced its pact with the Solomon Islands on April 19, Albanese began attacking the government for what he calls “a massive foreign policy failure”.
He also criticised the government for sending a “junior” minister, minister for international development and the Pacific Zed Seselja, instead of foreign minister Payne, to the Solomons in mid-April to try to persuade the country to change its mind.
But Labor’s pledge of larger financial aid to the Pacific has been received with much scepticism. One of the factors that prompted the security deal is said to be antigovernment protests that turned violent and caused extensive damage to the Chinatown in the Solomon Islands’ capital of Honiara last year.
Tess Newton Cain, an adjunct associate professor at Griffith University, called for “increased Pacific literacy among Australia’s policy community” and “building appropriate capacities within Australia’s diplomatic corps” to better understand what Pacific island nations need.
“I think what’s more important is that we see the issues discussed on an ongoing basis as part of the policy discussion in Australia, rather than just as knee-jerk reactions to particular events” like the security pact, she said.