Solomon Islands MP defends military pact with China by comparing it to secretive Pine Gap facility in NT

 By foreign affairs reporter Stephen Dziedzic and defence correspondent Andrew Greene

A key Solomon Islands politician has likened his country's secretive military pact with China to the mysterious Pine Gap installation jointly operated by the United States and Australia.

Key points:

• Former Solomon Islands PM Danny Philip says the pact is very close to the text of a leaked draft
• He compared the scenario to the Pine Gap installation in the Northern Territory 
• He repeated the claim that Australian forces had refused to guard Chinese infrastructure during riots last year

Danny Philip, a former Solomon Islands prime minister and confidante of current leader Manasseh Sogavare, staunchly defended the yet-to-be-published agreement with Beijing, arguing public approval for the document was not needed.

He also confirmed that the final text of the deal signed with China was "very close" to the wide-ranging leaked draft which stoked deep alarm in both Canberra and Washington.

This week's revelation that China and Solomon Islands had finally signed the pact has caused a political storm in Australia, with Labor accusing the Prime Minister of presiding over the biggest Australian foreign policy failure in the Pacific since World War II.

"The agreement was signed and drawn up very much for the eyes of the government, an executive decision," Mr Philip declared during an online seminar hosted on Thursday.

"In matters of national security there are some things which do not need to … have the whole country's legitimacy, in terms of national security," he told the event, hosted by the University of Hawaii.

Defending his government's lack of transparency on the Chinese deal, Mr Philip compared the arrangement to the highly secretive Pine Gap American satellite surveillance base hosted just outside Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

"People in Australia know very little about Pine Gap in the middle of the desert, the military base of the United States.

Royal Solomon Islands Police Force officers train with replica guns supplied by the Chinese government. (RSIPF)

"There are agreements that open up all major ports in Australia that are not being seen by all the citizens of that country."

The comments by a powerful government MP and former leader will solidify anxieties in the Australian government, which fears vague and broadly-worded language in the security agreement could pave the way for a Chinese military presence in Solomon Islands.

There was debris and destruction after days of unrest in Honiara in November last year.(Reuters: Elizabeth Osifelo)

According to a draft of the deal leaked last month, Beijing would be able to send military forces to Solomon Islands to protect Chinese-built infrastructure, as well as "make ship visits, carry out logistical replenishment in and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands". 

Mr Philip also repeated the claim that Australian forces had refused to guard Chinese infrastructure during the riots which exploded in November last year in Honiara.

Australian officials have furiously denied that assertion in the past, pointing out that Australian police and ADF personnel had been sent to the Solomons as part of a broader regional security force under the command of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.

"A very senior diplomat from the Australian High Commission said very plainly to us that their presence here is not to protect any Chinese interests," Mr Philip said.

"As a government we know it was said to us in no certain terms that they are here not to protect Chinese investments [or] Chinese infrastructure.

"So that gives rise to other considerations in the mind of the Solomon Islands government to get the Chinese police to come in to train our own police."

When pressed whether the agreement was then chiefly to protect Chinese investments in the country more than protecting Solomon Islands citizens, Mr Philip said it was for "both".

"It is both for our own security as a country internally but also for the interests of Chinese investments and infrastructure."

YOUTUBEChina has a new deal with one of Australia's close neighbours. Why the big fuss? (ABC News: Graphic/Jarrod Fankhauser)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-21/china-solomon-islands-agreement-australia/101005022