Solomon Islands’ China pact irks Australia
Plus, Sri Lankan PM proposes constitutional amendment to curtail presidential powers
Hello, and wishing you a happy Earth Day! I hope you had a great week. This week, we’re looking at why Australia has been irked by the Solomon Islands signing a security pact with China.
We’re also looking at what’s happening in Sri Lanka, why United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in a soup again, flooding in South Africa and updates from the French presidential election. Let’s get started.
This day that year
2016: Countries signed the landmark Paris climate change agreement which seeks to limit rise in average global temperature to “well below 2°C”, and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C, above pre-industrial levels — in a bid to fight climate change.
1969: British yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston and completed the first solo nonstop circumnavigation of the world.
Solomon Islands’ China pact irks Australia
China and the Solomon Islands inked a security pact this week sending alarm bells ringing in the corridors of power in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The China-Solomon Islands agreement is being seen by experts as the first clear sign of China’s intent in the region.
The three nations are concerned that China may use the pact to build a military base in the island nation, not too far from the Australian mainland. Australia – the Solomon Islands’ biggest aid donor – and the US had promptly sent officials to persuade the Solomon Islands’ government against signing the deal. The attempt was unsuccessful. China announced that the deal had been signed, even before officials from the US reached the island nation.
Solomon Islands is a nation situated on an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. It’s located off the eastern coast of Australia and Papua New Guinea. It's home to just over 685,000 people who are dependent on exports of rough wood, palm oil and fisheries. But the picturesque island nation has had a history of an internal regional and ethnic divide.
Manasseh Sogavare, the nation’s prime minister, has claimed that the pact wouldn’t “undermine peace and harmony” in the region, and that it wasn’t aimed at its historic allies such as Australia. Instead, Sogavare suggested that the pact was for its own “internal security situation”. What internal security situation? You may remember, we had discussed in the December 3 edition of the Solomon Islands being gripped by violent protests and how Australia, Fiji and New Zealand had sent peacekeepers to assist the nation’s police force to restore law and order (as they have a couple of times in the past). Protesters had also targeted Chinese businesses and burned buildings in capital Honiara’s Chinatown district. The Pacific nation was dependent on traditional allies like Australia so far for its internal security.
This pact is, therefore, as the Solomon Islands claims, a way to “diversifying the country’s security partnership” by involving China which has its own interests there. Sogavare suggested that his country had signed the pact “with our eyes wide open, guided by our national interests”. The BBC quoted a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson as confirming that the final agreement had retained the provisions on “maintaining social order”.
It’s speculated that the pact would allow the Chinese navy to station its warships in the island nation, giving it the ability to quickly deploy its law enforcement and armed forces on the ground when requested by the Solomon Islands’ government in situations of internal trouble – as seen last year. This, however, doesn’t mean that China would start stationing a large number of its military personnel or build a base in the Solomon Islands immediately. But it gives China a clear foothold in the region.
Australia has said that it respects the island nation’s right to make sovereign decisions but would be concerned by any developments that undermine the region’s security and stability – including the presence of a permanent base belonging to a powerhouse like China. Australia views the area as its own backyard and obviously strives to maintain influence. Canberra still doesn’t know what the China-Solomon Islands pact actually says, keeping the door open for more surprises.
Tensions between Canberra and Beijing have been rising in recent years anyway amid China’s growing economic and military influence in the region. Now, the possibility of a Chinese military base just off its coast adds to Australia’s discomfort.
Australia is heading into a general election next month and the opposition Labour party has described the situation as the biggest Australian foreign policy failure in the Pacific since the Second World War.
There’s another question: will China try to get similar pacts signed with other island nations in the region by using its economic influence?
Read more: China is exerting ‘enormous pressure’ on Pacific island nations, Australian PM Scott Morrison says
Pin it on the map
Time for some head scratching: The winner of the French presidential election – Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen — will not only become the head of state for what is formally called the “Fifth French Republic”, but also a co-prince of the landlocked microstate showed in this satellite image (in yellow borders). This country is sandwiched between France and Spain. What place is this?
The answer is at the bottom.
What else?
Sri Lankan PM proposes changes, president appoints new Cabinet
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has proposed a constitutional amendment to curtail powers of the president as protests calling for his family’s ouster continue to swell, amid the country’s worst economic crisis. The move is also aimed at diverting decision-making powers from the president to the prime minister’s office and parliament. The Opposition has also sought curtailment of the president's executive powers.
Meanwhile, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed a new Cabinet this week despite protesters and the opposition calling for him and the country’s top political leadership to resign. About 17 new ministers were named, but names of many from the Rajapaksa family — who were part of the previous Cabinet — were conspicuously missing. This move effectively shuts the door on the possibility of the Opposition joining him in forming a unity government amid the crisis.
Peace in Yemen?
Yemen’s new internationally recognised presidential council took office this week, replacing president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. The council is expected to carry out peace talks with the Houthis. This is believed to be happening with the blessings of neighbouring Saudi Arabia. There is currently a United Nations-brokered 60-day truce between the Yemeni government and the Houthis.
The development is being seen as a step towards securing peace in Yemen which has been gripped by a civil war since 2015. The Yemeni government is backed by a Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis are supported by Iran. The conflict has led to the death of more than 150,000 people and has dragged the country into a humanitarian crisis.
Johnson’s apology
United Kingdom’s British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has apologised in parliament after being fined by police for breaking COVID-19 lockdown laws earlier. The fine was for attending a birthday party at 10, Downing Street — the prime minister’s official residence — in 2020. He is the first sitting UK prime minister to break the law. Johnson said he paid the fine, but claimed in his defence that he believed that his conduct did not break the rules.
Opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer called his apology “a joke”. But while most members of parliament from Johnson’s Conservative party supported his apology, some didn’t. Facing support, Johnson will now face an inquiry over whether he is in contempt of parliament for lying and allegedly misleading it over the issue of lockdown parties.
South Africa flooding
Nearly 400 people were killed and nearly 41,000 people have been affected by massive flooding in South Africa. Many are still feared missing. The flooding, caused by a major storm in the KwaZulu-Natal province, has led to widespread destruction. A state of disaster has been declared in the region.
Some parts of the region received more than 450 millimetres of rainfall over two days. That’s half of the annual rainfall received by the region's largest city Durban, The Guardian reported, citing the national weather service.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said floods were “a catastrophe of enormous proportions ... not seen before in our country”.
French presidential election
Centre-left leaders of Germany, Spain and Portugal have urged French voters to pick centrist candidate President Emmanuel Macron over his far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election. The second and final round of polling is scheduled for April 24.
In a newspaper column published in European newspapers, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa called the election “critical for France and all and every one of us in Europe.”
“It’s the election between a democratic candidate who believes that France’s strength broadens in a powerful and autonomous European Union and an extreme-right candidate who openly sides with those who attack our freedom and democracy, values based on the French ideas of Enlightenment,” they said, while not naming Le Pen.
While I’m not sure if the three leaders openly calling on French voters to vote for a particular candidate amounts to external interference or if it can be passed off as their personal opinion, them talking about it underscores the impact the French election result will have on the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — something we discussed last week.
During the one-on-one television debate this week, Macron sought to paint Le Pen as unsuitable to deal with the Kremlin (in context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine) because of the loan her party received from a Czech-Russian bank in 2014. Le Pen sought to highlight that Macron had failed to tackle the cost-of-living problem. Read more here.
Interesting stuff
“In the 20th century, America built the most capable knowledge-producing institutions in human history. In the past decade, they got stupider en masse.” Jonathan Haidt writes in The Atlantic about why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid. But the key takeaways are relevant for, perhaps, all vibrant democracies. Read/listen to this long piece here.
“India’s trade deal with Australia, which has been under negotiations for over a decade, was finalized with an urgency stimulated by concern over China rather than advancing the Modi administration's trade agenda.” Akhil Ramesh has written in Nikkei Asia suggesting that the recent Australia-India trade deal will boost the Quad. Read the full piece here.
“Despite seeing China as a common threat, France has largely maintained an independent foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific.” Mohamed Zeeshan has written for the South China Morning Post about why France is the dark-horse competitor to the US in the Indo-Pacific. Read the full opinion piece here.
‘Pin it on the map’ answer: Andorra. The country is one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe. It has a diarchical government system. Meaning, it’s led by two people: the bishop of Urgell and the president of France. As a result, whoever is elected the French president also becomes the co-prince of Andorra as long as they remain in office, only to be succeeded in the position by the next president. The bishop of Urgell is appointed by the pope.
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