US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrian Watson said the council’s Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Krettenbrink will lead the delegation, which will also tour Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
Although details of the agreement remain unclear, a leaked draft has raised fears in Australia and the United States that China is gaining a new military foothold in the South Pacific.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavari has stressed that he has “no intention whatsoever of asking China to establish a military base in the Solomon Islands.”
“Despite the statements of the Solomon Islands government, the broad nature of the security agreement leaves the door open for the People’s Republic of China to deploy military forces in the Solomon Islands,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
“We believe that signing such an agreement could further destabilize the Solomon Islands and set a worrying precedent for the broader Pacific,” Price added.
He pointed out that the Solomon Islands get support through its security relationship with Australia, which sent troops to the archipelago last year in the wake of the outbreak of riots there.
Last week, in a sign of Australia’s growing concern about the deal, Canberra sent Z. Cecilia, the Secretary for International Development and Pacific Affairs, to Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, for an unusual meeting with Sugavari, who has been campaigning for the midterm elections.
The Australian minister asked Sogavary to “reconsider the signing of the agreement”, but the Prime Minister remained on his mind.
The United States said it was seeking to show its support for the Solomon Islands, a country of 800,000 people plagued by turmoil and poverty.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited the region in February to underscore Washington’s commitment to containing China, and pledged to set up an embassy in Honiara, the capital of the former British protectorate.
The Solomon Islands, the scene of a battlefront in World War II, did not establish relations with China until 2019 after moving away from Taiwan.
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