Although Sogavare has repeatedly stressed that his country was “friends to all”, a video posted by Chinese state media showed him telling officials “I am back home” after touching down in Beijing earlier this week.
Solomon Islands opposition politician Peter Kenilorea Junior said he had a “gut feeling” that Sogavare wanted to shift the country’s stance closer to China.
“This choice has been made a long time ago,” he told Australian broadcaster ABC.
“Arriving in China and saying that, ‘I’m home’, it’s very clear.”
Chinese Premier Li Qiang earlier this week praised Sogavare for switching diplomatic relations from Taiwan to Beijing, saying that it was “the correct choice that conforms to the trend of the times”.
Sogavare, in turn, told Li that his country “has a lot to learn from China’s development experience”.
Solomon Islands alarmed Western powers in 2022 when it signed a secretive security pact with China.
Although the details of that pact have never been released, it has stoked fears that China could use it to establish a military foothold in the South Pacific.
Source: CNA
