The US has mooted new alliances in the Indo-Pacific as it vows to intensify its engagement in the region to meet growing challenges from China — which has sealed a critical security pact with the Solomon Islands.
White House National Security Council Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell and other senior officials convened a meeting in Honolulu with the naval command and senior officials from Australia, Japan, and New Zealand on developments in the Pacific Islands.
"We will do this [engagement] in ever-closer partnership with Pacific Island nations, including through a united Pacific Islands Forum; and together with like-minded countries, within and beyond the region, including in Europe," a statement issued by the White House on Tuesday read.
Last September, the US announced a trilateral security alliance named AUKUS with Australia and the UK, infuriating France with its first announcement that Washington and London would help Australia build nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines — gazumping a previous contract with Paris. The Macron government dubbed it a "stab in the back" by partners.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had also opposed AUKUS, saying it undermines the Southeast Asian alliance and poses the threat of further militarisation of the region.
Meanwhile, Solomon Islands' Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare defended the security pact, saying it was needed to fill the "critical security gap" in the police system and assured pacific countries that it would not include a military base.
"We entered into an arrangement with China with our eyes wide open guided by our national interests... It both complements and supports regional and bilateral peacekeeping arrangements with respect of concerns of security partners we collectively trust to maintain peace and stability in the region," Sogavare told parliament on Tuesday.
Sogavare has also decided to dispatch the country's foreign minister to assure neighbouring countries about the pact.
However, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison disagreed with the justification and said the pact highlights "incredible pressure on Pacific nations that comes from China seeking to undermine the security of the region."
Morrison, who antagonised China, Australia's largest trade partner, by sealing more close defence co-operation with the West, added that "even more significant events" would have occurred were it not for the governments' efforts to "resist" that pressure in the region.
Australia and New Zealand have bilateral arrangements with the Solomon Islands to act as security providers for the pacific nation, which has suffered several violent insurgencies and riots in the past.
The Solomon Islands, with a population of less than 700,000, is a chain of hundreds of islands lying close to Indonesia and the Micronesian states, some 1,000 miles from northern Australia and 2,000 miles from New Zealand.