BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare on Monday jointly announced the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.

Mr Xi and Mr Sogavare met in Beijing on Monday afternoon, after the prime minister arrived in China on Sunday for his first visit since striking a security deal.

“China and Pacific island countries are both developing countries and should strengthen mutual assistance within the framework of South-South cooperation,” Mr Xi said in his meeting with Mr Sogavare at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

CCTV said the partnership was agreed “with mutual respect and common development” but gave no further details.

Mr Xi also pledged support for a 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, a regional strategy backed by Pacific island nations, it reported.

In a statement, Mr Sogavare’s office highlighted “quality infrastructure” as an area that the country needs for economic empowerment to eradicate poverty.

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is already building a cellular network in the island nation, financed by a US$66 million (S$89 million) Chinese EXIM Bank loan that has prompted concern by a parliamentary committee about the debt burden. A Chinese state company will also redevelop Honiara’s port.

Earlier on Monday, the two countries signed a new deal on police cooperation, deepening their bilateral partnership four years after the Pacific island nation cut ties with Taiwan and formally established relations with Beijing.

The “implementation plan” on policing is effective through 2025.

It was one of nine documents signed on Monday, following talks between Mr Sogavare and Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

Mr Li said that the development of China-Solomon Islands relations over the past four years had been “very fruitful”.

The Solomons’ decision to switch its diplomatic recognition to Beijing was “the correct choice that conforms to the trend of the times”, he added.

Mr Sogavare, in turn, told Mr Li that his country “has a lot to learn from China’s development experience”.

Also signed between the two countries was an agreement on a “Sports Technical Assistance Project” for this year’s Pacific Games in Solomons capital Honiara, for which Beijing is building the host stadium.

Mr Sogavare is expected to be in China until Saturday, and is officially opening his country’s Beijing embassy, as well as visiting the economic powerhouse provinces of Jiangsu and Guangdong.

In 2019, China and the Solomons officially established diplomatic relations after Beijing persuaded the Pacific nation to sever ties with self-ruled Taiwan, whose territory China claims.

Mounting geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States, meanwhile, has brought the two powers to loggerheads in the region.

Their jockeying for influence has been a boon to Pacific governments, with aid, loans and construction project windfalls flowing into their coffers to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

Instead of taking sides between Washington and Beijing, most are welcoming all comers and the new diplomatic and economic capital they bring.

“It is not in the interest of our people and country to take sides and align ourselves with interests that are not our interests,” Prime Minister Sogavare said at an independence anniversary event on Saturday.

In the face of its rivalry with China, Washington in February reopened its mission in the Solomon Islands after a 30-year hiatus.

China has also won influence, striking a secretive security deal with the Solomons that allows Beijing’s forces to deploy on the islands.

Mr Sogavare’s visit to Beijing will likely fuel concerns that Solomon Islands is drifting closer into China’s orbit.

Just months after signing the security deal, Mr Sogavare told AFP that he had asked for a “review” of a long-standing defence pact with Australia, while insisting he was not seeking to downgrade relations with Canberra. REUTERS, AFP