In his statement to the Solomon Islands parliament on the draft security agreementbetween his country and Beijing, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare stridently but disingenuously denied ‘pitching into any geopolitical power struggle’.
Despite the shared fears of Sogavare’s domestic critics—one of whom leaked a copy of the draft—and knowing that virtually all of its Western friends profoundly disagreed, the Solomon Islands government has now inked the agreement.
