Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a Chinese military base in the Solomon Islands would be a ¡°red line¡± for his government, as he attempts to deflect criticism he did not move quickly enough to avoid a security agreement between Honiara and Beijing.
Speaking at a news conference on Sunday in Darwin, Morrison said his determination to avoid a naval base in the Solomon Islands was shared not just by the U.S. but by the Pacific nation¡¯s Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare.
Morrison said Sogavare had assured him personally there would be no military base in the Solomons. ¡°This is a shared concern, not just Australia. This is Australia with regional governments,¡± he said.
When asked by journalists what he would do in the event of the announcement of a Chinese military base in the Solomons, Morrison didn¡¯t say.
Australia¡¯s Liberal National coalition is working to contain the political fallout from the announcement in the past week that the Solomon Islands had signed a security agreement with China, the details of which have not been made public. A draft of the agreement leaked in late March would allow Chinese naval vessels a safe harbor just 2,000 kilometers from Australia¡¯s coastline.
Both Australia and the U.S. have long been concerned about the possibility of China obtaining a military foothold in the Pacific, and the agreement is a major diplomatic victory for the Chinese government. The opposition Labor Party described the pact as the ¡°worst failure of Australian foreign policy in the Pacific since the end of World War II.¡±
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday morning, Labor¡¯s shadow defense minister Brendan O¡¯Connor said he would request a briefing from the government on what it would do if the ¡°red line¡± was crossed by China.
¡°The fact that we have to turn to using that type of language is too little, too late. We should have been doing more,¡± he said.
Morrison¡¯s government is currently campaigning for a fourth term in power at a national election due to be held on May 21. Despite Australia¡¯s strong economy and record low unemployment, Morrison¡¯s center-right government is trailing Labor in opinion polling.
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