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Australia and New Zealand have raised concerns about a new policing deal China has struck with the Solomon Islands and about its behaviour in the Taiwan Strait in their strongest joint statement to date on Beijing’s growing regional power.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with Chris Hipkins in Wellington on Wednesday, a month after the New Zealand Prime Minister travelled to Beijing to strengthen relations with the superpower.

Anthony Albanese and Chris Hipkins expressed serious concern over developments in the South China Sea.Credit: Getty Images

“[The] Prime Ministers expressed concern about growing challenges to regional stability in a more contested and difficult world,” the pair said in a statement.

“They expressed serious concern over developments in the South China Sea and an intensification of destabilising activities,” and “concern about tensions across the Taiwan Strait”.

New Zealand had been reluctant to publicly criticise Beijing after growing its exports to China throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and during sanctions on Australian products such as wine and wool.

In June, The Australian reported that New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta was given an hour-long dressing down by China’s former foreign minister Qin Gang in a meeting in Beijing in March. Qin was sacked for unrelated reasons on Tuesday night. The discussion was followed by a warning from China’s ambassador in Wellington, Wang Xiaolong, that China should not take its giant trade partner “for granted”.

Xi described his meeting with Hipkins in June as “very meaningful”.

“After taking office as prime minister, you have stated multiple times that you value China-New Zealand relations and will continue to strengthen co-operation with China,” Xi said.

But Wellington has grown increasingly wary of China’s intentions in the Pacific after the Solomon Islands security deal last year and the policing deal in July which will “enhance its law enforcement capacity,” according to a joint statement released by China’s state media agency Xinhua.

In the statement, Hipkins and Albanese said implementation of the new policing agreement between China and the Solomon Islands would undermine the Pacific’s agreed regional security norms.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in Beijing in July. Credit: Reuters

“The agreement is inconsistent with Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ commitments and the approach the forum has taken on regional security matters,” the statement said.

Solomon Islands leader Manasseh Sogavare in June called for a 2017 security treaty with Australia to be reviewed. The Australian Federal Police have historically provided policing support to the Solomon Islands, including the rapid deployment of police in 2021 to quell riots.

Albanese on Wednesday suggested China’s security deals came with strings attached. Beijing is ramping up its economic investments in the region, including building the stadium for the Pacific Island Games in November. The deputy leader of the national opposition, Peter Kenilorea Jr, has previously claimed that government MPs were offered bribes of more than $200,000 to switch diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China in 2019.

“When Australia provides aid and support, there are no strings attached,” said Albanese. “We do that because we are part of the Pacific family and that is important.”

Hipkins said New Zealand was committed to supporting its Pacific neighbours.

“We recognise their sovereignty and their right to make their own decisions and determine
their own course in the future,” he said.

“We want to make sure that our relationships are very strong with this country so that they do look to New Zealand and Australia as their preferred international partners as they have through a long period of history.”

Albanese’s visit to Wellington follows a flurry of diplomatic activity in the Pacific.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in New Zealand on Wednesday as part of a regional tour that began in Tonga and includes a stop in Australia. Blinken criticised China’s “problematic behaviour” in the region during a news conference earlier in the day in Tonga.

Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka was due to travel to China this week but said he was forced to cancel after a minor head injury that required him to stay at home.

The visit was announced earlier on Tuesday by the Chinese embassy in Fiji, which said Rabuka would attend the opening of the World University Games in Chengdu, alongside Xi.

With Reuters

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