A change of government in Honiara is not just a development in regional competition with China
Australia must engage with Solomon Islands with mutual respect. It’s about so much more than keeping Beijing at bayA change of government in Honiara is not just a development in regional competition with Chinahen Matthew Wale won a parliamentary vote to become Solomon Islands’ prime minister last month, the questions came quickly: What does this mean for Beijing?
Is this good news for Australia? When will the new PM tear up the 2022 security pact with China, sever ties with Beijing and declare Australia Solomon Islands’ best friend in perpetuity? This pervasive framing treats a change of government in Honiara primarily as a development in Australia’s competition with China – a mistake Canberra should not repeat when Wale arrives for. The important question is this: how can Australia be the partner Solomon Islands needs?
Wale’s choice of Canberra as his first official destination is being read as a signal – proof that Solomon Islands is tilting back toward Australia. But the destination choice is probably less revealing than it appears.
Wale’s predecessor, Jeremiah Manele, who was a central figure in negotiating the 2022 security pact and was among Beijing’s most reliable allies in Pacific politics, also made Australia his first stop as prime minister,It’s true that Wale has spent years as a thorn in the side of his predecessors’ China policy. Hethe 2022 security pact as “counterproductive to the security interests of Solomon Islands and the region” and called for transparency on Chinese police deployments.
But that scepticism has softened considerably. He led a delegation to Beijing last year, his party affirmed the one-China principle, and he has said he will onlythe pact rather than dismantle it. His appointment of former prime minister Rick Hou as foreign minister over the more openly China-critical Peter Kenilorea points in the same direction: Wale intends to manage the relationship with Beijing, not rupture it.
Australia has been called out by Wale himself for viewing Solomon Islands primarily through a geopolitical lens. When Australia donated rifles to the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force in 2022 – widely understood as a counter to China’s own police engagement –: “It is clear Australia is anxious that if they do not supply guns the China will. Geopolitical interests have surpassed national interest in this country and it is a sad state of affairs”.
He had previously warned that Australia risked behaving like an– a partner that expected influence to flow automatically from transactions, rather than one that has invested in genuine trust. The concern is not that Australia has been too present in Solomon Islands, it is that too much of that presence has been shaped by what Australia wants to keep China out of, rather than what Solomon Islands actually needs.
Vanuatu’s PM Jotham Napat has , stalling Australia’s long-delayed Nakamal Agreement over language Vanuatu feared would undermine its sovereignty.health programs helped drive malaria in Solomon Islands down dramatically in the 2000s and early 2010s – by focusing on what Solomon Islanders needed rather than what signal was being sent to Beijing. That kind of investment builds the durable trust that security agreements alone cannot buy.
Pukpuk Treaty , signed in 2025, is the most significant security commitment Australia has made in decades. What made it achievable was not the particulars of the security arrangement – it was the breadth of the relationship established underneath it, built on partnerships across health, education, infrastructure and sport. When PNG PM, James Marape, signed the treaty, heas a product of “geography, history, and the enduring reality of our shared neighbourhood” – not geopolitics.
That framing reflected years of investment in partnership that Papua New Guinea felt it owned. Wednesday’s meeting is an opportunity to start building something similar with Solomon Islands. Wale governs on a slim majority, managing a fractious coalition while confronting pressures that have nothing to do with Beijing – a
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