OFFICIAL: CHINESE-BACKED AIRPORT PROJECT IN SOLOMON ISLANDS NOT A THREAT TO AUSTRALIA

Solomon Islands official has hit back at reports that a proposed Chinese-backed development project could challenge Australia’s strategic dominance in the region.

The Australian newspaper reported yesterday that senior Solomon Islands officials had approached Chinese investors to build a “tourism hub” — which would include an airport — on the southeast coast of the country’s main island Guadalcanal. Anthony Veke, the premier of Guadalcanal and one of the politicians named in the report, confirmed to ABC Radio Australia’s Wantok programme that he was in talks with both Chinese and Australian investors, and travelled to China for meetings on the proposal. Mr Veke said the project was “still very much at the early stages,” and that he did not believe it posed a threat to Australia’s interests.“I respect the views expressed in the media in relation to the fears that people might have in the Pacific, but again it is a commercial undertaking and we are dealing with investors who would like to develop the province,” he said.“Everybody in the world is trading with China, why is it impossible for a province in the Solomon Islands to trade with China?”

Australian officials have voiced concern in recent months that China’s concessional loans to Pacific countries are being used to gain influence in the region.

“I don’t see this as a threat to anyone, because we are developing an investment plan that is beneficial to the country of Solomon Islands,”

Mr Veke said.The report in the Australian newspaper said proponents claimed the development would encourage Chinese tourism on the southern Weather Coast of Guadalcanal.

But former Australian High Commissioner to Solomon Islands James Batley told the ABC’s Pacific Beat programme that if that was true, he doubted the project would ever go ahead.

Radio Australia