Lease deal

A SOLOMON Islands province has agreed to lease a large island to a Chinese developer to develop into a special economic zone, weeks after the country opened diplomatic ties with China. But already cracks abound: there has been no official announcement and the provincial premier says the deal is on ice. Experts say the arrangement in Central Province would give the developer and other Chinese firms a strategic inlet into Solomon Islands, which until last month was one of Taiwan’s dwindling allies in the Pacific.