SYDNEY: The United States is in advanced talks to fund a port in the Solomon Islands, the Pacific nation’s leader said, reinvigorating a race for influence with China in the region.
The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), an agency designed to advance Washington’s foreign policy in developing countries, has struck memorandums with several South Pacific countries indebted to China since May.
Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, where Beijing has built sport stadiums, roads, government offices and airports over the past decade, signed with the DFC to explore infrastructure project, US officials said.
The first major project likely to emerge is Bina Harbour, a deep water port in the Solomon Islands, where Washington and Canberra had feared China could build a dual-purpose military and civilian port.
US officials have given a “firm commitment, subject to details” to finance a wharf, power, fuel storage and roads at Bina Harbour, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale said after returning from talks in Washington.
“Bina is a critical one,” he told reporters on Monday.
The Solomons has long sought to develop Bina Harbour to berth commercial and international shipping, and boost its tuna industry by opening a canning factory.
A previous Solomons government struck a secret security pact with China in 2022, and a fisheries deal with China National Fisheries Corporation a year later, spurring US concern that Beijing would seek a navy port.
Chinese construction companies were reported to have lobbied previous Solomons governments over the Bina project.
“There is real concern in the US, Australia, Japan and New Zealand about the PLA (Chinese military) attempting to build a permanent military presence in the Pacific on the back of Belt and Road or other infrastructure funding and things like police training,” said Michael Green, chief executive of the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
Wale was elected prime minister in May, pledging change for Beijing’s closest ally in the Pacific, and has since visited Canberra, Washington and Tokyo seeking investment support.
A DFC official told AFP the agency was “open for business in the Solomon Islands” and exploring opportunities to invest alongside private capital.
The official declined to comment on specific projects.
The Quad group of the US, Australia, Japan and India said in May they would jointly fund a port in another South Pacific country, Fiji, where a large fleet of Chinese fishing vessels is based.
Chinese state-owned firms dominate Pacific infrastructure contracts, the Lowy Institute think thank said Wednesday.
However Australia has expanded its infrastructure financing to become the region’s largest source of new loans, Lowy’s annual aid survey found.
