China–Solomons deal ‘politically illiterate’ if Beijing wants better ties with Australia | Australian Strategic Policy Institute

By Jack Norton

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd says China’s security deal with Solomon Islands was a ‘politically illiterate’ move if Beijing is sincere about improving relations with Australia.

Speaking at an ASPI event in Canberra on Thursday, he said that while it was not clear that Australian politics had come into China’s calculations, the timing in the middle of an election campaign meant the deal with the Solomons was bound to cause political fireworks.

‘If the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party were seriously in the business of sending out a signal that post the next Australian election, whoever wins, the Liberal Party or my party, the Labor Party, that we wanted to have an agenda shift, we wanted to have a circuit-breaker, I could not have prescribed a worse thing to do than say, “I know what we’re going to do, we’re going to announce or have agreed with our new best buddies in Honiara, this security pact with the government of Solomon Islands.”

Full article available here: China–Solomons deal ‘politically illiterate’ if Beijing wants better ties with Australia