THE U.S. 1S BLOCKED FROM PORTS IN PRC-INFLUENCED SOLOMONS, VANUATU

PRC-linked actors attempting to politically take out Premier Daniel Suidani of Malaita.

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The United States just reopened its embassy in Solomon Islands, the country that last year signed a security deal with China. Problem solved, right? If only.

Two other things just happened that give a sense of how unstable the situation is, and how far advanced Chinese political warfare operations are in the region.

AN IMMEDIATE THREAT

The first involves pro-PRC Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare government’s ongoing attempts to crush—politically if possible but perhaps by force if necessary—anti-PRC resistance in the province of Malaita.

That resistance has been fronted by Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani, who is concerned about the social and economic effect of PRC activities in the country.

Soon after Sogavare unilaterally “switched” Solomons from Taiwan to China in 2019, Suidani’s provincial government issued the “Auki Communiqué” named for the capital of the province.

The Communiqué said the Malaita government “strongly resolves to put in place a Moratorium on Business Licences to new investors connected directly or indirectly with the Chinese Communist Party.”

One of the reasons noted was that the Malaita government “acknowledges the freedom of religion as a fundamental right and further observes the entrenched Christian faith and belief in God by Malaitan and MOIan peoples and therefore rejects the Chinese Communist Party—CCP and its formal systems based on atheist ideology”.