New security pact would not allow China to build military base on South Pacific nation: Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said he would not make his citizens “targets for potential military strikes.”

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said on July 14 that his country's new security pact with Beijing would not allow China to build a military base on the South Pacific nation and make his citizens “targets for potential military strikes.”

Mr. Sogavare struck an agreement with Beijing in April to provide security support. Details of the pact haven't been made public but the deal has raised fears of a permanent Chinese military facility within 2,000KM (1,200 miles) of the northeast Australian coast.

He used a meeting of Pacific island nation leaders on Thursday in Fiji to strongly deny that his country would become a Chinese military foothold in the South Pacific.

“The moment we establish a foreign military base, we immediately become an enemy. And we also put our country and our people as targets for potential military strikes,” Mr. Sogavare told reporters in the capital Suva.

“There is no military base, nor any other military facility or institutions, in the agreement. And that's a very important point that we continue to reiterate to the family in the region,” he added.

Without naming the United States or the Solomons' key security partner Australia, Mr. Sogavare told his Parliament in May that opponents of the Chinese pact had threatened his country and insulted it.