Suva
Solomon Islands  Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said Thursday 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.
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 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) of the northeast Australian coast.
He used a meeting of Pacific island nation leaders 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,  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, Sogavare told his parliament in May that opponents of the Chinese pact had threatened his country and insulted it.
Both the United States and Australia have told the Solomon Islands that the country hosting a Chinese military base would not be tolerated.
New Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government has since been elected on a promise of more aid and engagement with the country’s island neighbors.
