China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has failed to get consensus from 10 nations to sign up to a trade and security pact.
China has shown its hand with its latest offering to 10 Pacific nations. We must be ready to defend Melanesian interests as our own.
US officials continue to hold concerns about China’s plans for a two-kilometre runway on the tiny Kiribati island of Kanton halfway between the US and Asia.
At the Pacific Islands Forum,in her first press conference as foreign minister,Penny Wong started a fight over the future of the region.
Beijing,targeted by the Quad and AUKUS,distrusted by NATO,suspicious of ASEAN,and rejected by the G7,has made an art form of wooing individual states.
The Australian and Chinese foreign ministers will cross each other in the Pacific this week as both nations go on a diplomatic blitz of the region.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison implied the public service was the source of a leak,but then pivoted to saying the report might not be correct.
The announcement comes ahead of US President Joe Biden hosting the first-ever Washington summit of leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Trevor Sofield was at a cafe with his wife in Tasmania when he tried to talk to the prime minister about the government’s mishandling of the Solomons.
The head of the spy agency has suggested an increasing number of disaffected Chinese officials are feeding information to Australian intelligence officers.
The signing of a new pact between China and Solomon Islands sent shock waves throughout the region last month.