Federated States of Micronesia's President David Panuelo has appealed to Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to scrap the China Solomon Islands security pact.
President of the Federated States of Micronesia David Panulo Photo: FSM National Government
Panuelo is the first Pacific Island Forum leader to publicly call on Sogavare to reject the security treaty with Beijing citing "grave security concerns".
According to the FSM national government "such a novel and unprecedented security agreement" between the two countries "poses a risk of increasing geopolitical tensions" across the region.
Although the security arrangement was strictly a matter between Honiara and Beijing, it will affect all Pacific nations, said Panuelo.
He said the Federated States of Micronesia can't "endorse or agree" with Solomon Islands if it proceeds with a security relationship with China "because of its far-reaching and grave security implications for a harmonious and peaceful" Pacific region.
RNZ Pacific's correspondent in Majuro, Giff Johnson, said Panuelo is speaking from a unique platform given Micronesia's bilateral relations with both the US and China.
"Which is that it has a compact of free association with the United States and also many decades long diplomatic ties with China. This is unique in the region because the other two compact states both have ties with Taiwan," he said.
Meanwhile, a Pacific political expert says concerns about China's influence in the Pacific is unjustified.
University of Hawaii's director of Pacific Islands Studies, Tarcisius Kabuataulaka, says Beijing won't establish a naval base in the Solomons anytime soon.
"Beijing limits its international military presence. The only military base that China has outside of China is in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, and therefore China, if it can internationalise its security apparatus from China, then it does not necessarily need to have military bases."
