Australia’s Spy Chiefs Head to Solomons Over China Security Deal

  • Pacific nation government says it reassured Australian envoys
  • Solomons has drafted a controversial security pact with China

Manasseh Sogavare

Photographer: Robert Taupongi/AFP/Getty Images

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Australia sent two of its most senior intelligence officials to the Solomon Islands to discuss mounting concerns about the nearby Pacific nation agreeing a controversial new security pact with China.

Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare sought to reassure Australia that it remained its “partner of choice” in a statement posted on his government’s website Wednesday, adding that the country would uphold its foreign policy of “friends to all and enemies to none.”