CONFIRMATION of a security pact between China and the Solomon Islands represents a significant shift in regional security that will inevitably be read as Australia having taken its eye off the ball at a time when China's Pacific intentions were obvious to all.
In 1999, the Solomon Islands, three hours flight from our shores, announced a state of emergency.
Peace was eventually restored, and Australia, through diplomacy and the physical reassurance of the Australian Federal Police, played a key role in ending the fighting between rival warlords and their lawless militia.
Things have clearly deteriorated since then.
Correctly or otherwise, fingers are being pointed towards the Morrison government's climate policy, and an apparent lack of empathy over Pacific Islands sea-level fears at the recent Glasgow climate summit.
A leaked draft of a China/Solomons agreement has caused grave concern in Washington as much as Canberra, but a former Solomons PM, Danny Philip, justified the talks in an online seminar yesterday, saying the Australian public knew little about what went on at Pine Gap.
The deal with China has unsurprisingly entered the election debate, with Labor's foreign affairs spokesperson Senator Penny Wong criticising the government for sending Senator Zed Seselja, Minister for International Development and the Pacific, to the Solomons last week instead of Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne.
The US is sending a delegation headed by businessman and former diplomat Kurt Campbell, often described as the Biden administration's "Asia tsar".
On what has been declared publicly, Australia has provided $312 million in "official development assistance" over two years to the Solomon Islands, with another $161 million budgeted this financial year.
We have also helped bolster the country's health and education systems, its agriculture and its telecommunications.
Regardless of China's aspirations for Pacific influence, Solomon Islands leaders know that to accept its largesse is to turn away from the West. Were warnings given, but ignored?
If so, why?
From the West's perspective this is a diplomatic failure, with potentially big implications for regional security.
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