Foreign Minister Penny Wong was no doubt expecting a cooler reception than her three previous visits to the Pacific when she touched down in Honiara last Friday.
The Solomon Islands government website had not even listed the Australian minister’s visit – but it did note the first visit of a Saudi Arabian tourism minister, happening the same day. With this visit, Wong walked a diplomatic tightrope that no senior minister in the previous government appeared willing to.
Solomon Islands leaders have had a very crowded schedule of late, as highlighted by the Solomon Star newspaper. It said Wong was the latest foreign figure to arrive on Solomon Island shores after a number of “high-level visits from USA, Japan and China recently, before and after the signing of the security pact”.
