Almost three dozen Solomon Islands police officers have flown to China for training in another sign of rapidly deepening police cooperation between the two countries.
The Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) has announced that 32 officers flew to China on the weekend for a month-long training course.
Chinese officers have already conducted training programs for police in Solomon Islands, drilling them in martial arts techniques, as well as bringing in replica rifles for firearms training.
But this is the first time Solomon Islands officers have travelled to China for training under the program.
The group will be led by Deputy Commissioner Ian Vaevaso who said it was "the biggest delegation to visit a foreign country for professional police training in the history of RSIPF".
It is not clear exactly what the Chinese training program will cover, but Mr Vaevaso said the officers would learn "new tactics and skills set that officers will acquire and applicable to their duties upon their return".
He also said the delegation would also "visit different police stations and departments in China to communicate with the Chinese police colleagues on their expertise in policing".
But the development will be closely watched by Australian officials and police, who have repeatedly voiced their concern about the way China has expanded police training and exchanges.
Chinese policing not the 'Pacific way'
Earlier this year, Head of the Office of National Intelligence (ONI) Andrew Shearer raised doubts about how effectively Chinese police and Australian police already on the ground would be able to cooperate in the event of future unrest in Solomon Islands, saying there could be problems with "unity of command".
"We are also concerned that in such a fragile, volatile country, Chinese policing techniques and tactics that we have seen deployed so ruthlessly in Hong Kong, for example, are completely inconsistent with the Pacific way of resolving issues and could incite further instability and violence in the Solomon Islands," he said.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw also told a Senate estimates hearing he did not want "other nations" to undermine Australian police training programs in Solomon Islands, while citing the death of an Australian police officer shot on patrol in 2004.
"We have lost one of our own over there, so we are not going to let other nations come in and try and change that whole framework," he said.
"It works. The community crime dropped, the police force are more professional than ever before and we want to maintain that position of being the partner of choice in the region."
Australia already provides extensive training to Solomon Islands police and sent dozens of police officers and ADF personnel to Honiara last November to restore order after the capital was shaken by riots.
Australia still 'security partner of choice'
A small delegation of Australian officers remains in Honiara to help provide security and will stay in place until the Pacific Games late next year.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has repeatedly insisted that Australia remains the "security partner of choice" for his country, and that he will only turn to China to fill in any security "gaps".
But he has also accused Australian officers of failing to protect Chinese infrastructure when the riots broke out in November this year.
Australian officials have repeatedly and forcefully denied that accusation, pointing out that Australian troops and police deployed almost as soon as the violence broke out, and that the unrest had almost entirely ceased by the time they landed on the ground.
