The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Fiji Police Force and the Ministry of Public Security of China has been effectively terminated by a request made by Fiji’s Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, to the Chinese State Security Council.
Rabuka Said, “We don’t have to go on because our systems are different. We will go back to countries with similar systems because our democratic and legal systems are different”.
He was referencing a memorandum of understanding signed in 2011 between the Fiji Police Force and the Ministry of Public Security of China.
He was referencing a memorandum of understanding signed in 2011 between the Fiji Police Force and the Ministry of Public Security of China.
After the appointment of a Chinese Police Liaison officer to be based in Fiji in September 2021, attempts to increase police collaboration between the two nations reached new levels.
After the Solomon Islands signed a framework agreement on security cooperation with China in April 2022, the US, Australia, and New Zealand started to worry more about China’s influence in the South Pacific.
China is authorised by the agreement to send police and military forces to the Solomon Islands to help Honiara keep social order, safeguard people’s lives and property, and provide humanitarian aid.
The agreement further reads that they can also deploy its military to secure Chinese personnel and projects and for its ships to stopover in the Solomon Islands and carry out logistical resupply, the document continues.
Concerns about China building “security perches” in the South Pacific are being voiced in Canberra and Washington DC due to China’s attempts to bind Vanuatu and Kiribati to comparable security accords.