Anyone who doubts Australia and China are in what Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong called a “permanent contest” in the Pacific need only go for a drive in the capital of the Solomon Islands. Alongside the undisguised poverty, throngs of underemployed youth and potholed roads in Honiara are a proliferation of competing billboards and plaques boasting of efforts to alleviate such problems.

Until recently, most of the signs were extolling gifts of aid from China. Lately, Australia seems to have caught up, extolling on billboards its position as the “nambawan” (“number one” in Pidgin) donor to the Solomons. The Australian signs are accurate. Even after cuts to aid budgets in 2013-2014, Canberra remains by far the largest donor to the Solomons, well ahead of all others, including China.

A billboard showing Chinese President Xi Jinping with PNG PM Peter O’Neill in Port Moresby ahead of an APEC meet. Credit: AP

Beijing, by contrast, has been good at building flashy, visible projects since the Solomons switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan in 2019, such as the stadium for last year’s Pacific Games. Beijing also slyly takes credit for projects Chinese state construction companies were contracted to build, despite their being financed by multilateral donors, like the Asia Development Bank.

The competing billboards are risky on one level. Far from feeling grateful, the locals might wonder why their economy, services and infrastructure continue........

© The Age