We can start by assuming that China cares nothing for the wellbeing of the people of Solomon Islands. So what's it up to in forming a "strategic partnership" this week with the Pacific country of 730,000 people that's only 1500 kilometres from Queensland?
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The Solomons' decision to move towards Beijing is a good example of why we just have to accept growing Chinese influence in the Pacific. All we can do is try to balance it, and encourage our friends to help. One friend in particular, Canada, could afford to do more.
The initial benefit to China in all this is mostly diplomatic and economic. For Solomon Islands, working with China brings badly needed infrastructure. Australia can't complain about that.
We can set aside any concerns about a military base bristling with Chinese weapons appearing just across the Coral Sea anytime soon. A leaked draft of a security pact last year suggested that China might set up a naval installation on the islands, but Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare later ruled out that possibility.
Nonetheless, it's still the risk that we must monitor most closely. China is bound to be thinking of how to set up some kind of Solomons military facility eventually.
Nine agreements that Sogavare signed in Beijing on Monday included one on police co-operation. For anyone concerned about Solomon Islanders, that can only be worrying.
The Chinese police organisation is pretty good at maintaining law and order, and its strength in that area can indeed be put to good use in the Solomons.
But its standout expertise is in suppressing opposition to the Chinese Communist Party - monitoring and rounding up troublemakers, and crushing protests, for example. So we must be wary of it transferring that sort of knowhow to the government of Solomons, with dire results for democracy there.
Disturbingly, the two sides have not disclosed details of the policing agreement. What is there to hide?
Improving Sogavare's ability to stay in power would be in the interest of Beijing, which of course would be quite happy to see the Solomons edge towards authoritarianism.
Police officers' sticks are one means of control, and so are bribery carrots. We can assume that the ins and outs of bribery are well within the skill sets of Chinese officials and the managers of Chinese businesses that Beijing is encouraging to set up in the Solomons and other Pacific islands.
Already we've heard accusations in the Solomons of bribery that promotes Chinese interests.
And the advantages for China in gaining influence over the Solomons? Well, in the general assembly and other parts of the United Nations, China has one vote. So, too, does the Solomon Islands, points out Benjamin Herscovitch, an expert in Chinese international policy at the Australian National University.
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We often see small countries under China's influence lining up to back it by, for example, opposing condemnation of its bad behaviour, getting it promoted on one international committee or another, or excluding Taiwan from something.
Probably secondary to that are China's business opportunities in the small Solomons economy: building roads and bridges, upgrading telecommunications networks and so on.
But all that is much to the benefit of the Solomon Islanders. The country's gross domestic product per capita, a measure of its state of development, was US$2,200 last year, compared with China's US$12,700 and Australia's US$64,500.
If China has stepped in to build infrastructure at competitive prices, maybe Australia has no one to blame but itself for failing to do more before 2016. That's when we finally adopted a policy called the Pacific Step-Up, which includes infrastructure financing. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade calls the Pacific Step-Up "one of Australia's highest foreign policy priorities." So it should be - and should have been long ago.
Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications equipment company that's famous for value-for-money but not trusted by major Western governments, is building 161 cellular communications towers in the Solomons that are being financed by a cheap $96 million loan from Beijing's trade-promotion bank.
Considering the immense value to an economy of decent communications, Australia might regret not using its aid budget to get such a Solomons project moving long before China stepped in.
A Chinese company will upgrade the port at Honiara, the Solomons' capital. Competitive tenders were called for, but no one else bid.
"Solomons has all sorts of infrastructure and development needs, and China is willing to supply them," says Herscovitch. That's a major, and simple, explanation for why Sogavare wants better relations with Beijing: he needs to improve his country.
Herscovitch points out that Australia can hardly provide everything that Pacific island nations need, so China cannot be excluded. Bribery will also continue to be an effective Chinese tool, one that we cannot use.
But we and others can at least do our best to offer alternatives to China.
So it's a good thing that the share of our foreign aid budget going to the Pacific has been trending higher. The region probably needs to get an even greater share of our attention.
New Zealand's aid budget, not surprisingly but nonetheless commendably, is strongly focused on the Pacific.
The US is already overstretched in international commitments, but how about our other close and rich relative with a Pacific coast, Canada? It's time for us to point out to Canada that it puts little of its considerable aid budget into the region and, with disgracefully low defence spending, is not doing enough to resist China in other ways.
Another Pacific Step-Up, this time in Ottawa, would be welcome.
- Bradley Perrett was based in Beijing as a journalist from 2004 to 2020.
Bradley Perrett
Bradley Perrett is a regular ACM columnist with a focus on Australia's relationship with China, covering defence, strategy, trade, economics and domestic policy. He was based in Beijing as a journalist from 2004 to 2020.
Bradley Perrett is a regular ACM columnist with a focus on Australia's relationship with China, covering defence, strategy, trade, economics and domestic policy. He was based in Beijing as a journalist from 2004 to 2020.
