Fords, Tank 500s and a New Hospital: The Influence Campaigns in the Pacific

Gleaming new Ford Rangers bookend the flag-bearing motorcades that have been traversing the main thoroughfare in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, all week long. They are gifts from Australia to the local police force.

The police are escorting visiting dignitaries, who ride in luxury Great Wall Motor Tank 500 cars. These vehicles are courtesy of China and are so new that plastic film still lines their interiors.

This is the latest chapter of a battle to win influence in the Pacific islands.

Australia, a forum member, gave 61 vehicles. China gave 27.

In back-to-back news releases two weeks before the summit, Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele thanked Australia (noting that the fleet was valued at $3.5 million), and then China (whose gift was valued at $1 million). The donations reflected the “strong and enduring partnership” between the Solomon Islands and each of the countries, Mr. Manele said in each statement.

The world’s superpowers have long loomed large over the region, viewing its small island nations as strategic waterways, potential military base sites and choke points for global shipping. Their ambitions snapped into focus in 2022, when the Solomon Islands signed a security pact with China, setting off alarm among the United States, Australia and other allies. They responded with a spending spree in the region to counter Beijing’s influence.

This soft power push has led to squabbles among the Pacific islands. And so China, along with other external partners including the United States, Japan and some European nations, were asked to sit out this year’s forum, which concludes on Friday and counts Australia as a member.

But reminders of the external influence campaign are visible up and down the main street in Honiara.

Across the street from one of the billboards is a new four-story medical center. Completed this year, the building is labeled: “CHINA AID FOR SHARED FUTURE.”

There, in the operating room on the top floor, a doctor from China recently carried out the first-ever heart stent implant surgery in the Solomon Islands, the government announced this week. Detailed accounts of the surgery were splashed across the Solomon Star and the Island Sun newspapers on Wednesday, the day the leaders officially kicked off the forum.

In a post on Facebook, Campion Ohasio, who said he was the recipient of the stent, said that he had experienced chest pains and was diagnosed with a heart condition in December, and that the procedure was completed on Sept. 2. He was discharged last Friday, but posted publicly about the surgery on Wednesday, in a move apparently designed to get the hospital publicity during the forum.

“Now, thanks to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), this surgery is available right here at home, and it is free of charge,” he wrote.

On Thursday afternoon, the new, air-conditioned medical center sat largely deserted save for a handful of workers, even as the main sprawling campus of the National Referral Hospital next door was swarming with patients.

Simon Holara, 37, is a general practitioner trained in Cuba who is now learning the ropes at the traditional Chinese medicine clinic on the first floor. He said it was exciting to have the procedure happen in a country with scant medical resources.

“Only fortunate ones who have money and the privilege can go to Australia to do the stenting,” he said.

Beijing’s courting of the nation was apparent throughout Honiara. The opening ceremony of the forum was held in the National Stadium, built by China two years ago. In the main port, visible from the swankiest hotel in town where all the leaders were staying, was a towering crane marked CCECC — the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, the Chinese state-owned company redeveloping the port. Residents said it was not there last week.

Adam Bartlett, who runs a kava exporting business that received funding from the United States Agency for International Development before it was disbanded, said the one-upmanship seemed almost comical but that China’s strategic approach seemed pretty effective.

“It’s a battle for the hearts and minds, isn’t it?” he said. “They have a script and a playbook.”

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia was asked how he felt about being shuttled around in a Chinese S.U.V. He shrugged off the question.

“It’s a car,” he said. “You know, cars get you from A to B.”