China–Solomon Islands relations
bilateral relations
Solomon Islands and the People's Republic of China established official diplomatic relations in 2019. Prior to this, Solomon Islands had diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Since December 2023, the ambassador of China to Solomon Islands is Cai Weiming. As of 28 December 2023, the ambassador of Solomon Islands to China is Barrett Salato.
History
Solomon Islands, formerly the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, gained its independence in 1978 and became known as Solomon Islands.
Five years later, in 1983, Solomon Islands established diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (ROC) which it maintained until 2019 when Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare severed the 36-year relationship with the Taiwanese government and began official recognition and diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Guardian and national newspaper the Solomon Star reported that Solomon Islands MPs had claimed both the PRC and ROC had offered hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to them, to influence the politics in their favour. A series of demonstrations and violent riots followed the government's decision leading to a 36-hour lockdown in the capital, a number of buildings were burnt down, and the deployment of police. Deakin University Professor Matthew Clarke deemed the switch an important step for China's Belt and Road Initiative goals.
In 2006, riots in Solomon Islands resulted in the destruction of more than 60 Chinese-owned shops and prompted the Chinese government to evacuate 310 Chinese citizens.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q38885946. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2019, 2023, 1978 and 1983.
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This entry incorporates text from “China–Solomon Islands relations” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.