WASHINGTON—An ousted Solomon Islands politician is speaking out against China’s communist regime, which he claims has infiltrated his own government and is seeking to do the same elsewhere.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, is bribing politicians throughout the Solomon Islands and weaponizing the Pacific Islands nation for its own purposes, according to former Malaita Province Premier Daniel Suidani.
“People need to be aware of the way that the CCP is dealing with development in our country,” Suidani said at an April 28 talk at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“They do not share our values at all.”
Suidani was ousted as premier after a vote of no confidence by the provincial Legislature in February.
He maintains that multiple members of the Solomon Islands national government who promoted his ouster have been receiving bribes from the CCP, and he has condemned the government’s decision to sign a security pact with the regime last year that will allow China to deploy its military in the Solomon Islands to protect its own people and companies from anything it deems to be a threat.
The national government also moved in 2019 to revoke its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in favor of the CCP, which Suidani also opposed.
Suidani said the CCP and its companies in the Solomon Islands are degrading the nation’s national resources, supplanting the local culture, and taking jobs from indigenous Solomon Islanders.
“We haven’t seen anything good [from the CCP]. We have seen destroyed environments.”
Suidani added that “the market is for China,” and that CCP companies coming to the Solomon Islands brought their own labor force, often encouraging Chinese people to marry into the local population to earn the legal right to run local businesses.
Persecuted by CCP-Backed Agents
Suidani has been the target of CCP-backed persecution efforts for some time now, largely because of his vocal support for the people of Taiwan and his efforts to enforce a moratorium on new CCP-backed ventures in his country.“We are trying to do away with the CCP companies in the province and speaking out against the national government’s decision to transfer diplomatic ties from Taiwan to the CCP,” he said, noting that the national government switched its recognition to the CCP from Taiwan without a referendum to gauge popular support.
His efforts haven’t been without their own trials.
The story didn’t present any evidence for its claims and cited only anonymous sources. Nevertheless, Suidani was briefly arrested and detained for questioning.
The journalist who wrote those allegations, Alfred Sasako, is the vice president of the Solomon Islands chapter of the Chinese Friendship Alliance, a key organization in the CCP’s United Front propaganda network, which conducts many of the regime’s overseas influence operations.
Sasako also has previously been quoted by Chinese state-owned propaganda outlets, such as the Global Times.
Suidani is suing Sasako for libel and planning to return to power through legal means, challenging the fiat decision to oust him.
The choice of whether he should remain premier, he said, was for the people to decide.
“I was voted for by my people and mandated by my people. It would be right to [be voted] out by my people.”
Still, there is a real fear that pro-CCP forces in the national government will have him arrested, or worse, when he returns. That’s a risk he accepts as the cost of maintaining the rights of his people in Malaita.
“We are so frightened to go back, but we have no choice,” Suidani said. “We must go back to fight for the rights of our people.”
Fighting Back Against Communism
Suidani also spoke about the importance of fighting back against encroaching CCP authoritarianism during an interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”Preserving his people’s culture and values, he said, was more important than any short-term profit the CCP might offer.
“We are Christian people. We believe in God, and the CCP is atheist. They don’t believe in the values and the principles we believe in,” he said.
Malaita, he said, traditionally values communal development and working together, although the regime’s presence is destroying that culture and causing disunity, rampant inequality, and a lower quality of life for the indigenous people of the region.
“They don’t know about the damage [the CCP] cause for local indigenous people and their livelihood,” Suidani said.
“My biggest fear, actually, for the people of Malaita and even the Solomon Islands at large, is that ... the country is really dominated by the enforcement of Chinese businesses.”
To that end, Suidani said he hopes the United States and other democratic nations can help the Solomon Islands escape the crushing grasp of the CCP.
Freedom, he said, is necessary for all people.
“The freedom here in America is the founding father of freedom [everywhere]. So, I would like to tell the American government to look at these issues because we also need freedom.
“Even if we are a small society, we need the same freedom that the Americans have. So if there is a way possible that Americans see fit, to help out in some ways, that would be something great for the Solomon Islands as a country.”
