What you need to know about Solomon Islands

A boy watches a distant cargo ship in Honiara, Solomon Islands, 2019 | Zhu Hongye/Xinhua

A new world order is coming into being in Oceania, it seems, with Solomon Islands as the epicentre of geopolitical competition between China and the US. 

This  font-size:inherit;font-weight:inherit;text-underline-position: under; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word"> nation  of almost 1,000 islands (of which only 147 are inhabited) and 650,000 people, in the South Pacific, hasn’t exactly been a global player since it gained independence from Britain in the 1970s. It’s “one of the poorest countries in the region with a low level of human development”, font-size:inherit;font-weight:inherit;text-underline-position: under; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word"> according  to the United Nations. So why the international political squall? 

The reason is that  -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;word-break:break-word"> China has just signed  a  -webkit-font-smoothi…