Chinatown in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, still bears scars two years after demonstrators demanding that the pro-China government step down in November 2021 turned riotous.

But perhaps ironically, China’s involvement in the Solomons’ economic development, especially on Guadalcanal, where the capital is located, has deepened in the two years since the unrest.

“We have huge thanks, millions of acknowledgments, to the Chinese government. When athletics started in [the] Solomons, we did not have a running truck,” said Moses Ohai’ihi a member of the national track and field team, told Nikkei, referring to the new National Stadium where the Pacific Games, a quadrennial regional sports festival, were held through Dec. 2.

The stadium, which can seat 10,000 spectators, was commissioned in August and built with Chinese grant aid totaling about $53 million. The facility is emblazoned with “China Aid” signboards.

When the riots broke out and destroyed Chinatown, Australia sent police to quell the disturbance. Three months later, China sent its own police squad to protect ethnic Chinese who began immigrating to the area in the 1970s. Both squads remain on the island, but Honiara has increasingly relied on China in the past few years.

“What this country needs is development,” said Guadalcanal Premier Francis Sade, who is close to the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and the ruling party. “Whether it’s China or the U.S., I think we accept all the development to come in,” he told Nikkei.

The Solomons, under Sogavare’s premiership, broke off ties with Taiwan in 2019, opting to recognize Beijing. According to the Lowy Institute, a think tank based in Sydney, China’s total development finance spending on the island country — home to just over 700,000 people — nearly quadrupled to $41 million in the first two years after diplomatic relations were established.

The island states of the Pacific together make up just 0.4% of the world’s landmass, but their exclusive economic zones amount to 13% of the worldwide total. It is thus only natural for China, which wants to secure key sea lanes in the Pacific, to cozy up to these countries.

One example of this came last week. Just days after Taiwan’s presidential election, the tiny Micronesian nation of Nauru severed ties with Taipei, switching its political allegiance to Beijing. Speculation is also rife that Tuvalu, another Pacific island nation, might break its formal relationship with Taiwan following its own presidential election on Friday.

For a small country like the Solomons, closer relations with large countries are meant to offer greater economic and social stability. But in forging closer ties with China, the Solomons has instead become more volatile, due partly to the country’s historical connections to China’s rival Taiwan.

The Solomons comprise six main islands. Guadalcanal has many pro-China residents, while many of those who favor Taiwan live on the island of Malaita, which previously received agricultural assistance from Taipei.

The 2021 protest took place on Guadalcanal but was led by people from Malaita. “Problems have increased after the country shifted diplomatic relations to China,” said a man who sells clothing in downtown Honiara.

Bobby Max, an agricultural adviser in Malaita, agreed. “Taiwan is our longtime friend. We lived in peace and harmony then,” he said, adding that he feels the divide between the Solomons’ citizens has widened since the riot, in part because the Sogavare government became more pro-China after the incident.

The government signed a security agreement with China in April 2022. A draft of the agreement reads, “China may … make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands.” Alarmed, the U.S. opened an embassy in Honiara in February 2023 and signed a defense cooperation agreement with neighboring Papua New Guinea in May.

Leaders in the Solomons may have been trying to play Washington and Beijing off against each other to gain economic support from both, but they now find themselves at the forefront of U.S.-China tensions.

At the same time, the deepening fissures among the islanders highlight the difficulties that big players in the region face in trying to keep small but geopolitically important countries in their camps. This is true for both China and the U.S.

One factor that may have pushed the Solomons into China’s embrace may be the prime minister’s belief that the U.S. looks down on small countries.

In September, Sogavare traveled to New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly meeting. But at the last minute, he canceled plans to take part in a meeting between U.S. officials and leaders of Pacific island countries after the U.N. meeting. Instead, he came straight home.

There is no way to verify whether Beijing instigated the cancellation. When asked about the change of plans, Sogavare said, “We are always given three minutes to talk, and we will be sitting down only to listen to them lecturing us [about] how good they are.”

The episode illustrates how a small country in a strategic location can pose a headache for bigger powers looking to gain the upper hand in a global struggle for supremacy.