Solomon Islands bids farewell to a polarising PM who became the Pacific’s most China-friendly leader

News Snapshot:

As Manasseh Sogavare, the most outwardly China-friendly leader of a Pacific island country, conceded his time as prime minister of Solomon Islands was up, he didn’t appear to be quite ready to forgive and forget. Announcing his departure in a post-election press conference on Monday, Sogavare lamented that his government had come “under pressure from the United States and western allies” and had been “accused of many things”. Sogavare maintained that his decision to switch Solomon Islands’ diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing in 2019 had been “very important”, despite the intense geopolitical tussle that followed. In the Pacific, Solomon...