A nixed deal offers a rare window into how Chinese companies often work in tandem with, and sometimes on behalf of, Beijing.
Illustration by Luis Grañena
Listen to SupChina editor-at-large and Sinica podcast host Kaiser Kuo read this article.
Peter Kenilorea Jr. was scrolling through Facebook one afternoon in September 2019 when he came across a photo that caught his attention. It was a snapshot of an agreement between a provincial governor in the Solomon Islands, where Kenilorea lived, and executives from a company called China Sam Enterprise Group. The agreement appeared to grant the Chinese conglomerate exclusive development rights to Tulagi, one of the Solomon Islands, for at least 75 years.
It was a leak, and an alarming piece of news for Kenilorea. Despite serving as the deputy opposition leader in the Solomon Islands parliament and chairman of its foreign relations committee, he knew nothing about the deal. When Kenilorea began commenting on the photo on Facebook, the original poster sent him a private message that included the full text of the agreement. The more Kenilorea read, the more he found troubling: the agreeme
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