Daniel Suidani served as the premier of Malaita Province in the Solomon Islands (SI) from 2019 until February 7, 2023, when he was removed from office after a vote of no confidence from his provincial legislature.
On his first attempt to apply for a U.S. visa, he was denied an entry visa by the Department of State to give speeches about his country. Suidani’s friends informed the author that after his second attempt and following bipartisan support from the U.S. Congress, Suidani was finally approved for a U.S. visa.
Why did this happen and why is he a hero for democracy, especially in pushing back on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attempts to control his country?
President Lee and Suidani
Just like Taiwan’s former President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), Suidani has been the target of the CCP and its desire to remove him from political power. In 1995, Lee made "a landmark visit to the United States, marking the first-ever visit to the U.S." by a Taiwanese president.
The controversy surrounding Lee's 1995 U.S. visit is similar to Suidani's current situation. The Clinton and Biden administrations, respectively, initially kowtowed to China and refused both of them to enter the U.S.
Luckily, Congress applied pressure on the Clinton administration and forced it to allow Lee to go to America. The Biden administration also changed its mind due to congressional pressure and learned from Clinton’s mistake of failing to see Lee as an Indo-Pacific pro-democracy leader.
Even today, the CCP is trying to apply pressure to prevent Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) from meeting with U.S. politicians, just as they tried to do to Lee, and are currently attempting to do with Suidani.
Solomon Islands background
Over 95% of the population of the Solomon Islands are Melanesian and over 96% are Christian. The Solomon Islands became an independent country from the British in 1978, but is still a member of the Commonwealth as a constitutional monarchy.
Malaita Province is the most prosperous and the most populous province (having over 160,000 people or about a quarter of the total population of over 700,000).
(Malaita Province image)
Why was Suidani removed?
According to Cleo Paskal, who has reported extensively on China’s shenanigans, the following steps made Suidani an impediment to growing Chinese influence in the Solomon Islands:
(1) Suidani opposed the Solomon Islands switching diplomatic recognition of Taiwan to China in 2019.
(2) Suidani opposed the security agreement between the Solomon Islands and China in 2022, which allows China to deploy “police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement forces” to the Solomon Islands.
(3) Malaita’s legislature, which became corrupted by Chinese funding, conducted a vote of no confidence on Suidani and removed him as premier of their province.
(4) An NGO invited Suidani to participate in exchanges with other thought leaders and to participate in the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York and other NGOs in the U.S. invited him to speak in April. Both the SI leadership and China fear giving Suidani an opportunity to expose their corruption, their continued intent to deny the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard from entering SI waters, and make the country a China-friendly region by allowing military port visits, security training, and military intervention.
Solomon Islands-Taiwan Relations
On September 16, 2019, Beijing convinced the Solomon Islands to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China. Suidani and his supporters vehemently disagreed with the SI government’s actions in abandoning Taiwan.
In response, Suidani decided to pursue legal actions to minimize the impact of the switch. For example, he prevented any CCP company or company with ties to the CCP from operating in his province.
Suidani's provincial government in 2019 issued the “Auki Communique,” deriding the diplomatic switch by the SI government. The communique noted that the Malaita province “strongly resolves to put in place a Moratorium on Business Licenses to new investors connected directly or indirectly with the Chinese Communist Party.”
A hero for democracy?
Suidani is a firebrand for his people and for democracy. He knows what China will do to his people and his country.
He tried to stop China from exploiting his province and country and warned the rest of the Indo-Pacific countries that Beijing will erode their freedoms, including the freedom of religion.
The Auki Communique states unequivocally the following: Malaita Province “acknowledges the freedom of religion as a fundamental right and further observes the entrenched Christian faith and belief in God by Malaitan and Moian peoples and therefore rejects the Chinese Communist Party—CCP and its formal systems based on atheist ideology.”
Why does it matter?
The CCP uses incrementalism to insert itself into a country, slowly infiltrating its influence until the CCP completely compromises political, business, and other elites. Then the exploitation begins and any modicum of freedom is quickly removed, just as has been done in all illegally taken territories by China: Tibet, Mongolia, East Turkestan (Xinjiang), Hong Kong, Macau, parts of Vietnam (taken in 1979), islands and sea taken in East Vietnam Sea / West Philippine Sea / Southeast Asia Sea (the so-called “South China Sea”), Indian territory, and other areas.
In fact, China has land and sea area disputes with at least 18 current nations (excluding the national regions it has already occupied) including the following: Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Singapore, Brunei, Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, and Tibet.
What should we do?
The first step in dealing with a problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem. In this case, people, public and private organizations and companies, and governments need to acknowledge that the CCP is a threat to them.
As Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana recently said, “You can pretty it up any way you want to, and you can put perfume on a pig, but it still smells like a pig.” No matter how the CCP might convince people that it has only good intentions, it is still an aggressive expansionist dictatorship designed to destroy democracy and expand its power to the detriment of all other countries.
The next step is to understand how the CCP manipulates people, companies, governments, non-governmental agencies, and other organizations to achieve its objectives.
The final step is to expose their nefarious actions, enforce laws that will help others understand China's destructive nature, or make new laws to stop China. The time for exposing the CCP and stopping their destructive nature is now before they get so strong that no one can stop them.
Exposing CCP political warfare
One way to expose the CCP is to hear from Suidani when he travels to the U.S. to speak. Over the next month, he will be speaking in several U.S. cities about China’s political warfare on the front line.
Let the American people hear what China did to his country, his province, and to him. Maybe other countries, perhaps even Taiwan, will invite him to speak and demonstrate that they too, are for freedom, not CCP obeisance and obedience.
