WELLINGTON, New Zealand: The US says it will open an embassy in the Solomon Islands, laying out in unusually blunt terms a plan to increase its influence in the South Pacific nation before China becomes “strongly embedded.”
The reasoning was explained in a State Department notification to Congress that was obtained by The Associated Press. It comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is touring the Pacific, meeting diplomats from Japan, South Korea, Australia, Fiji and other nations.