This is CBS Islander World. I'm John Batch for Oceania, the vast Indo-Pacific, and the

headline from Reuters, Solomon Island's Outs, official critical of close relations with

China. The ousting was a vote, but then there was a scuffle. Reuters report Scuffles broke

out after the vote, police fired tear gas into a crowd of more than a hundred after the scuffle,

in which stones were thrown at police, said eyewitnesses. I welcome Cleopascal of the foundation

for the defensive democracy, who's been traveling just back from the Indo-Pacific to help us understand

this vote to oust a man by the name of Sudhane, who Cleop has reported on for the last year.

And not only Outs, Sudhane, but secure the solomans as far as I can understand for the people's

Republic of China in its ambition to gobble up, to embrace Island Republic after Island Republic

across the Oceania. The U.S. is in the game, however. It's not over. Cleop, welcome home. A very good

evening to you. Who is the man who's been ousted? Daniel Sudhane, what do we know need to know about him

and why China is against him? Good evening to you. Good evening. Daniel Sudhane was until this vote,

the premiere of the province of Malayta. He's very popular. He's not a professional politician.

He went into politics relatively recently. And when China came in very heavily after the prime

minister of the country, so Gavari, you know, laterally switched the country from Taiwan to China in 2019,

he put out a declaration with his government supported by the traditional chiefs called the

out-key communique, in which he said he didn't want any CCP linked companies operating in his province.

He thought it was bad for his people and bad for the economy. And he gave a very long list of

quite a few reasons for why working with the CCP is bad, including that they believe in

free, they themselves, the people of Malayta believe in freedom of religion and China is

systemically atheist, which was, it was interesting to see that openly kind of stated as a reason

that because of religious repression in China and the fact that they took religious freedom

...