Chinese presence in the Pacific runs deep and is now reshaped by Beijing’s ambitions

Golden, serene, and its belly polished smooth by tens of thousands of hands.

This Chinese-style statue — the Laughing Buddha — absorbed the touch of students before exams, brides before weddings, and ministers before late-night negotiations.

For more than 30 years, the Buddha stood guard at the entrance of Sea King, Solomon Islands’ most famous Chinese restaurant in Honiara.

It was never just a restaurant, but a theatre of Pacific life in an untold geopolitical play.

And for Stacey Wu, who arrived in the Solomon Islands from Taiwan as a teenager in 1981, Sea King was home.

China’s presence in the Pacific is often focused on geopolitical tension and rivalry. But Chinese people have lived in island communities for generations — these are their stories.

Stacey’s parents had established Sea King from the ground up in the late 1970s.

Her mother, after a failed timber investment, chose a restaurant because it was one of the few ventures open to foreigners.

“We started with six tables,” Stacey recalls.

“Eventually, we could seat 500.”

By the 1990s, Sea King had become the largest Chinese restaurant in the South Pacific.

Sea King soon became a landmark where islanders, politicians, and visitors gathered. Children played beneath banquet tables as dignitaries toasted above.

It hosted banquets for Taiwan’s presidents, Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou, as well as for Australian prime ministers like Kevin Rudd.

Honiara’s middle class celebrated birthdays and weddings under its lanterns. Diplomats signed deals upstairs, while kids staged impromptu races in the hall below.

A fashion show in 1997 marked Hong Kong’s handover to China.

But the restaurant was never just about food and festivals. It was about belonging; a truth too often obscured by headlines.

Today, in Solomon Islands, the well-known folksong Walkabout Long Chinatown — the equivalent of Australia’s Waltzing Matilda — is remembered across Melanesia — a reminder that Chinese heritage is stitched into the very lyrics of island life.

It is just one example in the long history of Chinese influence on Pacific life.

In the mid-1800s, ships carried Chinese workers from Guangdong and Fujian to cut cane in Fiji, dig phosphate in Nauru, or haul timber in Samoa.

Many stayed — opening small shops, marrying locals, raising families with little more than language and grit.

By the mid-20th century, these Chinese families were no longer “foreigners”. Their next generations were Pacific locals: shop owners, teachers, or politicians.

Papua New Guinea’s independence hero, Julius Chan, was of Chinese descent.

In Kiribati, former president Anote Tong traced his roots to Chinese migrants who had settled in the Gilberts after World War II.

Evolving between two worlds

Honiara has never been a city at ease.

In the late 1990s and mid-2000s, riots swept through the city’s Chinatown.

Shops were burned. Families fled.

But Sea King was spared.

Stacey recalled that the police force protected the restaurant, while local leaders intervened and told the rioters to go elsewhere.

For Stacey, her family’s place in Solomon society went beyond ethnicity.

Her father and brother, both Taiwanese police officers, had once trained Pacific forces.