News Analysis New documents show that China seeks to expand its influence and military deployments in the Asia-Pacific islands nearly to the point of making one country, the Solomon Islands, into a vassal state. Yet proposed policies to oppose Beijing’s latest expansionism rely on the same old failed soft diplomacy, economic incentives, and non-confrontation that create perverse incentives and push countries into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) orbit. The draft Sino-Solomon documents, titled as a framework agreement on security cooperation, demonstrate Beijing’s interest in advance arrangements for snap insertion of its security forces, and the use of a string of deep seaports globally for its increasingly far-flung naval activities. The draft shows that Beijing is closing in on a security pact that, according to the Financial Times, would allow armed Chinese troops and police in the Solomon Islands to quell unrest, where the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could build a naval base in …