Must Australia liberate the Solomons again? This time from China’s tinpot allies:
Last week dignitaries, including US ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, gathered for a dawn ceremony on Bloody Ridge in Solomon Islands to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of the brutal battle for Guadalcanal.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare didn’t bother turning up to the commemoration. But US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman attended. She said afterwards that she “really felt sorry” for Sogavare, as it was a “missed opportunity” for the Prime Minister to reflect on how the Japanese were turned back during a key moment in WWII.
Sogavare was in fact busy putting forward a bill to postpone the scheduled 2023 elections. His excuse for postponing is the island country hosting next year’s Pacific Games and they don’t have the budget for both the games and an election. The proposed delay is very unpopular and will stir unrest with possible violence. Alarm bells should be going off in Canberra. The situation is dangerous.
It’s likely Sogavare and his backers in Beijing are hoping for more “unrest” so they can activate the China security deal. That would provide an even stronger excuse to hold off on elections, (that Sogavare is likely to lose) for even longer.
…Democracy delayed is democracy denied. Sogavare’s move is an attempted coup against the people of Solomon Islands. He’s trying to turn his country into a clone of China, by taking control of media, signing secret security deals, using bribery to change the Constitution and preparing to instigate and then crush dissent.
…This isn’t now business as usual with Sogavare. It’s a coup with Chinese characteristics, and if it’s not stopped in the Solomons, it will spread. Kiribati is already on the continuum, and there’s potential for serious, (and avoidable) violence in the Solomons’ Malaita province, Bougainville and possibly New Caledonia. East Timor is also on China’s menu, bringing it ever closer to the Indo-Pacific chokepoints.
We should fund the election. If that does not work then we should occupy the country and put it on ourselves.
What are the odds of Albo’s cowards doing that? None. They are too busy dancing to Beijing’s tune:
China has no basis for using foot-and-mouth disease as a reason to suspend beef imports from Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Tuesday in response to reports that Beijing has restricted trade.
Australia remains free of the disease and biosecurity officials were acting “very strongly” to handle heightened risks that an outbreak might occur, Albanese said in an interview with national broadcaster ABC. Any confirmed infections would risk locking Australia’s multibillion-dollar meat industry out of more than 150 overseas markets.
Sure, except it’s not about the disease is it? Albo’s cowards are puppets on the string as they seek to make friends with the very same power that just used the Press Club to declare war on Taiwan and is going to topple Solomons’s freedom.
Let Chinese trade go. It’s time to diversify. Or we are next on the CCP menu.
