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scomopantsdown does it again — but it's never HIS fault…...

Russia is bad. There is no excuse for attacking Ukraine, and the argument that it was a strategic imperative to stop NATO’s encroachment is just propaganda, right? That’s what every source in the mainstream media will tell you. But oddly enough, that logic never seems to apply when western countries perceive rival states to be encroaching on their own peripheries, and there’s been no bigger example of that than as to how American and Australian political classes have reacted to the now signed “Bilateral security agreement” between China and the Solomon Islands, a small archipelago which exists not far from Papua New Guinea. 

 

This tiny island nation proves that the West only believes in its own ‘spheres of influence’

 

Australia and the US believe the Solomon Islands must not be allowed to partner up with China, showing a selective respect for self-determination

 

By Timur Fomenko, a political analyst

 

The deal was confirmed this week, despite Australia and the US having piled on scores of official visits in a bid to try and halt it. This has been combined with a media narrative of extreme paranoia claiming, without due evidence, that China is set to build a naval base on the islands and poses a direct military threat to Australia in turn. This has produced some hysterical commentaries, with a founder of The Diplomat Magazine even literally calling for bombing and regime change in the island nation.

 

It seems strange that the same countries who said that Ukraine has a right to “choose” its allies, or in other words self-determination, do not seem to apply that logic to countries who choose to tilt towards perceived rival states, and there’s plenty of historical examples to back it up with. The consensus is, whether expressed in moderate or explicit terms, that more must be done to “remove” the influence of China from the Solomon Islands, with the assumption that only the US and its allies act in the true interests of the state and its people. It’s as if there is no comprehension whatsoever as to why the Solomon Islands may not consent to be under the hegemony of Australia and the United States, and why it is obviously going to prefer a strategy of “hedging” to maximize political space and opportunity for itself, rather than being forced to exclusively pick one side. This is demonstrative of the elitist mindset which dominates these countries.

Butter wouldn’t melt in Australia’s own mouth. Canberra presents itself as a benevolent and exceptionalist country that serves only the best interests of the island nations of the Pacific, and not the American empire. In reality, this is a de-facto presumption that it has the right to permanently dominate these countries and shape their politics. At no point does it understand that, as a colonial state, one which for most of its existence espoused openly racist policies against non-whites and decimated its indigenous population, why the island nations of the Pacific may actually not really want to be under their “benevolent hug” after all. Rather, Canberra is lost in the discourse of its own longstanding “Yellow Peril” legacy racism concerning China, its obsession with following US policy at all costs, and in turn projects this as somehow standing to protect these islands, branding China as the threat to the region and itself as the hero. 

 

But again, countries like the Solomon Islands have no reason to see it this way. Being very small in size and population, they are very vulnerable to external political interference and compromising their national sovereignty. Take, for example, the island of Nauru. Because its economy collapsed as its mining resources were exhausted, it has become a de-facto Australian client state which is forced to use its currency and host illegal immigrants turned away by Australia. As a result, it is obvious why other island countries would want to preserve themselves by seeking multiple economic and political partners. 

It is therefore lost on Australia why the Solomon Islands, a non-white former British protectorate (the British Queen is, to this day, also the Queen of the Solomon Islands, for that matter), might not want to be completely dominated by Canberra, and by extension, the US. This is why scores and scores of US and Australian officials visiting the island and mounting diplomatic pressure haven’t been able to change the mind of the Islands’ government. The sentiment of Anglophone exceptionalism has become a self-affirming feedback loop to the point they have completely lost touch with other countries. The same principle applies to the Western powers’ insincere concern for Ukraine and their hypocrisy in believing that only they themselves are entitled to “spheres of influence” and they must have an infinite right to encircle rival countries without any right of reply. Russia’s narrative about the threat emanating from Ukraine is simply “propaganda,” we are told, yet China making an ambiguous deal with a tiny island nation of just 700,000 or so is somehow deemed an imminent and escalatory threat to Australia itself. Is it not time we started to question this narrative?

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/news/554346-australia-us-solomon-islands-china/

 

 

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Great cartoon by Moir in the Sydney Morning Herald (23/04/2022) at top.

the US empire frets...

The misbegotten notion that the South Pacific is a US sphere of influence  

The speed at which Washington officials rushed to the Solomon Islands after news of a Chinese security pact is all you need to know.

Written by 

 

The U.S. is scrambling to check the growth of Chinese influence in the Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands after Beijing struck a security pact with the islands that would allow China to dock their ships, deploy security forces to protect Chinese-built infrastructure, and help the government restore order. 

The United States and Australia have been panicking ever since about a possible Chinese foothold. Washington has rushed top White House and State Department officials to Honiara to pressure their government to cancel the agreement, but this has served mostly to annoy them and signal that the U.S. doesn’t respect their sovereign decisions. 

The United States routinely rails against the idea of spheres of influence when other states claim them, but in its rivalry with China the U.S. assumes that Pacific Island nations belong firmly in the American sphere of influence. U.S. entreaties are likely too late to change minds in the Solomon Islander government, and they show that the U.S. doesn’t really believe that small states get to make their own decisions when it comes to foreign policy. 

The details of the final agreement with China are not yet public, but the pact is believed to be close to the leaked draft version that became available last month. According to that version, the government can request China to send police and military personnel in the event of local disorder. There was significant unrest in the country last year caused by longstanding internal divisions and resentment that the government switched its diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China three years ago. 

Because of Australia’s traditional role as security provider for the country, news of the agreement with China has been received very poorly in Canberra. Australia’s Labor Party seized on the issue to criticize the coalition government and characterized it the “worst Australian foreign policy blunder in the Pacific” since WWII. There has even been some reckless talk from pundits that Australia should invade the country and bring down the government to halt the agreement. 

While it is understandable that Australia has concerns about closer ties between China and one of its neighbors, the reaction to this agreement has been out of all proportion to its significance.

For its part, the U.S. has neglected the Solomon Islands and taken the country for granted for many years, and it is only when it seems to be drifting towards Beijing’s orbit that our government can be bothered to pay close attention. There hadn’t been a U.S. embassy in Honiara for almost 30 years until it announced it was being reopened earlier this year, and even that was justified as an anti-Chinese move. Washington says that it believes that small states should be able to decide for themselves about how to make their security arrangements and decide their foreign policy orientation, but it doesn’t adhere to that line when a government builds closer ties with China.  

The Solomon Islands’ prime minister has assured the U.S. and Australia that its agreement with China does not pose a threat to any other state and won’t involve any China bases on their territory, but that has not stopped officials from both countries from opposing the agreement in the strongest terms. 

Prime Minister Sogavare responded to the criticism by saying, “We find it very insulting…to be branded as unfit to manage our sovereign affairs.” International relations scholar Van Jackson correctly described the reaction in Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. to the agreement as “absolutely hyperbolic.” As he said, “there is nothing about this document that represents making the Solomon Islands part of a Chinese sphere of influence.”

Jackson asks an important question about U.S. and allied goals in the broader “Indo-Pacific”: “What kind of free, open, inclusive Indo-Pacific are you building if you are literally going to try and constrain the foreign relations of independent, sovereign states?….That’s literally asserting a Western sphere of influence in trying to deny a Chinese one.” 

The question of spheres of influence is a contentious one in U.S.-Chinese relations. Washington professes to abhor spheres of influence while insisting for all intents and purposes that the U.S. maintain one in the western Pacific. The U.S. casts spheres of influence as holdovers from an earlier era that have no place in the modern world, but it also carves out its own when it deems it necessary. 

If the U.S. meant what it said about spheres of influence, it would not be so alarmed by the prospect of a modest security agreement between China and a small Pacific state, but by its actions our government shows just how desperately it clings to the idea that certain countries belong in the orbit of the U.S. and its allies no matter what the local government wants. If the U.S. hopes to win the trust and cooperation of Pacific and Asian nations in the coming decades, it cannot continue with a zero-sum approach that requires small countries to take sides against China.

Unfortunately, much of the commentary in the U.S. and Australia has been employing ridiculous Cold War-era rhetoric to discuss the Solomon Islands agreement. One article in Politico frames it as a “duel” between Xi and Biden that the latter has lost, and urges the U.S. to act before more “dominoes” start falling. “Who lost the Solomon Islands?” would be a premature question to ask if it weren’t so stupid, but this is what years of relentless hyping of “great power competition” encourages.

The alarmist response to China’s agreement with the Solomon Islands is reminiscent of other recent panics over developments involving China that either haven’t occurred yet or aren’t all that significant. 

Many Western analysts grossly exaggerated the size and importance of an agreement between China and Iran last year with references to an “axis” or an “alliance” that doesn’t exist. More recently, the Pentagon has been sounding the alarm over a possible Chinese naval base in Equatorial Guinea that isn’t being built and wouldn’t pose much of a threat if it did exist. 

China is expanding its economic and political influence, and over time that will likely include establishing more of an overseas military presence. That bears paying careful attention and requires assessing threats accurately, but it is absurd to fly into panicked fear over every modest agreement that China may be making with other countries.

The U.S. cannot neglect small nations and then expect them to fall in line when U.S. officials finally show up to complain about their relations with other states. If the U.S. wants to cultivate stronger ties with Pacific and Asian nations, it will have to make a consistent effort to work with these governments on issues of common interest. Insofar as the U.S. treats these states primarily as pawns in a rivalry with China, our government should not be surprised when some of them opt to cooperate more closely with China.

 

READ MORE:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2022/04/22/the-misbegotten-delusion-that-the-south-pacific-is-a-us-sphere-of-influence/

 

 

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