Its 25.7 million population is even less than Shanghai's 28.5 million
Australia is aghast at the news that China has signed a bilateral security agreement with Solomon Islands. Despite both Canberra and Washington having sent scores of officials to the archipelago nation in a bid to try and coerce them to change course, the agreement was confirmed several days ago.
The pact provoked a tidal wave of vitriol in the Australian press, with several commentaries and articles going as far as demanding outright regime change, or even invasion against the country.
Canberra makes it abundantly clear that it deems Solomon Islands to be its own "backyard" and connects its new tilt toward China with the repulsive "Yellow Peril" paranoia that has become endemic in recent years.
But this only illustrates the hypocrisy, vulgarity and thinly veiled elitism which dominates the Aussie mind, even as it calls for Russia to have no such "rights" regarding Ukraine.
Australia is an Anglophone colonial nation that has unwelcomely based itself in the proximity of Asia, placing itself on the boundaries of cultures and civilizations.
Built on the genocide of Australasia indigenous population, such circumstances have historically conditioned a highly elitist identity in the country that has been prone to sporadic racism in relationship to its northern neighbors.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Australia grew to perceive the influx of Asian peoples into its territory as a threat to its English-speaking identity, espousing the politics of "Yellow Peril" and soon the "White Australia policy" which actively sought to prohibit the migration of non-whites into the country.
That now defunct policy still shapes the current underlying of the country's prejudiced discourse toward China, masking fears of racially led "infiltration" and "subversion" under the guise of anti-communism.
This attitude in Australia has long conditioned its foreign policy toward perceiving itself as being a vanguard force of civilization and moral exceptionalism to its surroundings, particularly in reference to the Pacific Island nations, of which it seeks to maintain hegemony over under the assumption that they and their Anglosphere allies are the only countries acting in their "true interests."
This is especially the case with the Solomon Islands, which is a former British colonial state and still comes under the British Crown.
As is the same in Britain, countries in the Anglosphere exhibit a distorted rendering of history toward their former colonies. Having never been held to account for their crimes over them, they continue to exhibit an "ownership" mentality over these countries, perceiving their rule as having not been brutal or unwanted, but benevolent and supportive.
Therefore, the choice of these countries to opt for deeper ties with China is seen as an assault on their own identity and an act of aggression.
Canberra continues to assume it has the right to dominate the Solomon Islands as a "benevolent protector" which constitutes its "backyard," presenting its efforts to form relationships with other countries (in this case China) as a political and military threat.
The Aussies cannot detach itself from their exceptionalistic and blinkered view of the world that they cannot do anything but act in the "best interests" of the Islands, and delude themselves their hegemony is only an act of benevolence despite obvious acts to the contrary.
This inability to conceive themselves for who they really are has led their press to brand the Solomon Islands' decision as a huge "diplomatic failure." But if it is a failure, it is a failure of them to be reasonable or realistic regarding the rise of China, and that the world does not revolve around English speaking countries anymore, let alone one with less people than Shanghai.
- Beijing
Anonymous
8 comments:
Why would the Australians be so keen to stir shits in the Solomon Islands?
Cannot be any other reason, other than because of Racism.
Can it be?
Free and open Pacific means free and open for all countries
The Solomon Islands decision is consistent with the concept of a free and open Pacific.
The archipelago has exercised its right to freely enter into agreements with multiple partners. They have confirmed freedom of navigation and port access is open to Australia, America and China.
A free and open Pacific does not mean free and open only for Western vessels. It means a Pacific that is free and open to vessels from all countries.
Insolent Australia warns Superpower China of ‘Red Line’
Scott Morrison declared that a Chinese military base on the Solomon Islands would be a step too far for Australia and the US
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared on Sunday that a Chinese military base on the Solomon Islands would be an unacceptable “red line,” without adding how Canberra would retaliate. Morrison’s government and the United States are scrambling to respond to a recently-signed security deal between the islands and Beijing, which they consider an “aggressive” move.
“Working together with our partners in New Zealand and of course the United States, I share the same red line that the United States has when it comes to these issues,” Morrison said. “We won’t be having Chinese military naval bases in our region on our doorstep.”
A tiny archipelago sitting around 2,000km off the northeastern coast of Australia, the Solomon Islands made international news last week when it signed a security pact with China.
There is much hysteria generated by the future potential for Chinese ships to use port facilities some 2,000 kilometers from Australia's shoreline. The Australian reaction is all about the supposed threat that this poses to Australia rather than the benefits the agreement may bring to the Solomon Islands.
"The spectre of Chinese nuclear submarines, destroyers, fighters and bombers based in the Solomon Islands, merely 1752 kilometres from Australia’s mainland (and closer than New Zealand), brings the looming prospect of global conflict right to our doorstep," says AFR's Christopher Joye. "Sadly, our worst fears have come to pass. What we now need is decisive leadership to protect our way of life, which faces existential threats for the first time since the first Cold War."
There is not a mention of the port facilities offered to U.S. navy ships by Japan and China's Taiwan region that are within 500 kilometers of China's coastline.
Angmoh Punched Singaporean Uncle Taxi Driver
The US warning to the Solomon Islands that it would have serious concerns and respond accordingly if China was allowed to have a military presence there sounds like a threat, says ex-ST editor Leslie Fong.
"Can Washington not see the irony? It maintains that Ukraine has the right to join Nato and host its forces but the Solomon Islands, which is a sovereign nation 2000 km away from Australia and many times that from Hawaii and the American mainland, is not entitled to that same right," Leslie says.
"I am not holding my breath for commentators who have endorsed Ukraine's right to now stand up for the Solomon Islands too," he adds.
Leslie Fong needs not hold his breath. There are shameful Asian countries that voluntarily chose to be ruled by white men and willing to kiss white men's ass.
Leslie Fong and many senior citizens are getting wiser with age and would not tolerate the disinformation lies and bullying of the angmohs.
They would not worship the white devils.
Australia' witb its bistory as a penal colony built on the slavery and genocide of its aboriginal natives telling a big nation with a rich long civilation of scholars, literati and inventors what is acceptable and how to behave?
That must be some hugh irony.
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