The hysteria in Canberra and Washington over the Sino-Solomon Islands security pact has shown, again, how irrelevant the individual affairs of Pacific Island states are in the chess game of geopolitics. The one thing conspicuously missing has been the issue of climate change, near and dear to those whose lands are gradually being inundated by rising sea levels. In a[Read More…]

Visits to Honiara, part plea, part threat.  Delegations equipped with a note of harassment.  That was the initial Australian effort to convince the Solomon Islands that the decision to make a security pact with Beijing was simply not appropriate in the lotus land of Washington’s Pacific empire. Despite an election campaign warming up, Senator Zed Seselja found time to tell[Read More…]

A small riot.  Unrest.  Risk of collapse.  All given a ballooning effect and inflated for policy makers across the ocean.  Before much time elapses, Australian security forces are skirting off to restore order in their vast watery neighbourhood.  It is a reminder that such relations in the Pacific region are a mixture of intervention, forcible charitable guidance and, at times,[Read More…]