As you read this, America’s Central Intelligence Agency will be planning regime change in the South Pacific. The target will be the Solomon Islands.
The US was caught out by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s signing a deal with China with security/development benefits for the Solomons. Already Beijing has security agreements with Tonga, Papua New Guinea and Fiji but none of those deals provide for the deployment of Chinese armed police and military to deal with local unrest in the Solomons.
The US had left the South Pacific to Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand to manage on its behalf but the lazy racism of European colonisers and patronising attitudes towards the Solomons led Sogavare’s government to look elsewhere – and the US is not pleased.
None of us want to see the militarisation of the Pacific and our backyard becoming a contested ground for big nuclear-armed powers. But the US, UK and Australia have already decided to go this way with plans for nuclear submarines in the South Pacific as part of the US “containment” strategy for China.
The US has been working hard for decades to encircle China and Russia with military bases and ramp up pressure on them both because they pose a challenge to America’s goal of “full-spectrum dominance” which means the US, and only the US, will have the power to shape the world, in every respect, for its own interests. To achieve this the US will brook no opposition.
As a sovereign country the Solomons has the right to decide its own destiny and make agreements and alliances with whomever and whenever it chooses – except when this cuts across US strategic interests.
In response to the Solomon’s decision, a high-powered US delegation went to the Solomons for a 90-minute meeting with Sogavare last week and has pledged to open a US embassy in the capital Honiara.
This is their opening play. From this base they will meet with various tribal leaders, community groups and opposition politicians to decide who they want for Prime Minister. They will oil their most promising relationships with vast wads of cash while working hard to massage grievances and open up the fracture lines in Solomon society. Massive civil unrest will be fostered with the aim of making the Solomon’s ungovernable whereupon they will step in and help install a pro-US “unity” government of some kind with their chosen leaders.
How much cash will it cost? Not as much as the reputed $5 billion spent by the CIA to orchestrate the overthrow of the democratically-elected, pro-Russian Ukrainian government in 2014 but enough to get the job done.
And what will be the response of the Aotearoa New Zealand government? Lots of angst and hand-wringing but nothing else.
This country refused to stand with the people of East Timor overrun by Indonesia in the mid 1970s and we still refuse to support the independence struggle of the people of West Papua – Indonesia in occupation again.
When regime change happens in the Solomons we will stand with the US rather than the people of the Solomon Islands.
Like Russia, China has already seen it’s best-by date pass.
These countries seem intent on repeating their mistakes in perpetuity. Both face demographic collapse, Xi thinks he’s a Ming dynasty emperor and Putin a Czar.
I’m not a PHD in psychology like you are, Andrew. But when I hear that the NZ courts are recalling people living in NZ back to China or even America, then the king’s are molesting the world.
I don’t know that we will stand with the US. We are not legally or morally obligated to, and certainly not ethically. The US is ramping up their plans with a whole host of countries. Their military and Central Intelligence Agency may even be spread too thinly.
Daniel please show me a case where we haven’t back the US. We will everyone knows we will, we always do.
“The lazy racism of European colonisers and patronising attitudes towards the Solomons led Sogavare’s government to look elsewhere.”
So the Solomon’s came up with China as global beacon of respect and acceptance of other cultures?
Exactly.
The article ignores that China has clearly already burrowed in to the Solomon Islands politics successfully, why do we cry about the chances of the USA doing the same.
It’s not America sterilizing their minorities or seizing the South China Sea or overfishing other countries economic zones is it.
The real truth it seems is that the Solomon’s political elite are corrupt and the Chinese are more than happy to fuel that corruption . . and Minto will conveniently ignore this as it doesn’t marry up with his simplistic ‘white people bad / not white people good’ world view.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/17/one-third-of-people-in-pacific-paid-a-bribe-in-the-last-year-says-corruption-report
https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceania/solomon-islands-in-danger-of-becoming-a-puppet-state-of-china-20220329-p5a8rz.html
Think about it, how many countries has the US invaded, bombed, interfered with their elections.
Then tell me how many has China.
I am not on either side but get bored with the West good, and the rest bad.
If the US supplied some large thermonuclear missiles to Taiwan overnight without any prior announcement, then Taiwan informed China tomorrow that they have them aimed at Shanghai and Beijing then there would no longer be any threat from the dictator Xi, he would turn his attention back to weaker nations. Bullies only bully weaker things, they cower to equal strength. It is time to arm Taiwan to the hilt.
That goodness you are an ex Kiwi, we don’t need Taiwan to be armed to the hilt. We need fewer arms everywhere.
Andy, you obviously haven’t got a job. How do you spend so much time trolling. You need to get out more. What a waste of a small mind…
Ukraines shares land border with Russia and enables direct strategic worsening of Russian security if it progresses to NATO membership. US, Australia: Ukraine is sovereign nation.
Solomons forms MOU with China, is thousands of Km of sea from Australia and US. US, Australia: we should invade.
Also US: anyone remember the Cuban missile crisis and think it would act any differently to Putin if Canada talked about joining a Russian security arrangement?
It’s horrifying what’s happening to Ukrainian people but let’s not allow that to cloud the monumental hypocrisy we are witnessing in the West in plain sight.
Amazing! absolutely amazing; Despite multiple instances of US hegemony being foisted on countries all over the world, in exactly the manner that John describes, and worse, and ignoring the fact that both China and Russia have never done more to embrace Capitalism, still we have people spouting the media-led nonsense that their leaders have regal aspirations. Truly propaganda never had such fertile soil as that found in ignorance.
“This country refused to stand with the people of East Timor overrun by Indonesia in the mid 1970s and we still refuse to support the independence struggle of the people of West Papua – Indonesia in occupation again.
When regime change happens in the Solomons we will stand with the US rather than the people of the Solomon Islands.”
Who is the “we” John and what is “this country” that you refer to above?
It is not us, the people of Aotearoa. It is the colonial regime in Wellington which has this shocking history and a present which is no less disgraceful.
If you identify with colonialism, fine, but be specific and correct about where you place the blame for colonialist outrages. The Realm of New Zealand is not Aotearoa. Colonialists are not tangata motu.
“We” (meaning tangata motu) have always and consistently opposed colonialism. We denounced the New Zealand government’s military aid to the French colonialists in Indo-China, British colonialists in Malaya, US imperialists in Vietnam, and Indonesian imperialists in Timor and Papua, but we went further than that and dissociated ourselves entirely from the colonialist project in New Zealand.
Evidently that is a step which you have yet to take. Don’t procrastinate. Do it now.
Geoff this is all semantics really and comes over as incredibly arrogant. I don’t know how many hours a day you work on the issues to hand, but to say all that stuff to Minto is an absolute insult. You know dam well that Minto knows these things but oh you’ve got the time to have a wee dig and tell him what he is doing wrong. He knows it is successive governments honestly your tone and your comments are pathetic.
“In response to the Solomon’s decision, a high-powered US delegation went to the Solomons for a 90-minute meeting with Sogavare last week and has pledged to open a US embassy in the capital Honiara. “
John Minto.
The above is almost an exact cut and paste of what happened in Fiji, preceding the coup there.
The anatomy of a coup.
The coup in Fiji; a historic example of how the coup in the Solomons will play out.
In 1987 after a decades long campaign by anti-war activists in New Zealand, New Zealand was officially made Nuclear Weapons Free Zone.
Under intense pressure from the Americans, New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange issued a statement saying, “New Zealand’s Anti-nuclear policy was not for export.”
But too late, the genie was out of the bottle.
The desire to be nuclear weapons free was spreading. The anti-nuclear movement in Fiji was particularly strong. Inspired by FANG (Fiji Anti-Nuclear Group). Much to US dismay, Suva harbour’s sea walls were daubed with anti-nuclear grafiti greeting every US warship visit.
Following New Zealand’s stand, the Fiji Labour Party led by Timoci Bavandra promised to ban nuclear ships as well.
And on being elected Bavandra’s government immediately imposed a total ban on all nuclear warship visits to Fiji.
Despite David Lange’s statement that New Zealand’s Nuclear Free policy was not for export, the campaign to make the whole South Pacific region a Nuclear weapons Free Zone became a real force.
Enter US General Vernon Walters known as the “Coup Master” for his role in the Chilean coup and in particular his being complicit in the murder of US journalist Charles Horman dramatised in the movie “Missing” starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek.
The “Coup Master” General Walters flew to Suva and met with the then Fijian Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka.
Two weeks later Colonel Rubuka staged a coup storming the Fijian parliament and arresting all the Labour Government MPs. Rabuka also suppressed FANG and the union movement.
As well as storming parliament Colonel, Rabuku sent armed troops to occupy the University of the South Pacific campus which had become a regional organising centre for a Nuclear Free Pacific for the whole region.
How to Stage a Military Coup
….More aid came in the shape of Lieutenant-General Vernon Walters, who arrived in Suva on 30 April 1987 – two weeks after the election and two weeks before the coup. Walters had a very public career as US Ambassador to the UN and former Director of the CIA. He also had a somewhat less well-known career as a coup plotter, starting with Iran 1953 (Chapter 3) and progressing through Brazil 1964 to Chile 1973 (Chapter 6). The writing was on the wall of the arrivals hall at Nadi International Airport.
After a short, uncomfortable meeting with the new prime minister, General Walters moved on to hector Foreign Minister Krishna Datt about the no-nuclear-ship policy. No doubt the envoy lectured him about the American policy of ‘strategic denial’ under which Washington was determined to prevent, by whatever means necessary, South Pacific island states from entering into any foreign relationship of which the US did not approve. Next on the schedule was a protocolbusting meeting with Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka; the minutes of that encounter have never been published.
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=RrEtAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT167&lpg=PT167&dq=General+Vernon+Walters+Colonel+Sitiveni+Rabuka&source=bl&ots=oMpEzA7HOM&sig=7gTMPrmCCExYlpcAgE_qQhXTDtw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjN4qyVz5XNAhVFKaYKHbbfBVMQ6AEIOzAG#v=onepage&q=General%20Vernon%20Walters%20Colonel%20Sitiveni%20Rabuka&f=false
When Lt. Col. Sitiveni Rabuka and his military conspirators stormed Fiji’s Parliament House on May 14, the one-month-old coalition government of Prime Minister Timoci Bavadra ended abruptly. Upon taking office after the April 12 election, Bavadra (a medical doctor) instituted a progressive program of domestic and foreign policy reforms in the wake of the 17-year rule of staunchly pro-Western Sir Kamisese Ratu Mara. Domestically, Bavadra expanded medical care, resolved to protect Fijian timber resources (which were often sold by the Mara government without the owner’s consent), created an Institute for Fijian Language and Culture and promised greater access for Fijians to Fiji Development Bank loans that had been going to foreign-owned businesses. “We have done in four weeks for poor people,” said Dr. Bavadra, “what Mara’s Alliance Party could not do in 17 years”. But most controversial was the nascent government’s nonaligned foreign policy, which banned port visits by nuclear-laden warships.*
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/fiji/not-so-pacific-pacific
* (My emphasis Pat)
The US is top dog who intends to maintain that position, therefore can’t be a bastion of peace. The one trying to topple a strong top dog is likely to have worse morals, and that appears true in the case of the chinese government
In case you don’t know about this:
https://twitter.com/tgtm_official (translations of the most popular political social media posts, comments, and news in China)
Know May 4, 2022 at 12:46 pm
“The US is top dog who intends to maintain that position, therefore can’t be a bastion of peace. The one trying to topple a strong top dog is likely to have worse morals, and that appears true in the case of the chinese government….”
I heartily tautoko that sentiment
This is a great essay by John Minto, However, there is one sentence in John’s accurate forecast of the coming US sponsored coup in the Solomons, that I disagree with him on.
Unfortunately the addition of this one sentence added nothing to the truth of his essay. But rather, detracted from it.
“How much cash will it, [the Solomon’s Coup], cost? Not as much as the reputed $5 billion spent by the CIA to orchestrate the overthrow of the democratically-elected, pro-Russian Ukrainian government in 2014….”
John Minto
I think that to put up a controversial and contested statement like this, as fact, then John really ought to have put up some sort of link or proof of his source.
The danger here, is that an unquestioning acceptance of one side’s narrative, could be taken as supporting the aggressor’s war of choice in Ukraine.
The point I am making here, Know, and it is the same point that I think you are making, is that the US hegemon is not the only evil in the world. The Chinese and Russian imperialists while not quite in the same league as the US in terms of global domination, have the ambition to be imperial powers to rival the US.
And just as you say, Know, (and I think you are right), “The one(s) trying to topple a strong top dog are likely to have worse morals.”
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/
WW III for the re-division of the world has begun. Russia is the aggressor power.
The Russian Federation fighting nazis is bullshit. No matter how they dress it up, the Russian Federation, under Putin’s rule, wants to expand its political and military domination into Eastern Europe.
President Barack Obama spent “$5 billion paying Ukrainians to riot and dismantle their democratically elected government.”
It’s a conspiracy with mainstream crossover: The United States bankrolled the bloody political uprising in Ukraine.
We saw the claim pop up recently in a story on RT (the Russian-funded English language cable network), and found lots of talk about it on reddit, Facebook and other websites.
The claims have the same basic structure. While President Barack Obama publicly said Ukrainians have the right to determine their own future, the U.S. government pumped $5 billion into the country to promote regime change…..
So is there any truth to this claim? PunditFact dove in……
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/19/facebook-posts/united-states-spent-5-billion-ukraine-anti-governm/
The people of the world are just starting to wake up to the fact that World War III for a new re-division of the world has started. Just as it was in the past, it is the challengers for global empire that are the aggressors and the bigger danger to world peace, unquestioning acceptance of their war propaganda, is at your own peril.
What do you get when you’re birth rate falls bellow 1 and you’re left with half of all property unoccupied?
Wrong answers only.
Oh Pat you of all people, you know how hard Minto works on the issues. But you have to put your LITTLE oar in to say what he has done wrong. Bloody irritating.
‘I think that to put up a controversial and contested statement like this, as fact, then John really ought to have put up some sort of link or proof of his source.’
By what feat of mental gymnastics and convoluted logic can anyone assert that any power trying to topple a “top dog” be said, therefore, be likely to have “worse morals?”
Because of what the contender will have to do to topple the strong top dog (who doesn’t want to be displaced)
Kia ora Malcolm
I think what is being said here is that anyone who tries to upset the status quo is by definition immoral. Therefore any change must be a change for the worse. A depressing view of the future for the human race. If I was forced to choose, I would go for the alternative progressive view that good will ultimately overcome evil.
In reality the battle between good and evil see-saws between one side and the other. Sometimes evil rebels against the good, but more often in this world it is good that rebels against evil.
Theologically, in the beginning Satan rebelled against God, and gained control over the earth, but now true believers are engaged in a righteous war against Satan.
Even the silliest statement (of which we find quite a few in this forum) can prompt us to think seriously about the political and philosophical issues.
“President Barack Obama spent “$5 billion paying Ukrainians to riot and dismantle their democratically elected government.”
According to Politifact the $5 Billion (that’s five thousand million dollars) was technically spent on “Democracy promotion” in Ukraine, and not on fomenting the coup per se, but listen to Victoria Nuland’s recorded comments at the time, available on line, and tell me the money was laudably spent.
Apropos your para 4
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/09/16/guest-blog-ross-meurant-no-nukes/
Of course, I could be biased. After all, it was I who was berated in caucus by the erudite King Country farmer and his second lieutenant McKinnon and my neighbouring MP John Banks, for daring to propose at a branch meeting my electorate of Hobson (great name that: Hobson!); that National adopt Labour’s anti-nuke policy.
What’s worse for they who condemn me as a – perceived- acolyte of the “evil empire” (aka Red Squad and Arms dealer and Russian agent etc), it was the Hobson Executive’s agenda item at the Dunedin Conference 1989 where I spoke to the merits of adopting Labour’s anti-nuke policy, which was adopted by the Conference and which subsequently became policy of National when it took the Treasury benches 1990.
Strange bedfellow John?
A view of China from a Chinese perspective:
http://www.bjreview.com/Opinion/Voice/202204/t20220408_800281713.html
It gives me hope.
When regime change happens … because of some American plot (establishing an embassy being just the beginning … ).
All ignoring the current dear leaders dependence on our and Oz military and police or in future Chinese (bought by access for their navy to the local sea port) to suppress existing discontent over “economic” deals with China over the opposition of regional government.
Are you the same person who decries Indonesian military suppress local discontent over regional exploitation by mining corporations in Western Papua?
Art least be consistent rather than blinded by anti-American hatred.
Fuck you mean consistent? I will have you know that Minto opposes oppression where ever it is.
Why the all hail JM sycophancy …
American embassies are hostile outposts of imperialism. The presence of such a military base on New Zealand land should not be permitted. Any patriotic Americans should be expelled from this nation.
Of course. And why ever not?
At all times do your damdest to politically influence by nudging from a distance. Offer to afford an effective, relatively low cost military and political advisory if or when needs be. Promise that you will at least attempt to cater to the local “sovereignty” concept. If necessary, provide an identifiable presence consistent with what you think will be the most favored fruit flavor as an influential major global player. And juggle all of this by trying to do it to them before the opposition does, or tries to do, by walking and promising larger or more succulent cherries or another fruity delight additional to any official deal proposal placed on the table.
If that fails, offer brute force and a share of the joy in an attempt to appeal to their (the host in waiting’s) own power play for profit fantasies.
What’s new? Is someone trying to seriously suggest that the Solomon Islands representatives are just dumbed down, dumb arse natives without personal profit ambitions and without any knowledge of both “worldly trade affairs” and the global power game?
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