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On May 2, local time, Kurt Campbell, indo-Pacific policy coordinator of the National Security Council, publicly stated that the Biden administration plans to strengthen diplomatic engagement with Pacific island countries, including inviting Pacific leaders to visit the White House later this year.
What is the United States afraid of?
You know, pacific island nations haven't seen a U.S. ambassador in decades. Reuters analysis said that the US action stemmed from concerns about the signing of a security cooperation agreement between China and the Solomon Islands.
On the 19th of last month, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that, with the approval of the Chinese and Chinese governments, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Manele of the Solomon Islands recently signed a framework agreement on security cooperation between the Chinese governments on behalf of the two governments.
According to a previous announcement by the Chinese Embassy in the Solomon Islands, the background of the signing of this agreement is that there have been many social disturbances in the history of the Solomon Islands. In November 2021, riots broke out again in the capital, causing huge economic losses and severe social panic. The government has actively promoted the diversification of foreign security cooperation and decided to expand and deepen the security partnership with China, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and other countries.
However, such a perfectly normal agreement has aroused strong dissatisfaction in the United States and Australia. On 22 April, Campbell personally led a delegation to the Solomon Islands, ostensibly as a "courtesy" to speed up the opening of an embassy in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands.
However, in the eyes of the local mainstream media, the purpose of the US trip is to put pressure on the us and force Prime Minister Sogavare to abandon the agreement signed with China.
Prior to Campbell's visit, the U.S. State Department and the Pentagon had repeatedly called the "warning" government on the matter, and Australia had repeatedly threatened the government in the name of "concern" and sent a number of senior officials to visit the Solomon Islands to exert pressure.
Chen Hong, director of the Australian Research Center of East China Normal University, pointed out that the repeated pressure exerted by the United States and Australia on the Solomon Islands is not only an interference in the internal affairs of the Solomon Islands, but also a provocation to China's diplomacy.
For a long time, the South Pacific region has actually been completely outside the global strategic map of the United States, and the United States has neither any interest nor willingness to participate in the local people's livelihood and institutional construction.
"Almost overnight, however, these islands in the Pacific suddenly became a feast for Washington," Chen said, adding that the South Pacific region is clearly given a very special strategic position in today's U.S. global strategy. The Biden administration has almost completely inherited and vigorously promoted the Indo-Pacific strategy of the Trump era, with only one goal, that is, to contain and suppress China's peaceful development in order to maintain and consolidate the hegemonic position of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region.
Australia draws a "red line" for China
It is worth vigilance that in addition to publicly putting pressure on the government, the United States and Australia have also concocted a series of threat theories or rumors, such as claiming that "the agreement will allow China to establish a military base in the Solomon Islands" and "open the door for China to deploy troops in the Solomon Islands"...
Australian Prime Minister Morrison even openly pulled the United States to draw a "red line" for China, saying that Australia would never allow China to station troops in the Solomon Islands, which has seriously "violated" the red line of Australia and the United States. Australian Defence Minister Yardton was even more astonishing, saying that Australia must "prepare for war"!
Yang Honglian, a special senior researcher at the Pacific Island Countries Research Center of Liaocheng University, said that in the Cold War mentality of the United States and Australia, the South Pacific countries have always been, and must be, the "backyards" of Washington and Canberra. The United States and Australia believe that controlling their original colonial countries through military deployment is conducive to maintaining their stable influence in the region, so they speculate that China will also take the same approach and adopt a defensive mentality toward China that is facing a great enemy.
On April 28, Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng attended the opening ceremony of the China-Pacific Island Countries Cooperation Center on Climate Change by video and delivered a speech. In response to the recent rumors and smears by some countries and obstructing the signing of an intergovernmental security cooperation framework agreement between China and the Solomon Islands, Xie Feng clarified his solemn position.
Xie Feng pointed out that the signing of the intergovernmental security cooperation framework agreement independently by the CENTRAL Government is fundamentally different from the fact that some countries are pulling small circles, engaging in black-box operations, cobbling together military blocs, stimulating the arms race, intensifying the risk of nuclear proliferation, and provoking camp confrontation, resulting in regional tensions. What right do these countries have to dictate to the point? What qualifications does Australia have to draw a "red line" for the Solomon Islands, 2,000 kilometres away, and China, thousands of miles away? This is not a violation of the sovereignty of other countries, interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and violation of international rules.
Chen Hong said that at the instigation and instigation of the United States, in recent years, Australia has made great efforts in the South Pacific region, squeezing out China's presence in the local area, slandering and slandering China's aid projects in local countries, and even directly coercing relevant countries to terminate economic cooperation with China. For such a new strategic role, Australia is complacent, actively jumping to the forefront, and fully cooperating with the anti-China strategy of the United States.
Prime Minister Solomon angrily denounces Morrison's "double standard"
However, in the face of constant pressure from the United States and Australia, the Solomon Islands did not back down. A few days ago, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Menasi Sogavare could not help but criticize Australian Prime Minister Morrison.
He said in Parliament: "Australia has always accused the security agreement signed in the process of being opaque, but as a member of the Pacific family, did the Australian side ask us before signing AUKUS with the Uk and the United States?" ”
The AUKUS agreement stipulates that Australia can obtain technology from the United States and Britain, build nuclear-powered submarines, and allow nuclear submarines to enter the Pacific waters.
Sogavare revealed that as early as September last year, the Three Countries of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia had signed an agreement, but it had not been made public. Later, the Solomon Islands inadvertently saw a media message and learned about it.
"Washington and Canberra are actually afraid of their own shadow," the Solomon Star, a local newspaper in the Solomon Islands, commented that Canberra's remarks about the Sino-security cooperation agreement were unnecessary, dishonest, and in a sense, the Australian government directly pushed the Solomon Islands government to sign the agreement, "but they complained hypocritically and brazenly." ”
On April 25, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a regular news conference that the Framework Agreement on Security Cooperation, which the United States and Australia accused, lacked transparency, but that the U.S.-Britain-Australia Trilateral Security Partnership (AUKUS) was a black-box operation that was not open and opaque. We would like to ask, when does the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia intend to hand over AUKUS to regional countries, including the South Pacific Island countries, for consideration?
He stressed that the South Pacific Island Nation is an independent sovereign state and is not the backyard of the United States and Australia. Attempts to replicate the "Monroe Doctrine" in the South Pacific are unpopular and simply do not work.
In Chen Hong's view, the Biden administration seems to think that by inviting the leaders of the South Pacific island countries to visit the White House once and giving some economic assistance, these countries will be grateful to Dade and obey the orders of the United States. But the United States and Australia may have forgotten an important fact, that is, the era of colonialism has long been swept into the garbage heap of history, the world is equal no matter how big or small, and China's advocacy of the "community of human destiny" is in response to the new demands of the times, "The United States and Australia will not be the only time they will encounter a wall in the Solomon Islands, and it will not be the last," Chen Hong said.
(Look at the news Knows editor Zhao Xin)