The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

While the western media agonises over Russia’s supposedly out-of-the-blue intervention in a war that their audiences probably do not realise has been going on since 2014, half a world away events are transpiring that show the staggering hypocrisy and double standards that neo-colonial politicians in certain countries continue to press upon the world.

The tiny Solomon Islands, plagued by internal strife and economic insecurity, have entered a security pact with their regional giant, China, with which it has a benign, respectful and mutually beneficial relationship. Under the plan, China would assist with security and be given access to naval bases for its expanding fleet.

Incredibly (though unsurprisingly) the very powers loudly deploring Russia’s ‘red line’ against Ukraine joining NATO as an unacceptable infringement on its sovereignty are now scrambling to prevent the Solomon Islands from exercising the same sovereignty.

Australia is fuming and threatening the little country with reprisals of all sorts, while the USA has dispatched senior officials for high level “talks”. One suspects that these “talks” will resemble those between a mafia capo and a delinquent small businessman whom he “protects”.

Western politicians need to stop pretending that the world is theirs to control and bully and concentrate instead on the increasing stagnation, political alienation and income disparities of their own countries.

In a 2019 telephone conversation between Donald Trump and Jimmy Carter (the only two peaceful US presidents of my lifetime), the former asked the latter (who had normalised diplomatic relations with China in 1979) why he thought that once-impoverished country was “getting ahead of us”.

Carter, who confessed afterwards that he saw no threat in China’s rise, offered a simple explanation to the then-incumbent president: “Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed at war”.

He pointed out that while China has spent its resources on infrastructure and education rather than defence, the United States, once the epicentre of the rail industry, cannot today boast one single mile of high speed rail, but has spent an estimated three trillion dollars on war.

Trump clearly listened. His administration, whatever the theatrics, was focused on where it should be (on the American people) rather than on the dictates of either the military industrial complex or Euro-centric clubs (like NATO and the G7), yearning for their colonial pasts and using American taxpayers and soldiers to bully the world into accepting it.

2024 sounds like a long time to wait for that kind of sanity to return to world affairs.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

April 24, 2022.