I will stand down from some of my ghastly rhetoric and maybe point to some cold facts.
The Chinese subs are so powerful they can fire a multiple re-entry nuclear missile with a radius of 8000 kms.
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Liberation_Army_Navy_Submarine_Force
So no one should fall into the trap of thinking that they need the Solomons for a military base.
They can hit the continental usa from Chinese waters and they could finish us off too.
I guess having a base closer is better from a conventional arms and weapons perspective, but they don’t have to load up a nuke onto said sub to inflict serious harm on us.
They have some fine fighter aircraft and a long-standing relationship with Russia on weapons systems etc.
So perhaps a lot of the debate is just posturing and defensively …..immaterial.
Politically it is very troublesome and I mostly care about it terms of more of our resources being swallowed up in lieu of better uses.
It’s a tricky one.
It could a strategic thing to “creep out” the pacific and maybe build a few islands.
But economically, if there is any country that is geared to develop another it is probably China. I’ve been there, as a people, they are unbelievably industrious and enterprising. They are very experienced in these developing country frolics.
The Solomons needs to appreciate that we have a press here that is ferocious, self serving, entirely unethical and not wholly controlled by the state. That’s the way it is.
They should have expected our journos to go ballistic but …they can suck it up on the basis that we get flogged by our press every minute of the day.
Australian fighter jets are sophisticated, stealthy and top shelf.
A couple of fly overs of downtown Honiara might give the Solly people the impetus to start a coup and invite Australian troops in to occupy the country to restore democratic government and hold fresh elections.
