It’s taken some time for political journalists to wake up to the magnitude of the disaster that is the agreement between the Solomon Islands and China — and the fact that the Morrison government is in absolute chaos over it.
Some foreign policy and defence specialists immediately understood the impact of the agreement — the ABC’s Andrew Greene and Stephen Dziedzic especially. But it’s taken the best part of a month — and a flurry of activity in Washington, and belatedly in Canberra — to wake up political journalists who have been readily transmitting the idea that the government’s “strong on China” tactic would be an electoral winner.
In fact, far from being tough on China, Morrison, Dutton and church mouse Foreign Minister Marise Payne have spectacularly failed, allowing the establishment of a Chinese base in the Pacific — and had no clue it was happening until a draft agreement was leaked on social media.
Journalists are also only now working out that it is Australia’s high-handedness in the Pacific, and its willingness to pursue its own interests at the expense of Pacific states, that has prompted the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to look elsewhere. As Crikey explained to readers early last week, this is a disaster long in the making.
It’s impossible, however, to work out exactly how seriously the government views the agreement. While Washington, aghast at Australia’s failure, was preparing to dispatch top Indo-Pacific diplomat Kurt Campbell to the region, what was the Morrison government doing? It first dispatched two intelligence chiefs — the head of ASIS Paul Symon and National Intelligence Director Andrew Shearer — to find out what was going on, a complete humiliation for an organisation that seems perfectly fine at bugging regional states’ cabinet rooms if it helps Woodside, but learns of major strategic setbacks to Australia on social media like the rest of us.
Luckily, there is zero accountability for ASIS, which can operate without any scrutiny or examination of any kind, so no one will ever be required to answer for this.
The government then dispatched junior minister Zed Seselja to the Solomon Islands to try to persuade Prime Minister Sogavare to abandon the deal, unsuccessfully. Seselja is a heavyweight in the tiny ACT Liberal Party — he has turned it into an unelectable claque of right-wing zealots that are now in their third decade out of power — but a minnow in Parliament House, and he is in danger of the impossible outcome of actually losing what should be a guaranteed ACT Liberal Senate seat.
Where was Marise Payne? Too busy election campaigning — even after her predecessor Julie Bishop said she should be on the first plane to Honiara.
To be fair to the Morrison government, others weren’t so sanguine. The deputy prime minister warned in the days after the news broke that China was “going through the process of trying to restrict our capacity of movement and intimidate us”. Yesterday Barnaby Joyce went further, saying the deal, now ratified, “will be, absolutely, that’s a very bad day for Australia. We don’t want our own little Cuba off our coast.”
This forced Seselja to effectively correct the deputy leader of the government, saying “we are a long way from that”.
And what did the government know and when did it know it? The Solomon Islands opposition leader says he warned Australia last year about the deal, but the government is denying that. Yesterday Seselja clearly said the government was taken by surprise — “we found out about it when we saw that leaked draft”, suggesting a profoundly humiliating failure by our intelligence services. But at the same time, Morrison suggested the government had known of the issue for many years, and it was no surprise to them, even if Labor was surprised by it.
So who is lying, Zed Seselja, or the prime minister?
The deputy prime minister regards it as a disaster, equivalent to Castro taking over Cuba. The prime minister and foreign minister, however, appear to regard it as a relatively minor matter, sufficient only to send a low-level minister over to remonstrate — possibly because sending Payne herself might have been a major embarrassment if Sogavare had formalised the agreement right after her visit, which is likely.
It’s noteworthy that the media took so long to work all this out — it’s almost as if journalists have accepted the government’s own “tough on China” rhetoric as their mental guide to foreign policy, assuming that it’s impossible for Morrison to fail in any way to be as harsh as possible on China.
That mental guide is all the more ironic given that until 2016 the Coalition was ostentatiously pro-China, happily signing deals left and right with the Xi Jinping regime, and even happy for Chinese companies to buy major infrastructure.
It also reflects the close relationship between commercial media foreign policy journalists and intelligence agencies — the former effectively operate as stenographers of the latter. When intelligence agencies fail, even spectacularly, the last people you can expect to report this are their handmaidens.
The “first priority of my government is to keep Australians safe”. So Scott Morrison stated only recently. Obviously, Morrison does not see the need to extend this to the very real dangers Australians face right on their door steps. Many people who need not have died of COVID19 did so under Morrison’s watch. The best he and Hunt could offer was that many of the aged care residents who died were going to die soon anyway. This is why an enquiry into Australia’s response to COVID19 is essential.
Now we come to the present day debacle of the Solomon Islands. Big talking Morrison minus baseball cap and peanut head Dutton huff and puff at China relentlessly in an attempt to show Australians what ‘big’ men they are. The attack on China regarding COVID19 being a prime example, rather than issue a statement in concert with other European nations and the US Morrison could hardly hold back from yet another photo shoot opportunity and play ‘John Wayne’ to the Australian public. ‘No wonder China now views us is such a poor and hostile light.
No one is advocating that one should go light on China or simply adopt a policy of appeasement. But deft diplomacy is a skill that often may achieve decided goals. However, this is a foreign concept to bully boys like Morrison and Dutton. The two imbeciles were obviously ignorant of US President Theodore Roosevelt who famously stated in a 1901 speech “Speak softly and carry a big stick — you will go far.” Well for a start bullies want to show off so there is desire to speak softly but the two fools were not even carry any semblance of ‘a big stick’ in fact just the opposite.
Why the hell should the Solomon Islands or any other Pacific nation give Australia special treatment when it comes to foreign policy formation? Australia has shown by its pathetic climate change non policy that it could not give a rat’s a…. about the impacts this will have on many Pacific nations. Not to mention the Australian government’s drawn out and secretive witch hunt against Bernard Collaerylong over the Timor-Leste scandal. This episode showed just how far Australia was prepared to go in order to ‘screw’ over a far weaker and poorer Pacific nation.
Hey with friends like that I can why even China must be looking good
All true. The biggest falsehood concealed in Morrison’s shameless boast, the “first priority of my government is to keep Australians safe” is his refusal to act on global heating. There’s a consensus among security and defence experts all around the world that global heating is the root cause of the greatest threats we currently face, Australia is particularly at risk and the consequences of failing to act are irreversible; but the Morrison Gang only pours fuel on the fire. That’s not keeping us safe, it’s destroying us.
Hopefully Sogavare will tell China that its contribution to global heating (>30 times that of Australia) has to change ASAP.
And maybe China will listen? Morrison won’t. And even if China’s ‘contribution’ is 30 times Australia’s, it’s population is about 60 times, so Australia is far ahead in its reckless addiction to carbon.
China has both a larger population and a lower level of economic development than Australia. Yet it is already doing more to curb their total and per capita emissions than Australia has done in the last decade.
China may well contribute 30 times more to climate change than Australia but they have more than 30 times more people!
Human population numbers are irrelevant. It’s the net CO2 emissions that count towards the greenhouse effect.
The last two el Nino years and the relatively large amount of plant growth over that time have probably meant that the Australian continent has pulled more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it has put in.
Human population numbers are quite relevant or should we all cull our populations by 50%?
Is that you, Windyshuffle?
Very funny. And that, I suppose, is your reason why Aussies should enjoy lives of carbon-intensive luxury without a thought for the rest of the planet (and ourselves ironically) and leave the poor bloody Asians to do all the work. What makes some Aussies think they are so superior and entitled?
And they make energy intensive stuff for us to consume.
Mostly using resources bought from us for a fraction of the value added price of said stuff.
The LNP govt consistently dismisses Pacific countries’ pleas that Australia act on global heating—top issue for leaders at every Forum meeting for decades now—and seems not to realise the bitter resentment it causes. China endorses the scientific consensus and is actively working to reduce its emissions.
Place the words ” the big” in front of the word Australian and the PM’s real intent is shown.
Late Again. How long will the right-wing media continue to support the most corrupt government in the post-WW2 era?
All talk and the only action we ever see from our Teflon coated PM is To Slo, Too little or on behalf of the Fossil fuel industry to the benefit of the Fat coal miner and the Greedy Grandma .
We have seen enough of the consequences of the failure to address Climate Change over the last three years. Our PM has shown indifference to the fact and uses his fake figures to support his position. We are in fact possibly the greatest threat to the world climate as the pigs of the Pacific and the major exporter of fossil fuel
With all the PM’s promises and alleged facts he must be judged as untruthful and is not worthy of the task of governing this country.
The Coalition gives the Chinese a 99-year lease on the Port of Darwin, allows the Chinese to begin the process of building a naval base on our door step and behind these appalling decisions is the Liberal /CP coalition. And the PM claims the opposition is weak on national security. Our main ally in the Pacific the USA is now having to clean up Morrisons’ blunders.
Dog whistling on China, and arrogant disregard of Pacific nations shows how totally inept this LNP mob is. Zero diplomatic skills…..or even interest…
Completely unsurprising from this arrogant, incompetent and self absorbed “government”.
Stop complimenting our corrupt government .
Sogavare is playing it smart. He is now going to play off Australia, the US and China. Funny how Australia is now in a froth an lather meltdown because a small sovereign nation is acting in its own self interest rather than ours. I doubt he will go all in with China and I expect China does not expect he will do that also. But China is keen to play the game. Sogavare is keen to extract benefits from all parties. The recent riots instigated by the US, Australia and Taiwan have demonstrated to him how vulnerable and captured the Solomon Islands are by foreign(US and Australian) interests that will never let them rise beyond subsistence economy status. The US and Australia will go to any lengths to destabilise and harm his country to maintain control but a security agreement with China now makes it much harder to interfere with impunity. Expect a ‘friendly’ visit from a Chinese warship to Honiara before our election just to make life a little more difficult for Morrison, Dutton and Co.
Someone should sent Morrison and Payne a copy of The Mouse That Roared.
Spot on
Someone should have told Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton that France is a nuclear power and has 1.5 million citizens in the Pacific and is the only European country with a permanent territorial and military presence there and that President Macron was committed (reinforced publicly in 2018 at the Cenotaph in Sydney) to a strategic alliance with Australia.
They should have known that French warships and troops would be given guaranteed access to Australian naval bases and military sites under a proposal being discussed by both countries and that Australian and French troops had conducted joint exercises in Queensland as recently as August. They should also have known that France has a strategic alliance with India recently replacing Russian-made aircraft with French Rafale fighters.
All this is extremely important to Australia given the child-like and inane mishandling of our relationship with China and should have been taken in to account in the way we approached a good friend and ally in France. Australia needs the goodwill of France more than ever now
The only UK territory left in the Pacific is the Pitcairn Islands – British Overseas Territory. In the India Ocean they have Diego Garcia – British Indian Ocean Territory. Whereas, as you point out, France actually has skin left in the game both sides of the maritime continent and would be a much more significant ally when it comes to shared interests in the Indo Pacific region. Furthermore, having an additional P5 member as a very close friend and ally makes a lot of sense. We can only hope that the next Labor govt can repair the incredible damage this series of LNP govts has done to our national security.
Odd that you mention Diego Garcia, which Britain leased to the hegemon – in perpetuity for a peppercorn rent – after deporting all the islanders in 1973.
It has become one of the most important US military facilities in the world, the foundation stone of the US presence in the Indian Ocean region,
That British Overseas Territory has become one of the most important US military facilities in the world, the foundation stone of the hegemon’s presence in the Indian Ocean region.
OK, it seems that the name of that BOT is freaking the madBot.
Britain leased to the USA in perpetuity for a peppercorn rent in 1973.
To do so it had to first get rid of all the inhabitants and is still defying the International Court of Justice, which delivered an advisory opinion in favour of the erstwhile inhabitants.
In May this year the United Nations General Assembly, by an extraordinary margin of 116 for to 6 against, voted on a deadline for Britain to return of the territory to Mauritius. Australia, the USA and a handful of countries supported Britain.
The UN deadline predictably passed on 22 November without any action or even formal response from London.
Apologies for this multi series of posts but 7 previous attempts have been embargoed by the madBot so it was a matter of eliminated possible offending terms.
Needless to say they were all normal words in everyday use and NO WICKED COMBO of EVIL LETTERS that I could see buried within.
It will be interesting to see IF they are eventually released.
$10 to your favourite charity for each word/term that anyone can spot which credibly explains why they were withheld.
Could one of the forbidden words be deported?
Yep, found one of the FORBIDDEN WORDS – the one normally ending the 3 word phrase Torres Strait ……… to describe the inhabitants!
So here is the original post, sans the WICKED WORD.
Odd that you mention Diego Garcia, which Britain leased to the hegemon – in perpetuity for a peppercorn rent – in 1973 after all the descendants of the indentured labourers who serviced the coconut plantations were removed from the island.
It has become one of the most important US military facilities in the world, the foundation stone of the US presence in the Indian Ocean region.
Odd that you mention Diego Garcia, which Britain leased to the hegemon – in perpetuity for a peppercorn rent – in 1973 after all the descendants of the indentured labourers who serviced the coconut plantations were removed from the island.
It has become one of the most important US military facilities in the world, the foundation stone of the US presence in the Indian Ocean region.
Two points well worth making: one about DG, the other about the whimsical Bot. Full marks for perseverance.