Andrew Bolt: Be afraid, very afraid, of China’s deal with the Solomons

The Chinese naval base in the Solomons would complete China’s encirclement of Australia. This is about money and power. Wake up, Australia.

Happy with the Budget handouts? The cheaper petrol? The “cost of living” giveaways? And more huge funding for the global warming scare?

Well, sorry to interrupt the party, but here’s a news flash from the real world: we’re being surrounded by China’s navy.

You probably heard last week about China’s draft military agreement with the Solomon Islands to our north east, a medium-range missile from Brisbane and Sydney.

But you probably haven’t heard the alarming catch in that deal that would allow China to send in troops to the Solomons on a pretext.

Nor will you have read that a Chinese naval base in the Solomons would complete China’s encirclement of Australia, giving it the power to cut us off from every direction.

Check the map.

While we’ve been partying with money borrowed from our grandkids, China’s communist dictatorship has been working on its declared plan to dominate the world by 2049, the centenary of its takeover of Beijing.

It already has its own port in Sri Lanka and hopes for another in the Maldives, where it bought a small island.

Chinese President Xi Jinping shakes hands with Prime Minister Manasseh Damukana Sogavare of the Solomon Islands. Picture: Getty Images

Chinese ship there could cut off our shipping coming from the West, around India.

China also has a new naval port in Djibouti and is building another port in Gwadar, Pakistan. Chinese ships there could cut off supplies coming through the Suez Canal.

China has also built artificial islands with naval bases in the South China Sea, and is dredging Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base under a deal that reportedly gives China’s navy access, too. Ships at those bases could cut off our supplies from the north – from countries such as Japan, Malaysia and South Korea which supply half our petrol.

That’s left only our shipping lanes from the east – across the Pacific – free from a potential Chinese blockade, but now China’s draft deal with the Solomons threatens even those.

As China has grown stronger and more aggressive, it’s demanded more from its navy.

China’s Defence White Paper in 2019 announced it now wanted a “world-class” military capable of “protecting overseas interests”.

Those interests include Chinese workers.

Which brings me to the catch in this draft deal between China and the Solomons.

This deal doesn’t just suggest the possibility of a Chinese naval base, saying:

“China may … make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in and have stopover and transition in the Solomon Islands”, which will provide “all necessary facilities”.

It also suggests a Chinese military intervention. It says the Solomon Islands may “request China to send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces” to keep “social order”, adding that “the relevant forces of China can be used to protect the safety of Chinese personnel and major projects”.

Royal Solomon Islands Police Force shows China Police Liason Team officers training local officers in drill, unarmed combat skills, advanced usage of long sticks, round shields, tactical batons, T-shape baton, handcuffs, basic rifle tactics and crowd control. Picture: AFP

Yes, this deal implies China can do that only with the Solomon Islands’ permission, but in a country riddled with corruption, that permission could be cheap to buy.

What’s more, the excuse for China to send troops to protect “Chinese personnel and major projects” will never be far away.

Just last November, anti-government rioters burned down much of Chinatown in Honiara, the Solomons’ capital, killing three people. Chinatown was also torched in 2006.

The next time might be all the excuse China’s army needs to step in.

To all this, our own Prime Minister is pleading with the islanders to remember who gives most cash.

“We are the Solomon Islands’ single largest development partner,” Scott Morrison said.

Trouble is, we don’t pay off foreign leaders. China does.

Check how Chinese companies funded the election campaign of former China-friendly President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. Picture: Mick Tsikas

Meanwhile, Labor leader Anthony Albanese seems determined to play dumb.

Talk about weak on China.

To Albanese, a global warming dupe, the solution is simple: “One of the ways in which we counter what is going on, which is strategic competition in our region, is by being taken seriously as leaders in our region on climate.”

How moronic.

To the Pacific, climate change is not a threat but a fantastic excuse to gouge more money from the supposedly guilty West.

Auckland University research confirms that for every low-lying Pacific island supposedly “sinking” under rising seas, another three are growing, and three more not changing in size.

And if the Solomons’ big worry is global warming, why is it cuddling up to China, the world’s biggest emitter by far?

No, this is about money and power, not global warming. No time now for foolishness or parties on borrowed money. Wake up, Australia.