It is now certain Australia will spearhead an armed "co-operative intervention" in the violent and lawless Solomon Islands after the plan was backed unanimously by the 16 members of the Pacific Islands Forum, which includes Australia and New Zealand.
But in announcing his country's plan to act, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer took a swipe at the UN which, he said, was totally incapable of acting effectively in this situation. He said multilateralism was increasingly a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy involving internationalism of the lowest common denominator.
"Sovereignty in our view is not absolute," he said.
His words, echoing a similar line coming out of Washington, have stunned politicians and observers. The former Australian ambassador to the UN (and once head of its weapons inspection team in Iraq) Richard Butler described the comments as "the most savage attack on the UN and the principles of international law that we've ever heard from any Australian government."
The Opposition Labor party spokesman on foreign affairs, Kevin Rudd, said: "Downer has forgotten that in one of darkest hours of need in relation to East Timor we needed every ounce of support from the UN."
But there were no apologies from Canberra.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the decision to intervene marked a very significant change in regional policy.
Australia was part of the "coalition of the willing" in the invasion of Iraq, and Howard is reported to have told his party that this time Australia would lead a Pacific version of such a coalition.
It was not in Australia's interests to have a number of failed states in the Pacific he said, as these had the potential to become havens for drug running, money laundering and terrorism.
The size of the Australian commitment to the planned intervention in the Solomons -- Downer calls it a "police operation" -- has been put as high as dozens of police and up to 1,500 Australian defense personnel which makes it almost as large as the country's commitment to the Iraq action in terms of numbers on the ground.
While government sources in Canberra point to the need to deal with unambiguous threats to national security right on Australia's doorstep, the more cynical among observers of Australia's political scene reckon the Solomons action will be used to draw attention away from the failure, so far, to find any of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq used to justify Australia's role in the Gulf War.
But domestic issues aside, the Solomons plan has regionwide backing and while New Zealand has distanced itself from the anti-UN rhetoric coming from Canberra, it has given its total support. It would be hard to do otherwise.
A tradition of ethnic rivalry between the two major Melanesian groups, the geographically dispersed Guadalcanalese and the more settled and concentrated Malaitans degenerated into separatist conflict in 1998. The long-rooted divisions were inflamed by latter-day rivalry over the spoils of the unrestrained logging of island rainforests by a group of Malaysian timber companies.
Hostilities usually take the form of guerrilla-style raids on homes or villages, with kidnappings and murders, often by beheading, now commonplace. This lethal mixture of guns and standover machismo is most prominently personified by militia leader Harold Keke.
But while Australia has nominated finding Keke as its priority, a host of warlords and bandits are the only effective authority over large tracts of this scattered and socially fragmented state.
When the Pacific Forum met last week in Sydney, Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Laurie Chan said it was impossible for its government to meet securely and in one place until this week when it would formally invite Australian-led forces to intervene in its affairs.
"The Cabinet until now cannot even meet in the one place," Chan said. "The prime minister's house has been repeatedly attacked with guns and mortars. Members of the government are being shot at by snipers."
"We cannot even start to fix the economy without establishing law and order," he said.
Fixing the Solomons may require the biblical wisdom of Solomon and the division of the geographically large nation of 500,000 people into two states, although this is not currently seen as practicable in Canberra.
But some things are tragically clear. These recently-pristine rain forest-draped islands have been raped bare of their timber over huge tracts of land, which are now releasing mudslides of top soil into the ocean, destroying reefs and wiping out fishing, both at the commercial and subsistence level.
If nothing is done soon there will be no logging, no fishing and certainly no tourists, and there will not be enough wealth left in the islands to support even the gun dealers.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.