Secret Diplomacy
| 12:01 UK time, Friday, 21 April 2006
Contender for most intriguing story amongst all those strong news lines we've been following this week is what's happening in the Solomon Islands.
As we heard from New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, the involvement of the Taiwanese in the politics of a remote nation of half-a-million people has been part of the reason for the troubles.
Rioters have burned and looted Chinese shops in the capital, Honiara, because, it's alleged, the Taiwanese gave money to the party of Snyder Rini, the new prime minister.
The opposition objected to the influence that money had on the election. Opposition supporters on the mostly Chinese shop owners.
As PM Clark told us, no one wants a failed state in a part of the Pacific that is important strategically, because of its proximity to trade routes, and important for its oil potential.
Taiwanese money has created problems for small countries in the past.
Macedonia suffered from a by the People's Republic on the continuation of a conflict prevention mission.
Macedonia's new post-Yugoslav government had accepted aid from Taiwan.
Mediation between the Macedonians, who are Slavic, and the minority Albanian population was harder following the pullout of the UNPREDEP force following the veto in 1999.
War broke out in 2001.
Taiwan also gave funds to the Pacific island state of Palau. Taiwan targetted the new nation from its beginning, apparently, with the official Taiwanese delegation to the inaugural independence celebrations in 1981 going through the receiving line twice so they would be noticed, according .
Most of Palau's tourists now come from Taiwan.
But now the mainland Chinese are striking back, with a big hotel building project funded by a Shanghai based company.
And the riots in the Solomons may be the sign of in the region and not just 'a little local difficulty'.
Comments
It is not totally unexpected that someone would blame the Chinese/Taiwanese for the problems recently experienced here. However just consider this. If you had spent several million AU$ over a period of 3 years, had poured in your "finest" and most able personel over the same period to rebuild a shattered nation, had informed the whole world of what a wonderful job you were doing in the country, wouldn't you want to blame some one else when it all went "belly up" and the country ended up in a far worse state than it ever was before your "help" arrived. Yes, certain Solomon Islanders have their own agenda and want to wreck the process of rebuilding that is/was going on here but do not blame other countries for failures that you could have, should have prevented.Chopstick diplomacy is not responsible for the riots and damage which occurred in Honiara. There clearly has been a massive failure by the more recent members of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI)which severely threatens the huge amount of good work done by the earlier members of RAMSI in 2003.