China have signed a new security pact in the Pacific region with the Solomon Islands, the first of its kind in the region.
The agreement signed with the Solomon Islands allows China to use its military to protect the safety of Chinese ships and projects in the Solomon Islands by allowing Chinese naval assets to port at the Solomon Islands. This is less then 2000 kilometres off the Australian shoreline.
Also, in the agreement the Solomon Islands may request China to send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces to protect the Solomon Islands.
One political commentator in Australia believes the deal is so serious that we should be willing to invade the Solomon Islands and topple its government to prevent the deal going ahead.
David Llewellyn-Smith, the founding publisher of MacroBusiness and the former owner of the largest Asia Pacific foreign affairs journal The Diplomat called this āAustraliaās Cuban missile crisisā
Llewellyn-Smith went on to write āChina will have parked an enormous stationary aircraft carrier within direct striking distance of every eastern Australian city.ā
āThere is no way that Australia can allow this deal to proceed. If it must, the nation should invade and capture Guadalcanal such that we engineer regime change in Honiara. There are other soft power levers to pull first and we should pull them forcefully. But we should also immediately begin amassing an amphibious invasion force to add pressure.ā
The Australian government released a statement thought the Department of Foreign Affairs, part of it addressed the concerns, āWe would be concerned by any actions that destabilise the security of our region.ā
