TE24 International Desk:
Honiara, Solomon Islands: A senior US diplomat visited the Solomon Islands on Sunday to mark the 80th anniversary of the World War II Battle of Guadalcanal to speak of a new struggle against a violent, power-hungry government. A warning for the Pacific Islands.
As Chinese forces conduct military exercises around Taiwan and Russia bombs Ukraine, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is calling for a new generation of world leaders who want to revive a “bankrupt” approach to the use of force. Criticized us harshly.
Sherman, who visited a battlefield memorial in the Solomon Islands, said “some people around the world” have forgotten the cost of war or ignored the lessons of the past. Without naming names, it is “leaders who believe that coercion, pressure and violence are tools they can use with impunity.” Leading the US delegation.
A brutal seven-month battle on land, sea and air between Allied and Japanese forces killed thousands of soldiers, most of them Japanese, and marked a turning point in the war.
A second State Department bureau today described the situation as a faint echo of its 1930-40s struggle against Nazism and the Japanese Empire, prompting the region to strike back. We remember how bankrupt and empty such opinions were.
Today we again face a different kind of war.
Sherman’s visit comes as the United States seeks to reestablish diplomatic ties in a region where China is growing stronger and building a democratic alliance. I was startled. Nowhere is the decline of America’s regional influence more evident than in the Solomon Islands.
Prime Minister Manse Sogavel’s government recently signed a secret security deal with Beijing, took steps to limit press freedom and proposed postponing elections. Without naming himself, Sherman again told the host,
We want to maintain a society where it is up to us to decide whether people want to speak their minds freely.
Time to do it. To the people.
Cautiously, Sherman said Washington would seek cooperation with “vital” Pacific islands, including opening embassies in Tonga, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands. As part of the glamor offensive, US President Joe Biden plans to invite Pacific Island heads of state and government to a summit at the White House in September.
