Let Solomon Islands choose its alliances freely

Hysterical responses to the Solomon Islands signing a security agreement with China reveal hypocrisy over the Ukraine crisis of 2014 and subsequent conflict of 2022.

NATO’s Secretary General stated that the defining struggle in the world has become one of big powers forcing smaller powers to serve their interests, or letting them choose their own path, arguing that the Western alliance group is firmly in favour of free choice.

The argument was clear: Russia was behaving very irregularly and violating national sovereignty, by expecting to have any say on hostile troop deployments into countries adjacent to it.

Nothing At All Treaty Organisation

Unfortunately for NATO, such firm principles for which the world's most powerful military alliance stood were inadvertently denounced and shown to be utter nonsense by NATO countries. As soon as the Solomon Islands chose to align with China on its own free will, the US issued warnings of unspecified consequences. Therefore, it became suddenly unacceptable for nations to align in any way against others.

The hypocrisy on display now proves that the attempt of NATO governments to stand and fight for any set of principles at all could not last much more than a couple of months. This powerful alliance is proved to not stand for anything, much as the US’s own ideology is confused and America immediately steps on its own commitments like rakes, as soon as it tries to lay them down.

Menaces to democracy

The Solomon Islands may have chosen to side with China entirely of its own free will. Ukraine, in contrast, only sought alignment with NATO and the EU after extensive interference in its internal affairs and a violent takeover supervised by Western officials in 2014.

The Solomon Islands is now to be portrayed as some sort of threat to democracy, merely by the fact it is inconvenient to the West (i.e. "democracy"). In reality, the country is a democracy threatened by coercive Western powers that clearly have no interest in the wishes of the people.

One would be wise to expect fake mass protests sponsored and led from US diplomatic buildings in the Solomon Islands, covered by all the cable news channels and praised by them. In addition, expect any scale of bribery and attempts to subvert the wishes of the people of that land, perhaps in the months or even weeks to come.