For years, the tinpot panjandrums of mendicant Pacific banana republics have been playing off their traditional backers in the West against their brand-new sugar daddy, China. These cargo cultists, ever-eager for the gibsmedat, have thrown in their lot with China, both hands out.
They may come to regret it.
A Chinese program in Solomon Islands is fingerprinting the nation’s citizens and getting them to fill out household registration cards under the guise of “community policing”.
The Chinese police liaison team is working with local counterparts to roll out the program, based on Mao Zedong’s “Fengqiao model” in which citizens kept tabs on each other during the Cultural Revolution.
Welcome to “Xi Jinping Thought”, you greedy loons.
The initiative, billed as a way to resolve conflicts, manage populations and protect local communities, has shocked Solomon Islands opposition figures, who warned it was an infringement of citizens’ rights and likely illegal.
The Solomon Islands government said a pilot program commenced last week with Chinese police explaining the basics of the scheme including “filling out household registration cards and population information cards, drawing community maps, and collecting fingerprints and palm prints”.
It’s just the start.
Chinese Police Inspector Lin Jiamu said the initiative, rolled out initially in a village near Honiara, “will be expanded to a larger area across the country in the future, thereby comprehensively enhancing the community management capabilities and safety levels”.
This is the language of authoritarians everywhere, as Covid taught us.
Opposition MP Peter Kenilorea Jnr said the program was “definitely an infringement into people’s privacy”.
“Why would anybody, unless you are being arrested, surrender to fingerprinting? This is unheard of in the Solomon Islanders context, let alone being promoted by police,” he told the Australian.
“I’m deeply concerned about this. The act of collecting fingerprints is one thing.
“And equally so, the database they seem to be wanting to collect. Where is that going to be held and what will they use it for? I’m just trying to wrap my head around this.”
And, just like that, his social credit score plunged into negative territory.
Another opposition figure, Celsus Talifilu, said the program was “dangerous”.
“In China, such measures are designed to suppress dissent and discourage public protest. If applied uncritically here, they may have the same effect: silencing grievances rather than resolving them,” he said.
That’s not the only way the Solomon’s government is toadying to the communist dictatorship.
Solomon Islands’ pro-China Prime Minister, Jeremiah Manele, has controversially banned the forum’s development and dialogue partners from attending this year’s [Pacific Island’s Forum] to keep out Taiwan.
This just goes to show, when you’re dealing with corrupt, unprincipled mendicants, you end up throwing good money after bad.
According to Lowy Institute’s Pacific Aid Map, Australia spent more than $3bn in Solomon Islands from 2008 to 2022, compared to just $110m by China.
But China is pushing hard to promote its work in the country, especially in law enforcement, following its controversial security agreement signed with Beijing in April 2022.
It’d be almost tempting to leave these grasping fools to stew in their own juices, were it not for the peril of letting China get a strategic toehold on our doorstep.
