Communist Chinese and Nationalist Chinese/Taiwanese meddling in the domestic politics of the independent states of the Pacific gives the lie to their publicly proclaimed policy of 'non-interference' in the internal affairs of other sovereign countries. Both Chinese governments are quite arrant and unabashed hypocrites.

With chequebook in hand, the Communist and Nationalist Chinese/Taiwanese have successfully corrupted and attempted to subvert the government of the Solomon Islands and other Pacific states for both Chinese states' own self-interested and malign purposes. Both Chinas ought to mind their own business and leave the Pacific states to determine their own future.

In the end, it will be the ethnic Chinese communities of the Pacific that will be forced to pay the price for both Chinese states' manipulation and meddling in the internal politics of the sovereign Pacific states. Peking and Taipei would do well to remember that.

"Nationalist Chinese/Taiwanese" is a curious formulations. Not one I've seen before. Anyhow, the Nationalists were voted out of power in Taiwan in 2000.

This piece doesn't really tell us anything, unfortunately, but at least aportions blame between both Taipei and Beijing.

let them decide for themselves there proably going to have a war soon anyway

Of course "Australia" would.. so we can do the same chequebook diplomacy for OUR OWN interests.

Its ok for us to be part of the Commonwealth which forced the Chinese at the point of a gun to consume hundreds of tons of opium so the Sasoon family and the British crown could have more money to swim in, but its not ok for the Chinese to use a few bucks to get some influence in our backyard ? haha !

Cheep..cheep...thats the sound of the 'chickens of history' coming home to roost.

Sure... lets struggle to keep them out, but NOT delude ourselves into thinking we occupy some superior moral ground in doing so.

Gosh I agree with David. There is no moral high ground left for a country that stole $300 million from the Iraqi people as they starved to death and gave it to the same butcher who had been tormenting them for over 30 years.

The self-righteous rantings of Downer strike me as quite ludicrous - the man can't even bother to read cables telling him things are crook.

Not only that but surely cheque book diplomacy is better any day than bombs and bullets diplomacy as we have engaged in In Iraq and Afghanistan.

One man's development aid is another man's chequebook diplomacy. One man's mini Marshall plan is another's infernal meddling.

Why do we have this insatiable desire to interfere in other peoples' affairs? By all means, follow our charitable instincts where it is appropriate to do so, but for heaven's sake let's not pretend that our money is somehow holier than anyone else's. Or that there isn't some ulterior motive to any funding we, or anyone else, cares to commit.

Providing financial support together with a quid pro quo has been standard international behaviour for millennia. The Romans used it to great effect in both Britannia and Gaul, for example. To somehow insist that there is a difference between our clean, free-of-strings-attached dollars and those tainted and corrupt dollars from another nation is the arrogant and insensitive standpoint for which we are rapidly becoming famous in the region.