In recent times, South Pacific news and academic mutterings have taken on something of the character of a Brothers Grimm tale. The one with Chicken Little or Henny Penny as some label the poor bird hit on the head by a nut.
“The sky is falling,” she proclaims and panics the village and other animals. Depending on the version, the sky does not fall but things end badly for the chicken.
The story comes to mind when, as seems to happen with increasing regularity, word reaches an academic or reporter that China is about to build a military base in the Pacific. They have become so common now that it's often overlooked that the only actual Chinese port facilities are in Darwin, Australia, and Suva, Fiji.
The latest sky falling acorn is the nearly perfectly round volcanic island of Kolombangara. The 687-square kilometre water and timber rich island of 6000 people in the Western District of the Solomon Islands. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation says China Forestry Group Corporation wants to purchase part of it, nominally for its hardwood, but covertly for its anchorage and disused airstrip and all to be a base for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. At this point one is supposed to take a deep breath of Chicken Little horror.
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