China's bumbling adventures in Kiribati
From spy base to ambassador prancing on locals Beijing stumbles on
International media are excited about a posse of Chinese policemen who just rode into Kiribati’s Tarawa, purposely to train the locals on how to enforce the law. Whose law is the obvious question.
US Government agency Voice of America reports with alarm that Chinese police are on a ‘neighbour of Hawaii’, 3900 kilometres from Honolulu (which is the same distance from Los Angeles to Cuba). Reuters breathlessly reports that a visiting US Coast Guard cutter put a boarding party on two Chinese flagged fishing vessels in Kiribati’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Nothing was found. If Reuters checked actual data, they would discover there are around 50 or more Chinese fishing boats in Kiribati’s EEZ and have been for years.
Beijing and Tarawa relations have been colourful for decades. There was the Chinese satellite spy base on Tarawa’s Bonriki islet. There was the time Chinese ambassador Tang Songgen literally walked on the backs of the residents of Marakei atoll. There is also a forgotten 1979 treaty that gives Washington veto powers over Kiribati. And to round out the geopolitical conspiracy, there is a reason that salsa dancing is popular with Kiribati’s 130,000 people; they were indoctrinated into it by dozens of Cuban health care experts who lived there.
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