I'm John Batsch who is my colleagues Cleopascal, the foundation for the defensive democracies,

bringing us up to date as the cliffhanger in Malata province of the Solomon Island groups.

The People's Republic of China with very careful investment have tipped the balance of the national legislature their way.

Not Malleta yet.

However, why?

What does a rich and powerful nation with a huge Navy need of a series of

islands some of which are developed, most of which are not, including Guadalcanal?

How does this help anything to do with the contest, for example, in Taiwan or

the contest with the United States? Cleo, I'm looking at the map. There's the

Salimans. Well north is Japan. Well northwest is the

Philippines. Why is the Salimans important to China?

So the Salimans was, as you mentioned, it was the site of the Battle of Guadal Canal, but also

Iron Bottom Sound and Bloody Ridge.

It was essential for the U.S. to keep the supply lines open to Australia so that Australia couldn't be a cutoff or taken

over and that also the Australians could help join in the fight.

And if you look at from Australia off its coast there is actually an island chain.

You've got Papua Guinea, Solomon's, Vanuatu, that is very similar to the first island

chain that we often talk about about containing China,

you know, from Japan through Taiwan through the Philippines, that sort of thing.

So I think that one thing is China is building up its own island chain to contain Australia.

But the other thing is that, know when the US was trying to get across the Pacific

Japan had blocked the center of it, the Central Pacific.

...