The things China is doing that wind up being the most intense topics are going to be geopolitical in nature.
This will be of little significance to what China does or does not do on a worldwide basis, but The Solomon Islands have a leader that is decidedly pro-China. They came in and built a stadium for the country even though The Solomons have no real way to maintain it. Obviously it’s buying influence just like America does, but this troubles me quite a bit.
Guadalcanal is the site of one of the most decisive and bloody series of land, sky and sea battles that happened in WWII. That land is hallowed ground for the Americans who gave their last full measure to stop Japanese expansion of their co-prosperity sphere in East Asia. I will live in that country and I want to work to make sure that the Americans who fought there as well as the native Solomon Islanders who helped America by being our eyes and ears on the ground, as well as the people that hauled injured soldiers for miles on stretchers, to one day have a museum worthy of what they accomplished. These people sacrificed themselves willingly for something they didn’t even have a word for. They called Guadalcanal “The Big Death” because of what they witnessed.
It really bothers me how little America cares about what happened there. We should be stepping up and getting China right out of Melanesia and Micronesia entirely and doing right by people that had our back when we needed all hands on deck, even if they weren’t American. Seeing China buy influence right in the backyard of sacred ground for Americans just really gets to me.