'Nothing stopping' China from meeting Pacific Islands Forum leaders, says expert

RNZ News

5 days ago

Pacific Islands Forum leaders at the regional summit in Tonga last year. August 2024
Photo:
RNZ / Lydia Lewis
A geopolitics expert says there is "nothing stopping" China from attending Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting side events if dialogue partners are blocked from the event.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele's proposal not to invite the likes of the US, China and Taiwan has been met with support from Palau and Samoa, with a decision expected at today's Foreign Minister's Meeting (FFMM) in Fiji.
Massey University senior security lecturer Anna Powles told
Pacific Waves
that any decision to defer dialogue with partners and scrap formal invitations "does not stop partners at the bilateral level from reaching out through their respective embassies to have meetings with respective leaders".
Photo:
Supplied
If a decision is made to postpone dialogue with partners until 2026, Taiwan, for example, may not be able to get into the Honiara for the meeting. However, China already has an embassy in Honiara.
Former PIF advisor Sione Tekiteki said that "even if we do see a number of external partners seeking to have meetings with Pacific countries in Honiara, there will be one obvious absence - Taiwan".
"It is very unlikely, after the change is made in June, that the Taiwanese delegation will be able to get visas to also hold bilateral meetings [on the sidelines] of the Forum meeting."
Dialogue partners must respect the decision PIF leaders make even if it is to defer their annual summit, Powles said.
"It's very important that dialogue partners respect this decision in order to ensure that the meeting in Honiara does not become increasingly contested on the ground as noted in the media over the last month," she said.
The United States has
expressed its disappointment
over the Solomon Islands' decision, according to a Reuters report on Monday.
"We support the continued attendance of all PIF partners, including Taiwan, at the annual PIF Leaders Meeting, as previously agreed by PIF leaders in 1992," an unnamed State Department spokesperson told the news agency.
Dialogue partners were excluded from PIF in 2022 in efforts to "heal a painful rift" over the regional body's leadership.
However, Powles told
Pacific Waves
that this time round there is a "degree of external interests at play".
"There are some obvious advantages of deferring the dialogue partners meeting to next year, although noting that this does effectively kick the geopolitical can down the road to be dealt with over the next 12 months or so.
"It's also worth noting too that in 2022...there were probably around 21 dialogue partners at the Forum that the Forum Secretariat was having to manage, then [former] US Vice President Kamala Harris did join virtually and that caused some frustrations amongst other partners who were not invited to join.
"So it's going to be very important that dialogue partners respect this decision as well."
Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said it should be welcomed to this year's meeting of regional leaders,
according to a Taipei Times report
.
Palau's President Surangel Whipps Jr, who went to Taiwan earlier this year, told RNZ Pacific there have been issues around Taiwan gaining access to this year's meeting.
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni has weighed in on the issue this week too, saying that if Solomon Islands decides to exclude Taiwan from the upcoming meeting, regional unity will be on the line.
Rabuka said the move threatens to fracture decades of Pacific cooperation, according to state broadcaster
FBC
.
Tekiteki, who was PIF's director of governance and engagement as recent as 2024, said it was unfortunate how the proposal has played out in the media.
Sione Tekiteki in Tonga for PIFLM 2024 - his last leader's meeting in his capacity as Director of Governance and Engagement.
Photo:
RNZ Pacific/ Lydia Lewis
"There's a lot of media reporting around it, which is sort of heightened and elevated this issue," Tekiteki said.
He said the issue around Taiwan and China is nothing new, rather something that is always in the background of any foreign leaders meeting.
"You're doing away with a lot of stress and a lot of other things that happen in the margins of the leaders meeting," Tekiteki said.
"For the leaders themselves, it does provide them with a space to discuss issues that are important without all of the partners, meetings, bilateral or otherwise. So there's advantages in that respect".