NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga – Pacific leaders on Friday rejected a Beijing-backed call to break ties with Taiwan, saying a regional bloc would continue a decades-old policy of engagement.
Members of the Pacific Islands Forum gathering in Tonga for an annual summit batted aside a push by one of China’s allies to stop treating Taiwan as a development partner.
In a final communique the bloc leaders “reaffirmed” a 1992 agreement that allowed talks with Taipei.
Beijing has aggressively sought to exclude Taiwan — a self-governing island of more than 23 million people — from international fora and rejects its claims to autonomy.
Solomon Islands, China’s main partner in the South Pacific, had lobbied for Taiwan to be stripped of partner status with the Pacific Islands Forum.
The move had angered some of Taiwan’s allies.
The Pacific Islands Forum is split between countries that have diplomatic relations with Beijing and others like the Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu which are allies of Taipei.
Taiwan sent deputy foreign minister Tien Chung-kwang to Tonga, seeking to reinforce ties with its shrinking list of Pacific island allies.
Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Peter Agovaka on Friday showed little sign of dropping efforts to reform the way the bloc does business with Taiwan.
He told AFP that a review of the bloc should ensure that members are “sovereign states. Not states that are governed by another jurisdiction.”
“I think that review will make sure that the Pacific Islands Forum is an inter-government organisation that adheres to international law.”
Solomon Islands will host the Pacific Islands Forum in 2025.
The South Pacific was once seen as a bastion of support for Taiwan’s claim to statehood, but China has been methodically whittling this down.
In the last five years, Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Nauru have all been persuaded to sever diplomatic links with Taiwan in favour of China.
Palau has an election this year in which the country’s links to Taiwan — and a potential switch to China — figure as major campaign talking points.
