China ‘elephant in the room’ at fraught Pacific Islands summit

WELLINGTON: Pacific Islands leaders are meeting in the Solomons this week for an influential summit clouded by differences over China’s mounting influence in the region that risks scuppering regional cooperation.

Alongside its 18 member states, including key players Australia and New Zealand, gatherings of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) are typically attended by dozens more countries as observers or dialogue partners.

But this year’s host, close China ally the Solomon Islands, has barred most of those partners from attending — sparking accusations that Honiara was working on Beijing’s behest to exclude long-time participant TaiwanAnd observers warn the issue could even split the summit — undermining essential regional cooperation on everything from climate change, health, security, and transnational crime.

New Zealand’s top diplomat Winston Peters told AFP last month it was “obvious” that outside forces were meddling in the summit. “Outsiders are now telling us who we can have as guests. That’s not the Pacific way,” he said.

Communist China has never ruled Taiwan, but Beijing insists the island is part of its territory, has threatened to use force to bring The two have long vied for influence in the South Pacific, with Beijing spending hundreds of millions of dollars building sports stadiums, presidential palaces, hospitals and roads across the vast region.Meetings will kick off on Wednesday in the Solomons capital of Honiara and will primarily take place behind closed doors.

On Thursday they will head to the picturesque seaside settlement of Munda, over 300 kilometres (186 miles) from the capital for a “leaders retreat”.

But there may be little they can agree on — beyond China, key issues causing friction include a review of the Forum’s regional architecture, which will decide who can participate.Climate change is also a major talking point on the back of Vanuatu’s win in the International Court of Justice, which declared states are obliged to tackle climate change, and reparations could be awarded if they didn’t.Beijing’s top diplomat in the Solomons, Cai Weiming, has even said the China Police Liaison Team — deployed as part of that pact — could assist in security for the summit.

Beijing has also signalled that it will be present at the summit in some form or another.On the one hand, Beijing has claimed to have not interfered in any way, to respect Pacific forum centrality and processes and so forth,” Anna Powles, an associate professor at Massey University, said.

But New Zealand officials have told AFP they feared the Forum will “fall apart” if that happens.

Peters, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and other officials have warned the banning of dialogue partners could have an impact on aid being provided to the Pacific

The Forum partners work together on disaster risk management and climate finance, but there is disquiet in some quarters over individual nations opening up for deep-sea mining or oil and gas exploration.

So too is cooperation in transnational security, with member states reluctant to relinquish what they see as hard-fought sovereignty to help 

Mihai Sora, who heads the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute, told AFP that China had become the “elephant in the room”.

“China is effectively shaping the Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting, and it’s not actually a member of the Pacific Islands Forum,” said the former Australian diplomat.