China’s recent testing of a nuclear-capable missile and wider influence in the Pacific is expected to dominate the agenda as the region’s top diplomats meet for an annual confab in Fiji’s capital on Friday.
Beijing gave Pacific nations just a few hours’ notice before test-firing an intercontinental ballistic missile last month, flexing its military might in a region where China has long sought to expand its reach.
The launch sparked condemnation from several key players in the region but the multilateral Pacific Islands Forum is yet to draft a formal response to the test.
That will be top of the agenda when top diplomats from the 18 member states meet at the forum secretariat in Suva on Friday.
Pro-Beijing members Kiribati, Nauru and Vanuatu are understood to have little interest in criticising one of their major partners.
A watered-down formal response may come from the meeting, highlighting the need for regional security but without mentioning the test, or China.
The meeting of foreign ministers comes ahead of a full leaders’ meeting in Palau in September.
China is also expected to dominate there Palau is one of the few nations on Earth to have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy which Beijing claims as part of its territory.
Diplomats are also poised this week to discuss the Pacific forum’s regional architecture, which will determine which key partners should be allowed to attend that meeting.
– ‘Common course’ –
Last year, the Solomon Islands banned all partner nations from attending the leaders’ meeting in Honiara at the request of China, which was concerned with the possible involvement of Taiwan.
New Zealand’s outspoken Foreign Minister Winston Peters condemned that decision as representing “outsiders” meddling in Pacific.
Peters who leads the populist NZ First party back home this month drew the ire of Beijing’s embassy and members of his own government when he told a China-born lawmaker to “go back to your own country”.
He has described this year’s confab as “timely” given “we have seen recently the impacts of global events on our region”.
The Pacific must “chart a common course”, he said.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong has said she hopes the region can come out of the meeting “stronger”.
“We want a region which is able to deal with the very large challenges which we know we are experiencing,” she said.
The top diplomat has pointed to “economic challenges” and “the geopolitical reality, which is we live in a much more uncertain world”.
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