Lillian
Hanly Political Reporter
Leaders in the Pacific
have registered their concern over a
nuclear-capable missile test conducted by China in July,
calling on all states to provide advance warning ahead of
any testing.
Nauru – one of the 18 Pacific Island
Forum (PIF) members – noted its dissent from the
statement.
Partners to the forum will also be split
into two tiers in future, and member states agreed to a
declaration for urgent and inclusive climate action to keep
1.5 degrees of warming within reach.
The Pacifc
Islands’ Forum in Palau has concluded, with leaders taking
part in a daylong meeting on Thursday to discuss various
issues, releasing a joint statement outlining their
conclusions.
Specifically, the forum noted an
intercontinental ballistic missile test that had
“overflew” a number of members “without adequate
notice”.
The members called on all states undertaking
testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles to provide
transparency and reassurance, including advance notification
of at least 24 hours.
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Palauan President Surangel
Whipps Jr who read the statement concluded by saying: “I
might note that the Republic of Nauru has
dissented.”
The forum has been overshadowed with the
tensions between China and Taiwan.
One local told RNZ
all he’d been hearing about was “China, Taiwan, and how the
outside world, outside countries are … making certain
nations either afraid to talk or not standing up
boldly.”
“All I hear is about just drama, and that
defeats the whole purpose.”
He said he wanted to hear
more about what other countries were going through, whether
that matched up with the problems facing Palau – like
outmigration, cost of living, and drugs – and see what could
be done by working together.
New Zealand Prime
Minister Chirstopher Luxon said on Thursday that
China-Taiwan hadn’t been a focus inside the PIF.
“It’s
a piece of a conversation, but it’s not the dominant
conversation.”
But another geopolitical issue was the
lingering desire by many in the forum to reach consensus on
condemning the intercontinental ballistic missile test by
China.
It’s understood Nauru and Kiribati, both
closely aligned with China, stood in the way of full
consensus on a statement earlier in August.
Even as
the meeting on Thursday was taking place, China’s foreign
ministry made
accusations toward Palau, after the host of the forum
urged the group to condemn China’s launch.
“Palau has
repeatedly raised this issue in an ill-intentioned attempt
to hijack the position of other member states of the Pacific
Islands Forum. It will not have its way,” the ministry
said.
Luxon
himself felt strongly about the matter, telling reporters
later it was important to push back so the behaviour wasn’t
normalised.
“Given all the history in our part of the
world with nuclear testing … that’s just not something we
want to see.”
Luxon described Nauru as being “in the
room”, and wanting to be “disassociated with the
statement”.
“We said, look, that’s great, but we’re
not going to not make a statement as a Pacific Island Forum
because of the objection of one country, and you’d have to
ask them as to what their rationale for that
was.
“Suffice to say, everyone else was fully on
board.”
When pressed on whether Kiribati was also on
board, Luxon said Kiribati had no representation in the
room.
Even stranger was the delayed recognition during
the closing ceremony of Kiribati’s representative to the
forum, David Teaboo, well after all the other leaders had
received applause.
The forum also confirmed it would
run a tiered system next year, splitting around 30 partners
into two streams: one for strategic partners, and one for
sector partners.
“Everyone’s a partner, but we just
need to make sure that we can manage it well going forward,”
said Luxon.
“We have to acknowledge that as we go
forward, we can’t treat them all the same or give the same
sort of effort.”
Taiwan remains a development partner,
and while its foreign minister, Lin Chia-lung, was attending
the forum this year after being invited by Palau, New
Zealand’s Foreign Minister indicated on Thursday that wouldn’t
be the case next year.
New Zealand adheres to the
One China policy, which means it doesn’t have formal
diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
That would prevent
the foreign minister being invited – instead representation
at a lower level would be likely at next year’s
forum.
Despite the geostrategic tensions at play
throughout the forum, Luxon said PIF was at its
“strongest.”
Before setting off to Palau, Luxon denied
PIF was being weakened as a mechanism for resolving
region-wide difficulties.
“No, I think it’s about
strengthening it, though,” Luxon said.
After his
hours’ long meeting on Thursday, he said he wanted to see
PIF “continue to evolve and strengthen and move – it’s the
arc of progress that we’re focused on”.
That work will
continue into next year, as New Zealand readies itself to
host the
forum.
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