This year’s summit of the 18-member Pacific Islands
Forum (PIF) being held in Palau from August 30 to September
4 opened in considerable turmoil due to the absence of
nearly a third of the region’s key leaders.
Five
prime ministers withdrew at the eleventh hour, citing
various reasons including domestic politics, poor health and
travel issues. Behind the withdrawals, however, were
escalating tensions caused by the far-advanced war
preparations by the US against China.
The forum was
expected to be contentious after the failure of Australia
and New Zealand to enforce a unanimous joint statement at a
meeting of Pacific foreign ministers in Fiji on August 7
condemning China’s test of a nuclear-capable ballistic
missile in the region. Kiribati and Naoero (formerly Nauru),
which have close ties with Beijing, were accused of
“blocking” consensus, provoking outrage from the US and
its two local imperialist allies.
Those not attending
the forum include Fiji’s prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka,
who is dealing with a Constitutional Review and facing an
election in coming months. Rabuka is a key regional leader
and recently signed the Ocean of Peace Alliance with
Australia—a mechanism for pulling the region further into
US-led warmongering.
Reflecting anxiety in ruling
circles in Wellington, New Zealand security studies academic
Anna Powles posted on X, sharply criticising Rabuka’s
non-involvement as “a significant geopolitical win” for
China that raised “serious questions about Forum
solidarity in the face of geopolitical
pressure.”
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The Solomon Islands’ recently installed
prime minister, Matthew Wale, also cancelled his appearance
after a no-confidence motion was lodged against him by the
home affairs minister, Manasseh Maelanga, prompting the
resignation of two other ministers. The threat to Wale’s
leadership came after he had earlier shifted Honiara’s
allegiance away from China and entered negotiations with
Australia, with talks towards a new strategic agreement
expected on the sidelines of the PIF
summit.
Vanuatu’s prime minister Jotham Napat and
Samoa’s La’auli Leuatea Schmidt are also not attending.
Naoero only confirmed on the first morning of the summit
that its President David Adeang would attend.
Kiribati
President Taneti Maamau declared he could not attend due to
flight unavailability but is expected to join some sessions
virtually. Kiribati will be represented instead by its
former ambassador to China.
NZ Foreign Minister
Winston Peters said Maamau’s absence was “hugely
disappointing.” He said the “centrality” of the PIF
should not be “compromised.” Asked if “foreign [i.e.
Chinese] interference” was involved, Peters told
journalists: “You’d be defying gravity and logic if you
said it wasn’t a big problem.”
The Post reported
that senior NZ officials were privately calling Kiribati’s
stance “an effective boycott” of the PIF. Kiribati
switched its diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing in
2019. During a diplomatic spat between Peters and Maamau in
early 2025, a TVNZ report accused Kiribati of being on “a
path of self-isolation from Western countries” since
swapping allegiances.
After the Pacific foreign
ministers’ meeting failed to agree on the statement
denouncing China’s missile test, Peters railed against
China, saying: “We made it very clear that we didn’t
think outsiders should be telling insiders—that’s us,
we’ve been here for thousands of years—what our position
should be.”
New Zealand and Australia, working
closely with the US, are seeking to roll back China’s
economic and diplomatic influence in the Pacific and are
describing Beijing in increasingly hysterical terms as a
military threat. While using aid to pressure Pacific states,
they are militarising the region and forcing them to cut
ties with Beijing.
Palau, which is hosting this
year’s PIF summit, is led by President Surangel Whipps
Jr., one of the region’s most bellicose anti-China hawks.
In a neo-colonial “free association” relationship with
the US, the small archipelago is one of just three Pacific
states, along with the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, that
maintains diplomatic relations with Taipei rather than
Beijing.
About 870km (540 miles) east of the
Philippines, Palau was the site of brutal fighting between
the US and Japan during World War II. Today, it hosts
critical US military facilities and Secretary of War Pete
Hegseth has described it, along with Guam, as the “the tip
of America’s spear in the Pacific.”
The
imperialist powers are heavily represented at the summit.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese flew to Palau on
Monday leading a three-person ministerial team. New Zealand
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is attending along with
Peters.
The US sent a high-ranking delegation
including Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and
two senior military leaders: Admiral Kevin Lunday,
Commandant of the US Coast Guard, and Lieutenant General
George Rowell, deputy commander of the US Pacific Command.
Landau will later conduct a four-country tour of Palau, the
Federated States of Micronesia, Solomon Islands and
Kiribati.
At the 2025 summit, the host Solomon Islands
barred participation from Taiwan, China and the US, along
with 18 other “dialogue partner” countries which are not
members of the PIF. This year, Taiwan announced that its
Foreign Minister Lin Chia-Lung would spend a week in Palau
during the summit.
China’s foreign ministry objected
strongly, telling Reuters on August 26 that “sending Lin
Chia-lung and other Taiwan independence separatists
scurrying about all over to curry favour is a futile attempt
to grab attention.”
Peters hit back, telling summit
participants on August 30 to reject “cash-book
diplomacy,” which the Post interpreted as a reference to
China. He called on PIF members to “step up and provide
some serious competition based on freedom, democracy and the
right to worship a god.”
The US has already used the
PIF to unveil a major new infrastructure deal with potential
military implications. On September 1, Peters, Landau and
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown announced that the US
would contribute $US50 million and New Zealand $US10 million
for “a major port upgrade on the island of Penrhyn in the
northern Cook Islands.”
Peters told One News the
decision was a “landmark” and “a seminal moment that
we are back in the game looking after our part of the
world.”
In a statement, Landau referred to the fact
that Penrhyn’s port was first built by the US as a World
War II military base. He said the new development would make
the “United States and our partners safer, stronger, and
more prosperous.” While the US has military bases on Guam,
the Marshall Islands and Palau, the Cook Islands opens up
access to a wide swathe of the southwestern
Pacific.
The port will also facilitate the US
agreement with the Cook Islands to look for critical
minerals under the sea.
Last year, New Zealand blocked
$NZ30 million worth of aid to the Cook Islands, a
semi-colony of NZ, in retaliation for Brown entering into
commercial agreements with China without first consulting
NZ. In April, Peters signed a Security Declaration with
Brown that reasserted NZ colonial domination, giving its
military unimpeded access to the land, sea and airspace of
the Cook Islands. Now, the territory is being developed for
the benefit of US imperialism.
By John Braddock,
Socialist Equality Group
2 September
2026
Original url: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/09/02/habw-s02.html
