Tuvalu considers pulling out of Pacific leaders’ summit amid China-linked power struggle | Tuvalu

Prime Minister of Tuvalah Feleteti Teo, the host Ulus Solomon Islands, China, the United States and Taiwan, including all external partners after acting to prevent all foreign partners next month, the region can be withdrawn from the best political meeting, he said.

Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting will be held in Honiara in September. On August 7, Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands Jeremiah Manele He told parliament that there was no dialogue partner He was invited to the annual meeting.

Countries outside the Pacific, countries known as “dialogue partners ,, have participated in the forum to work with Pacific leaders since 1989 and contribute to discussions on development and regional security. Although not an official partner, Taiwan has participated in the meetings as a “development partner için for more than thirty years.

Honiara, a close ally of Beijing, fueled the speculation that the movement aimed to keep Taiwan away from the meeting. He showed questions about China’s growing growth in Pacific diplomacy and whether regional unity can have.

Tulalala, Together with Marshall Islands and Palau, is the only Pacific country that maintains diplomatic ties with Taiwan as an insult to a Chinese principle of Beijing.

In an interview with Guardian, Teo said that he would wait to see how other Pacific leaders react to the next month and would express “disappointment” in the last minute of foreign countries.

Teo, “the region does not need such distractions,” he said. “Instead of letting ourselves pressure from outside, we have much more important problems we need to focus on.”

Teo said he summarized the concerns about the disturbing timing of the decision and the concerns about the “difficulty supporting the justification” behind the movement.

“We will see what the rest of the leaders ‘response to Solomons’ proposal, and then we will make our decision,” he said.

“I will wait for the final decision on this regulation and then I will review my participation,” he said.

The annual forum is the main mechanism in which leaders define policy agendas throughout the region.

Teo said that if China had been behind the decision to block the partners in the forum, it would not be surprised ”and that the unusual movement was broken with decades of decades in the region.

“No deny that China is trying to expand the footprint in the Pacific, Teo Teo said.

“We need my own personal opinion, development aid, but we do not need competition and conflict that shadows our development agenda in the Pacific.”

Guardian contacted China’s Embassy in Honiara for a comment.

A US Secretary of State spokesman, Washington’s partners’ partners, “disappointed” with the exception of the “disappointing” and the forum was supported for the participation of all partners, including Taiwan.

“All [forum] It should be invited to participate without considering where it is hosted, as well as inviting all the dialogue partners of the countries that maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan and Taiwan, including Taiwan and Taiwan. ”

Taiwan added that the participation in the Pacific meetings will “strengthen cooperation further” and said, “It requires the maintenance of the existing regulations”.

All Taiwan’s Pacific allies did not oppose the decision to raise foreign participants to the forum.

Palau, which will host the forum in 2026, says that the decision to block all foreign participants of the Solomon Islands and says that the president’s office allows members to focus on critical critical issues in this year’s forum ”.

In 2019, the Solomon Islands changed diplomatic commitment from Taiwan to China, and three years later, countries signed a controversial security agreement. Honiara also received important Chinese financing, Including a US1 million dollar donation recently to buy 27 cars to carry delegates during the forum.

South Pacific University Diplomacy and International Relations Senior Lecturer Sarina said that the decision of the Solomon Islands may have an attempt to avoid explicitly elected between China and Taiwan.

“The only way to do this is to invite anyone,” he said.

Niuone Eliuta, the first secretary of the Tuvas Supreme Commission in New Zealand, said that “China was behind this decision” to block external partners from the upcoming forum.

“Today and age China affects what is happening in the Pacific, Eli Eliuta added that countries may mean that the countries have missed vital support, such as climate financing, except for donor partners.

“This is a temporary correction, the development of the development dialogue that moves from the Solomon Islands,” Eliuta said. “I hope no country will move away from PIF.”

The concerns about Beijing on the forum are not new. At the meeting in Tonga last year, the segments of the Pacific leader’s communiqué, which referred to Taiwan, were changed, many believe that China’s influence is the result. In 2022, while listening to the visual address given by US Vice President Kamala Harris, two Chinese defense suffixes were thrown from the forum’s meeting in Suva.