By Kirsty Needham
SYDNEY (Reuters) -The Pacific Islands Forum removed references to Taiwan from a group communique after complaints from China – a change Taipei condemned as a “rude intervention” but which a forum official said did not alter the leaders’ decisions.
The communique released on Friday from the 18-nation summit included a section headed “Relations with Taiwan/Republic of China”, stating “Leaders reaffirmed the 1992 Leaders decision on relations with Taiwan/Republic of China”.
After an angry response from a Chinese envoy, the communique was removed from the forum’s website that evening, and a new document was posted on Saturday morning with the references to Taiwan removed.
China says Taiwan is one of its provinces with no right to state-to-state relations, a position the democratically governed island strongly disputes.
Of the forum’s members, three have diplomatic ties to Taiwan while 15 recognise China, a major infrastructure lender to Pacific Islands countries, where Beijing is seeking to increase its security presence.
After the Taiwan references were removed, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday: “Taiwan condemns China’s rude and unreasonable intervention and irrational behaviour that undermines regional peace and stability and calls on all like-minded countries to pay close attention to China’s actions.”
The ministry said, however, that the revised communique did not undermine Taiwan’s status at the forum nor preclude it from participating in the future.
A spokesperson for the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat said on Sunday the communique is a “consensus-based document”, reflecting the agreed decisions and views of all members.
“The version as finalised does not change nor impact the decisions of the meeting, nor any standing decisions of the forum leaders,” she said in a statement.
A development partner to the forum since 1993, Taiwan sent Tien Chung-kwang, its deputy foreign minister to Tonga, to meet its three Pacific allies, Palau, Tuvalu and Marshall Islands.
When the communique was initially released on Friday, China’s special envoy to the Pacific Islands, Sian Bo, told reporters in Tonga the reference to Taiwan “must be a mistake”, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Nikkei reported.
Qian had lobbied during the week for Taiwan to be excluded from the forum’s official functions, the Chinese embassy’s website showed.
“Any attempt by the Taiwan authorities to brush up their sense of presence by rubbing shoulders with the forum can only be self-deceptive,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told at a regular press conference in Beijing on Friday.
Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific have reduced in recent years as China has increased offers of development funding. Nauru switched ties from Taiwan to Beijing in January, while Kiribati and Solomon Islands, which both now host Chinese police, switched in 2019.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham in Sydney; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Stephen Coates, Himani Sarkar and William Mallard)
