Managing Geopolitical Crosscurrents at the 2024 Tongan Forum

The recent meeting of leaders encouraged cooperation, but for Taiwan the conditions are increasing.

As expected, geopolitics dominated centre stage at the 2024 Pacific Islands’ Forum (PIF), hosted by the Kingdom of Tonga. Perhaps the most significant example was the PIF’s acceptance of Australia’s AUD$400 million Pacific Policing Initiative, intended to reduce the scope for China’s police ties with the region. Indicating it was unwilling to be blocked in its ambitions by such Western initiatives, Beijing immediately countered, asserting it would open a “new chapter” in closer security ties with Pacific Island countries.

What was not so anticipated was the effect that geopolitics would have on Forum procedures. Eligibility to participate in PIF meetings occupied three important points on the Nuku’alofa Forum agenda: 1) it was explosively evident regarding Taiwanese participation, 2) the slow burn regarding engagement with partner countries in future meetings, and 3) cautiously expansionist in promoting regional participation.

Solomon Islands’ Foreign Secretary Colin Beck made public his government’s intention to prevent Taiwan from participating in next year’s Leaders Meeting during preparations for the Nuku’alofa summit. Beck’s bombshell revolved around a plan to have Taiwan stripped of its eligibility to attend any Forum.

While not a full post-Forum dialogue partner, Taiwan has been invited to PIF Leaders Meetings since 1992 as a “development partner.” This status was created to reflect both the diplomatic stance of the majority of PIF states in adhering to Beijing’s “one China policy” and those PIF states recognising Taipei.

An erstwhile Taiwan ally, the Solomons government has frequently served as a stalking horse for Beijing’s interest in the region since switching recognition to the PRC in 2019. It sought again to curry favour with Beijing in Tonga by undermining a generation of regional harmony to remove Taiwan’s connection with the Forum.

Recognising that, as host of the Forum in 2025, the Solomons could not refuse a visa to a country/jurisdiction entitled to attend a Forum, the Solomons’ sought to use the Forum’s procedures to attack Taipei’s presence in the region by reversing the 1992 decision. The consensus-busting attempt appeared to have failed when the Forum Leaders “reaffirmed the 1992 Leaders decision on relations with Taiwan/Republic of China” in paragraph 66 of their meeting’s final communique.

China’s Ambassador to the Pacific, Qian Bo, attending as a post-Forum Dialogue Partner, was incensed by the paragraph. Despite no standing to modify the record, he demanded that the approved meeting’s final communique be changed to eliminate the reference to Taiwan. Controversially, a revised final communique was subsequently posted without paragraph 66.

Sources in Nuku’alofa claim that the “mistake” that Bo demanded be corrected was not referred back to the Forum membership for amendment, and so lacked the consensus approval of the originally published communique. Rather the change was made by the PIF Secretariat without the acquiescence of Taiwan’s three PIF allies, the Marshalls, Palau, and Tuvalu.

There was some confirming evidence of private collusion with China in removing the offending paragraph 66 outside the floor of the meeting, despite Secretariat attempts to own the change as an administrative error.

The revision of the final communique in itself did not change Taiwan’s status within the Forum. Indeed, Taipei’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tien Chung-kwang signed a three-year cooperation agreement with the PIF Secretariat, guaranteeing institutional support to 2027.

Even while accepting Taiwan’s money, there was sensitivity regarding the optics of the occasion. PIF Secretary General Baron Waqa did not sign the agreement but left it to his deputy. This was the same Waqa who, as President of Nauru, threated a UN complaint against China’s envoy Du Qiwen for high-handed histrionics and “disrespecting the Pacific” during the 2018 Forum hosted by Nauru.

It appears that the Solomons was not the only former Taiwan ally to lean over backwards to assist China at the 2024 Forum. It is alleged that Tonga deferred to Beijing by changing hotel arrangements for the Taiwanese delegation and in delaying visas. Taiwan cannot expect any greater civility from Solomon Islands in observing the protocols required of an international conference host next year.

The dramatic increase in the number and scale of geopolitically motivated interests seeking access to the Forum leaders over the past decade has generated movement within the Forum on how to manage these requests. Few doubt that some organisational triage is needed. Progressively ad hoc procedural adjustments have been adopted to deal with the ever more crowded Forum and post-Forum agendas. Openness, transparency, and accountability have suffered along with the comfortable intimacy among all participants that has been a feature of Forum meetings until recently.

A longer-term solution was proposed in Nuku’alofa. The Forum Partnership Mechanism has been approved to ensure that the Forum engages with all its partners “in the most strategic and effective manner.” The mechanism will achieve this aim by categorising parties into two “tiers” based on their relevance to the work of the Forum.

Tier One associates are to be designated “Strategic Partners” and have full participation rights, while Tier Two parties are called “Sector Development Partners” with more restricted access to the Forum. Broadly, to qualify for Tier One, partners will have to contribute across all the objectives of the Forum’s 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.

As the precise criteria for being assigned to a tier is a work-in-progress, there is trepidation as to how the Partnership Mechanism will be used. Initially, all partners will be invited to submit a written application detailing how they meet the yet to be finalised criteria. These statements will be assessed by the PIF Secretariat and the resulting assignment to a tier is to be endorsed by the Leaders.

Some involved have suggested that the process was “insulting” given long service as a Dialogue Partner. An implication that humanitarian assistance had been given for ulterior motives was bad enough but having to justify it in writing adds salt to the injury.

Fearing a transactional motive, others are concerned that the allocation process is a disguised auction intended to encourage existing partners to give greater funds to more Blue Pacific program areas or the Pacific Resilience Facility in order to retain or qualify for Tier One status. New interested parties will be obliged to go through the Partnership Mechanism process to be admitted to either tier.

Geopolitics impacted even existing procedures in Tonga. American Samoa and Guam were approved for Associate Membership status in accordance with a policy set in 2005. However, the approval came with an important caveat. Continuing eligibility was subject to the outcome of the Review of the Regional Architecture (RRA) now in progress.

The RRA is directed to give “due consideration to the issue of sovereignty” in its wide-ranging appraisal of the region’s institutional needs. This warning to the two American territories may presage a challenge not just to their enhanced relationship with the Forum.

Concerns have been have raised regarding French Polynesia and New Caledonia, the two French territories that enjoy full membership but occasionally have been reminded by other PIF members of their limited sovereignty by flying the French flag alongside their territory flags at international meetings.

Tightening Forum procedures around the principle of sovereignty in the RRA could pose a challenge not only to regional territories that lack full sovereignty, but also result in the contraction of participants in the Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific (CROP).

This body, chaired by the Forum Secretariat, serves to promote cooperation and occasionally coordination among the region’s organisations. However, several CROP members lack the status of a formal intergovernmental organisation. The fact that such agencies have voting rights to make decisions they may lack the authority to implement will bring them under the scrutiny of the RRA.

The Tonga Forum was important not just for how the work of this pivotal regional organisation is affected by geopolitics but also for the way the Forum will conduct its work in future and how it will engage with partners.

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