China’s Pacific Island push is all about Taiwan

The Pacific Island countries, once the sites of some of the most brutal fighting in the Pacific theater of World War II, are again caught in the middle of confrontation between major powers. This time around, however, China is on one side while another U.S.-led coalition, including treaty ally Australia and unofficial ally Taiwan, is on the other.

In recent years, Beijing had made substantial headway in its Pacific Island diplomacy because of its own efforts and Washington and Canberra’s detachment from the region. But the return of American and Australian engagement and increasing pushback against China’s growing presence suggests that Beijing’s recent gains are not as certain as they once looked. Today’s diplomatic jostling may be just the beginning.

Federated States of Micronesia’s president issues a warning on China

On March 9, David W. Panuelo, the president of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) since 2019, penned a letter to the country’s top officials warning that China was subverting the FSM’s democracy.

“Simply put, we are witnessing political warfare in our country. We are witnessing Grey Zone activity in our country,” he wrote. “Over the course of my administration, the scope has increased, as has the depth, as has the gravity.”

Beijing’s efforts, Panuelo continued, were focused on ensuring that, should China attack Taiwan, the FSM was “at best, aligned with the PRC (China) instead of the United States, and, at worst, that the FSM chooses to ‘abstain’ altogether.”

The FSM and other Pacific Island countries offer geographic advantages to either side in a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan. If the region were to be heavily aligned with China and grant China a military presence, that would pose a challenge to both Taiwan and other countries who might choose to directly assist Taipei, including the U.S., Japan, and Australia.

Panuelo accused China of sending ships into his country’s waters, appointing a security officer as ambassador-designate (who was rejected), and sending two embassy staff to follow him during a July 2022 visit to Fiji. “To be clear: I have had direct threats against my personal safety from PRC officials acting in an official capacity,” Panuelo wrote.

China signals Pacific concerns by promoting Fiji envoy

Panuelo also said that his harassment would have been ordered by the Chinese ambassador to Fiji at the time, Qián Bō 钱波, and argued that Qian’s subsequent promotion to “Special Envoy for Pacific Island Countries Affairs” in February has significant ramifications for the region. According to former Chinese diplomats, the new position highlights the growing importance the region has for Beijing.

Yáng Hán 杨涵, a junior-level officer in China’s Foreign Ministry from 1996 to 2001, who is now an Australia-based political commentator, told The China Project that Qian’s appointment as special envoy was intended to address Beijing’s priorities in the region.

“China’s approach to the Pacific is based on three objectives,” Yang said. “To thwart Taiwan’s diplomatic relations with the few remaining island countries there and further isolate it, to establish China as an emerging global superpower while reducing American and Australian influence in the region, and expanding trade in resources and food, which China desperately needs.”

Chén Yònglín 陈用林 — a former Chinese diplomat stationed in Fiji and later Australia, where he defected to in 2005 — told The China Project that the appointment of Qian as a special envoy indicates concern in Beijing. Special envoys are appointed only for very important issues like North Korea’s nuclear program, the United Nations, or human rights, Chen said.

“China feels threatened in the region, especially after the U.S. reestablished its embassy in the Solomon Islands [in February] and pledged more aid,” Chen said. “Pacific Island countries have a role in China’s global military strategy.” At present, that role is focused on an attempted invasion of Taiwan, which, if successful, would instantly make China a Pacific power. Getting as many countries as possible out of the Taiwan/U.S./Australia camp prior to initiating hostilities has obvious advantages for Chinese planners.

After Solomons’ unrest, are Pacific allegiances tilting toward Taiwan?

Only four countries — the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, and Tuvalu — officially recognize Taiwan’s government instead of the PRC. That could change soon, however, since Panuelo said in his letter that he met with Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮 Wú Zhāoxiè) and is seeking to switch recognition from Beijing to Taipei, which would be a significant and rare diplomatic win for Taiwan.

Beijing appeared to have scored big in 2019, when both Kiribati and the Solomon Islands ended their recognition of Taiwan’s government to establish ties with the PRC. In late 2021, however, a peaceful demonstration in the Solomon Islands’ Malaita Province to protest Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s ending of ties with Taiwan turned violent, with rioters pointedly burning and destroying Chinese businesses and leaving Taiwanese firms untouched.

Malaita is the country’s most populous province and has long complained about its treatment by the capital, Honaria. Provincial premier Daniel Suidani opposed recognizing the PRC from the beginning. He continued to receive aid from Taiwan in 2020, when he called for an independence referendum for Malaita that passed, but was not recognized by PM Sogavare.

In April 2022, following the regional crisis spurred by the unrest of late 2021, Sogavare signed a security pact with China that raised alarm in Washington and Canberra, given that it could lead to the stationing of Chinese troops in the Solomon Islands. In February of this year, Suidani himself was ousted by the Malaita regional assembly after losing a vote of no confidence for misusing government funds and soliciting money from a Chinese company.

Suidani denies the allegations. His adviser, Celsus Talifilu, told the Sydney Morning Herald last month that Sogavare worked with China to have the former premier overthrown.

China’s support for the little guy rests on the Taiwan issue

The former Chinese diplomat Chen said that even in the 1990s — when China’s foreign policy ostensibly respected the sovereignty of all countries, no matter their size — officials from Beijing would throw their weight around in the Pacific.

When Vanuatu Prime Minister Maxime Carlot Korman and Chinese Premier Lǐ Péng 李鹏 met in 1993, Chen was tasked with taking notes of the exchange. He said the meeting was decidedly one-sided.

“Li greeted him, recited talking points prepared for him by the Foreign Ministry, and then got up and left without allowing the prime minister to respond,” Chen said. “Li Peng was very arrogant in that meeting — in the Chinese leaders’ eyes, these small countries are nothing.”

The meeting’s talking points included the PRC’s claim on Taiwan.

While stationed in Fiji in 1996, Chen said China’s Foreign Ministry introduced what was known as the ambassadorial fund — a slush fund used to bribe local officials to support Beijing’s goal of annexing Taiwan.

Chinese diplomacy is far more sophisticated today, and bribery isn’t the only way to align others with the country’s political goals in the region — of which Taiwan is paramount.

After U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last August, special envoy Qian, who was then still the ambassador to Fiji, wrote an op-ed for the local newspaper Fiji Sun. In addition to excoriating the United States and Taiwan’s government, Qian made clear to his Fijian readers that their country’s relations with China were dependent on accepting Beijing’s revanchist claim.

“We expect that Fiji, as a long-standing and close friend of China, will continue to abide by the one-China principle and promote the sustained, healthy, and steady growth of China-Fiji Comprehensive Strategic Partnership,” he wrote.