By Lucy Craymer
SUVA, Fiji, Aug 7 (Reuters) – Pacific Island foreign ministers failed to agree on Friday to a joint response to China’s missile launch in July, with further discussions expected at the Pacific leaders meeting at the end of August, New Zealand’s foreign minister said.
China’s test-firing of a missile into the Pacific alarmed regional powers but failed to spur a unified response from Pacific Island governments, underscoring divisions over how to confront growing strategic competition in the region.
Many of the foreign ministers and senior officials from the 18 countries represented at the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Suva expressed concern to Reuters about the missile test.
However, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told reporters in Suva that two members had refused to sign on to the statement, without giving a clear reason. He would not name the two countries.
An official with knowledge of the discussions said it was Nauru and Kiribati.
As geopolitical tensions have increased in the region, leaders have called for unity in their response. Pacific leaders backed an “Ocean of Peace” declaration last year to maintain peace amid intensifying strategic competition. However, the lack of a statement shows divisions remain.
China has expanded its influence in the Pacific in recent years through infrastructure financing, diplomatic outreach and security cooperation, which has prompted concern among traditional partners including Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
Peters said some countries were being influenced by those outside the region. He would not name the country he believed was influencing Pacific countries to not sign the statement.
“The Pacific is a blue continent, peaceful, secure and that our job as the temporary servants serving these people is to make sure it stays that way,” he said.
At the opening of the meeting Rick Houenipwela, the foreign minister of the Solomon Islands and chair of the meeting, told those gathered that the Pacific’s agenda must continue to be “conceived by the Pacific, shaped by the Pacific and only by the Pacific”.
Even as the strategic environment became more complex, Houenipwela added, the response should avoid fragmentation or division.
Instead, he said, it “should create regional solidarity, strong consensus, and continue confidence.”
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Stephen Coates)
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