China’s growing influence in the Pacific is getting an unexpected boost as at least five Pacific island leaders stay away from an annual regional summit, complicating efforts to project unity at a forum where tensions over Taiwan are taking centre stage.
The prime ministers of Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, along with the president of Kiribati, are absent from the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ talks that began on Monday in Palau. Most are expected to be represented by ministers or senior officials.
