Leaders of Pacific nations agreed at their annual regional summit to register collective “concern” about China’s launch of a ballistic missile into their waters, they said Thursday, but failed to reach unanimous agreement on the statement and stopped short of a sterner rebuke of Beijing's actions.
The willingness of the Pacific Island Forum's member countries and territories to agree during this event to a joint reproach of China for the missile launch in July was seen by some as a litmus test for how much the geopolitical jostling in the region among major powers had destabilized relations between the group of mainly small island states.
