Pacific leaders at summit fail to reach unanimous condemnation of China's ballistic missile launch

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KOROR, Palau (AP) — Leaders of Pacific nations agreed at their summit to register collective “concern” about China’s launch of a ballistic missile into their waters, but they said Thursday their statement wasn't unanimous 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 among the group of mainly small island states.

The test-launch came after China conducted a missile test in the Pacific two years ago, firing an intercontinental ballistic missile with a dummy warhead, the first since 1980.

Pacific leaders announcing decisions the group made during a private retreat day at their annual summit, held this year in Palau, said the island nation of Nauru — which has had warmer ties to China in recent years — dissented from the statement of concern. Further, the country of Kiribati, whose leader was absent from this week's event and sent the country's recent former ambassador to China in his place, had no representative at all in the daylong retreat, according to New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

Luxon, however, downplayed the significance of Kiribati's non-attendance and of Nauru's rare dissent to the clause in the Pacific leaders' end of summit communiqué. The document is normally decided by unanimous consensus, an important political process in the region, and edited and signed off by the leaders themselves during the retreat day with only a handful officials in the room.

“I think we've got to a very good place," Luxon told reporters after returning from the retreat. “Yes, Nauru has dissociated itself from that statement, but that shouldn't be a reason for why we shouldn't be able to express a PIF position or a consensus position.”

It wasn't immediately clear why Kiribati was absent or what that meant for its position on the leaders' joint statement. But it signaled that the region's future in navigating ties to major powers would not be simple.

The vast Pacific Ocean, with its remote and often sparsely populated island states, has ballooned in geopolitical importance over the past decade. Major powers, including the United States, China, Taiwan, and Forum members Australia and New Zealand, have rushed to shore up access to the countries and relationships with Pacific leaders in return for various sweeteners, creating a web of sometimes conflicting alliances that have reshaped the region.

In 2024, Nauru severed its diplomatic ties with Taiwan, which Beijing sees as part of China, to align itself with Beijing. Palau, the host of this year's leaders' summit, is one of a handful of countries worldwide still to recognize Taiwan, prompting suggestions that the absence of some leaders from this week's event could be explained by Beijing's displeasure about Palau's leanings.

There was no public evidence of that, and those present attributed several of the absences, who were all replaced by senior officials from their countries, to ill health or politics at home. But the inability of the forum to form an agreed position on the missile episode hinted at deeper divisions than before.

Ahead of the retreat, the event’s host Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. told reporters that he hoped for strong language in the leaders' communique.

“A unified Pacific voice is critical in getting Beijing to respect sovereignty, to respect transparency, and to be a responsible partner,” he said. “I think that’s the message that we should be sending to Beijing. So it’s important we have a unified position and we’ll work on that.”

While the final document urged notice to be given for tests in future, it did not mention China by name and didn't express criticism stronger than “concern.”

A joint statement about the missile launch was largely symbolic; many countries in the region had criticized Beijing's move at the time. However, the Forum members' inability to reach consensus on it drew interest when a meeting in Suva, Fiji, weeks ago of the foreign ministers of member states ended without such a statement being produced — reportedly because Nauru and Kiribati wouldn't agree to one.