Friends Beijing is courting the island nations in the Pacific. In the past two years, Beijing's honored guests from Oceania have included the King of Tonga, the president of Micronesia, the prime ministers of Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, and the vice president of Kiribati. Economically ailing, politically unstable, and impatient with the tightening purse strings and preachy tone of Australia, New Zealand and the U.S., many of the Pacific's island states are finding a new friend in Beijing. And one that's feeling assertive. Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province, has long worked to ease its international isolation by cultivating links with small countries.
China wants to change that.
China has demanded that Taiwan be excluded from all activities of the Pacific Islands Forum, the region's key political body. But Beijing may have more in mind than isolating Taipei. If that's the case, Beijing is taking its time. China built the government offices in Samoa and the parliament in Vanuatu, and gave a ferry to Kiribati and cargo boats to Micronesia. Unlike them, Beijing does not insist that aid recipients carry out political or economic reforms.