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‘What’s next’ as China’s Pacific island diplomatic wins mount?

  • After Nauru’s diplomatic switch from Taipei, experts watch for shifts in regional security, balance of power
  • But as Beijing seeks to expand its foothold in the region, the path ahead is not straightforward, analysts say

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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, right, and Nauru’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Lionel Aingimea shake hands after signing a joint communique on the resumption of diplomatic relations between China and Nauru at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing last month. Photo: AP
Sophie Chew

At the start of 2019, Taiwan counted six diplomatic allies among the Pacific Island nations. Barely five years later, that number has been halved as a growing number of small island states switch their diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, a symbolic move, but one that is widely seen as a sign of Beijing’s growing influence in the region.

Within days of Taiwan’s presidential election last month, the Pacific nation of Nauru, an island in Micronesia northeast of Australia, announced it would switch diplomatic recognition to China, following Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, which flipped in 2019. Speculation is rising that Tuvalu, whose pro-Taiwan leader, Kausea Natano, failed to hold on to his seat in last week’s parliamentary election, could follow suit.

But even as Beijing has welcomed these developments, analysts say Beijing’s path to increasing its foothold in Oceania – where Washington is also jockeying for influence – is not straightforward.

For the remote and financially struggling Pacific nations, switching diplomatic allegiance merely reflects their long-standing strategy of weighing what benefits they can extract from the diplomatic tussling rather than having definitively chosen to side with China.

The view from Beijing is clearer.

“From China’s side, I think it can be called a diplomatic victory,” said Professor Izumi Kobayashi of Osaka Gakuin University in Japan, who is president of the Japan Pacific Islands Association.

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