"We'll remove it": Mark Brown said to China's Ambassador to the Pacific, Qian Bo, who told the media an affirming reference to Taiwan in the PIF 2024 communique "must be corrected". Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Lydia Lewis
Last week's Pacific Islands Forum summit ended dramatically when China demanded the communique be changed to eliminate a reference to Taiwan.
The document had made a reference to the Forum reaffirming its relations to Taiwan, which has been a development partner since 1992.
But the Chinese Ambassador to the Pacific, Qian Bo was furious and the document was rewritten.
RNZ Pacific senior journalist Don Wiseman asked Massey University lecturer in security studies, Dr Anna Powles, what she made of all of this.
