Taiwan is to attend the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting later this year in Palau, a senior diplomat said Tuesday, after it and other nonmembers of the bloc were barred from last year’s meeting.
Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Director Michael Lin said Taiwan would join the annual summit from 30 August to 4 September, after Taiwan’s representatives were prevented from attending last year’s event in the Solomon Islands.
He did not say what Taiwan’s participation would entail, but it could involve holding events on the sidelines of the forum, as it had in previous years.
Palau would focus on enhancing good governance, development and resilience in the region with democratic partners at this year’s summit, Lin said.
Taipei would work closely with Palau — one of Taiwan’s 12 formal diplomatic allies — to find “appropriate ways” to demonstrate the results of decades-long bilateral cooperation during the PIF summit, he said.
During a previous visit to Palau in December, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung pledged that Taiwan would help Palau build energy-efficient, environmentally friendly transportation to shuttle delegates at the meeting.
At the conclusion of the event, the buses would be used from public transportation in Palau, Lin Chia-lung said at the time.
Taiwan has been a “development partner” in the PIF since 1993. It usually holds the Taiwan/Republic of China-Forum Countries Dialogue and other events on the sidelines of the annual summit.
At last year’s PIF Leaders Meeting, only the bloc’s 18 member states were permitted to attend, after the host nation, the Solomon Islands, barred partner countries such as Taiwan, the U.S and China from participating, citing an ongoing review of the forum’s partnership arrangements.
Media reports at the time suggested that Honiara, which switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 2019, sought to block Taiwan’s participation under pressure from China.
Beijing has poached several of Taiwan’s allies in the Pacific as part of efforts to expand its presence in the region and isolate Taipei from the international community.
Only three PIF members — Palau, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu — have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Separately, Palau’s traditional voyaging canoe Alingano Maisu is next month scheduled to arrive in Taiwan for the second time, where representatives from the Ocean Affairs Council and other agencies are expected to welcome it.
The double-hulled voyaging canoe was built in 2007 and later gifted to Micronesian master navigator Pius Mau Piailug — also known as Papa Mau — in recognition of his lifelong dedication to preserving and teaching traditional navigation, the council said in a statement.
The canoe set sail this month and would navigate using traditional, non-instrument methods based on natural wayfinding techniques. The voyage is expected to last about four months as the vessel crosses the western Pacific Ocean, with two Taiwanese among the 13-member crew.
Alingano Maisu sailed from Palau to Taiwan last year, docking at Orchid Island (Lanyu) and Taitung County.
This year, the voyage has been expanded to include visits to multiple international ports. The canoe is expected to arrive at the Port of Kaohsiung on Saturday next week and would later dock at ports in Taitung and Hualien counties.
The mission would feature cultural exchanges, educational outreach and community engagement activities in Taiwan, Japan and Micronesia, positioning traditional navigation as an important platform for cross-national dialogue and intergenerational heritage transmission, the council said.
