The 55th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders’ Meeting opened on August 31 under a banner of unity, but it can’t escape the reality that outside powers are competing for influence in the Pacific. The question now facing the PIF is whether the forum’s consensus model, once a safeguard for small-state sovereignty, has become the very mechanism through which that influence reshapes regional outcomes.

The official theme of this year’s PIF Leaders’ Meeting, held in Palau, is B.E.L.A.U., or Building Economies, Life, Action, Unity, an acronym that doubles as a tribute to the host nation’s indigenous name. It was meant to signal collective resolve. Instead, the gathering has been defined by conspicuous absences and blocked consensus. Given the return of Taiwan as a development partner after last year’s exclusion, some see this year’s PIF as proof of Beijing’s growing capacity to paralyze the region’s most important multilateral institution from within.

At least five Pacific leaders chose not to attend. The leaders of Kiribati, Samoa, and Vanuatu dispatched deputies, while Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka stayed home to manage domestic affairs. The most dramatic absence was that of Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Matthew Wale, who landed in Palau only to leave hours later after a no-confidence motion was filed against him back in Honiara. Wale had served as prime minister for barely three months and as outgoing PIF chair, was meant to hand the gavel to Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr. Instead, he left Foreign Minister Rick Hou to represent his country at the summit.

Kiribati’s case is particularly revealing. President Taneti Maamau dispatched not a cabinet minister but David Teaabo, his director of foreign service and a former ambassador to China. In an organization where decisions require consensus at the level of heads of state, sending a lower-ranking delegate who cannot commit to communique language with full authority is itself a political statement.

Kiribati’s posture becomes clearer against the backdrop of the missile crisis that preceded the summit. On July 6, China conducted a submarine-launched ballistic missile test in the Pacific, firing what Taiwan identified as a JL-2 from the South China Sea. The missile, carrying a dummy warhead, transited the exclusive economic zones of the Federated States of Micronesia, Naoero (formerly Nauru), and Kiribati before landing near Tuvalu’s maritime boundary. Beijing provided only a few hours’ notice to the affected Pacific Island nations.

The reaction was swift – at least from those countries that did respond. Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape invoked the region’s traumatic history of nuclear testing, insisting that Pacific nations “do not want history repeated.” Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the test “provocative” and “destabilizing.” Yet when Pacific foreign ministers gathered in Fiji in early August, Kiribati and Naoero blocked the consensus needed to issue a joint condemnation.

The PIF has historically operated on the principle of unanimity, a practice rooted in what Pacific leaders call the “Pacific Way,” designed to ensure that no island nation, however small, could be overruled by its larger neighbors. But the model assumed that external pressures would remain at the margins of PIF deliberations. When a member state with deep ties to the power responsible for a security event deploys its consensus rights to shield that power from collective criticism, the model risks becoming a means of undermining collective action.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters made the frustration explicit, noting that two countries “were seeking to use the need for consensus as a veto provision.” Peters said that he had “made it very clear that we didn’t think outsiders should be telling insiders” what positions to take.

Kiribati’s alignment with Beijing extends beyond the blocking of a PIF statement. In late August, its parliament passed the first reading of a constitutional amendment that would restrict diplomatic recognition to states holding U.N. membership or permanent observer status, effectively locking future governments into recognizing Beijing. Graeme Smith of the Australian National University characterized the move as “almost entirely about sending a message to Beijing.”

With that in mind, Taiwan’s return to the PIF may also have contributed to Kiribati’s lack of top-level representation. 

Last year, when the Solomon Islands hosted the 54th PIF Leaders’ Meeting, all external partners were excluded. The stated reason was a review of partnership arrangements, but the practical effect was to remove Taiwan from a gathering it had attended as a development partner since 1992. This year, with Palau – which has official diplomatic ties with Taiwan – as host, the dynamics reversed. 

Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung arrived in Koror leading a delegation that included representatives from energy, technology, construction, and agriculture, and he met with Whipps, Palau’s president, to strengthen bilateral ties before participating in the Taiwan/Republic of China-Forum Countries Dialogue. 

Only three PIF members still maintain formal ties with Taipei, but Taiwan’s development programs extend well beyond those allies. Just in July 2026, Taiwan donated $2 million to the Forum Secretariat and in 2025 it pledged $3 million to the Pacific Resilience Facility. 

Beijing, however, doesn’t take kindly to Taiwan’s inclusion in any form. China’s special envoy Qian Bo confronted Whipps directly at the Forum Troika meeting in Fiji, demanding Taiwan’s exclusion and warning that Beijing would “have to retaliate.” He dismissed Palau as “a small country.” Whipps was unfazed: “It doesn’t matter. We’re a country.” He later characterized Qian’s conduct as inappropriate, remarking that “if you want somebody to love you, usually you come with chocolates and nice cards.”

China made good on Qian’s threat on August 19, when Beijing’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a travel advisory for Palau, warning of alleged theft and dangerous marine conditions and portraying one of the Pacific’s safest destinations as a place to avoid. The U.S. Embassy rejected the advisory, stating that “the United States opposes any attempts by China to weaponize tourism to coerce Palau.”

Tourism accounts for roughly 40 percent of Palau’s gross domestic product, and Beijing has used this lever before. After Palau refused to break ties with Taiwan, China banned package tours in 2017 and visitor numbers collapsed, but the country absorbed the shock and the weapon’s effectiveness has diminished with repeated use.

Whipps has been characteristically blunt about the situation “China continues to try to influence us, whether its threatening us with weaponizing tourism or attacking us personally,” he told reporters. “We’ve made it very clear from the beginning [that] nobody is going to tell us who our friends can be.”

Palau, with a population of roughly 18,000, has held its ground on Taiwan. Other Pacific Island states haven’t. Solomon Islands switched recognition to Beijing in 2019; Kiribati followed within weeks. Naoero switched in January 2024. Taiwan’s Pacific footprint has halved, going from six diplomatic partners in 2019 to just three today: the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Tuvalu.

The PIF Leaders’ Meeting, of course, is about much more than Taiwan, or even China. The summit’s agenda includes a climate declaration ahead of COP31 and a new maritime anti-smuggling initiative called Waqa Moana. The Pacific Resilience Facility, with $173 million in pledges toward a $500 million target, represents a genuine institutional innovation as a Pacific-owned climate finance mechanism. 

But the credibility of a regional body rests on its capacity to address threats as well as opportunities. A forum that can mobilize around climate finance but cannot issue a statement when a nuclear-armed power tests a ballistic missile in its own members’ waters with barely any warning faces a fundamental question about what regional solidarity actually means. 

The empty chairs in Palau are symptoms of a regional order under pressure, one in which the line between domestic sovereignty and external manipulation grows harder to draw with each passing year.