by Maertin Haffner Associate Editor
The chief of the Pacific Islands Forum has stressed the importance of its members building relations with various countries, saying, “we don’t want to take sides.”
The forum is a group of countries and territories in the Pacific. Its Secretary General Baron Waqa made the comments during an interview with NHK on Monday.
The region has been subject to China’s increasing influence through development aid and other measures. In 2019, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of ties with China.
But Waqa said, “we have the very huge challenge in addressing climate change issues.” He added, “we have more to worry about than all these other geopolitical issues that are playing out in our backyard.”
Waqa expressed the group’s disappointment with US President Donald Trump’s signing of an executive order to leave the Paris Agreement — the international framework to combat global warming. He also said, “we will closely work with the new administration.”
