The main intergovernmental organisation of the Pacific region, counting 18 Pacific countries as members. Australia and New Zealand are full members. China may attend its meetings only as an observer.
The forum has long helped promote trade and resolve disputes. China sees it as an obstacle to its ambitions in the region; Beijing worries about the bloc coming to agreements that make its goals more difficult to achieve.
Geographers divide the Pacific into three zones. Micronesia has historical and political ties to America; Polynesia tends to look to New Zealand as the regional power; Melanesia has its closest relations with Australia. It is the Melanesian countries, many of them dominated by a "big man" style of patronage politics, which have proved most open to Chinese overtures.
China already invites the subset of Pacific leaders and foreign ministers who do not recognise Taiwan to a meeting each year. The squabbling that China fosters within the forum increases the chance that it can set up a rival diplomatic institution excluding Australia, New Zealand and the islands that recognise Taiwan.
Three Pacific island countries continue to recognise Taiwan. At the September 2025 summit in Honiara, Solomon Islands, China asked the host to prevent Taiwan from attending as an observer. The Solomons compromised by banning all non-member observers—including China, America and the EU—preventing a boycott by Taiwan-supporting members.
In the war of wits, he's unarmed.