The exclusion of development partner’s dialogue meeting at the 51st Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meeting which begins today has been welcomed by China.

Chinese Ambassador to Fiji Qian Bo said China had no issues with the decision to exclude the development partner. China is one of 21 development partners that take part in the Forum Dialogue Partner meeting that takes place separately during the week-long meeting.

Mr Bo confirmed that according to the pro- gramme arranged by the host country, development partners were not included in the meet. This also includes the U.S, Canada European Union, United Kingdom, India, and Japan.

It is understood that the development partner’s dialogue meeting would take place later this year.

Despite the exclusion, Mr Bo said PIFS had their full support.

“There are no representatives of China to the meeting and there is no dialogue with development partners so there is no representative from Beijing here,” he said.

“Be rest assured that China will always be there when there is a need from the South Pacific Island countries especially development issues, climate change and sustainable development.

“We are working with the region.”

He also emphasised that the Pacific Islands Forum was an important regional organisation.

“Recently our state councilor had visited Fiji and during his visit he had a bilateral meeting with the secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum, Henry Puna.

“We certainly expect that our relations will be further strengthened and we support the regionalism of this organisation and most of the members of the PIF have diplomatic relations with China

“There is plenty of room for cooperation, and particularly waiting for the adoption of the 2050 Blue Ocean Strategy which we are very happy to synergize China’s belt and road initiative with their strategy.”

He added that they would continue to work more on areas of priorities for the countries in the region.
The purpose of the Forum Dialogue Partner mechanism is to facilitate dialogue and engagement with countries outside of the Blue Pacific region which have significant cooperation, engagement and interests with the region, in order to build understanding, support and action on the Forum Leaders’ vision and regional priorities.

China became the sixth Dialogue Partner in 1990. The five founding Dialogue Partners were Canada, France, Japan, United Kingdom and the U.S.