Papua New Guinea's foreign minister, Michael Somare, has arrived in Beijing at the invitation of Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan (
But due to the unclear diplomatic status between Taiwan and the South Pacific country, the foreign ministry appeared to be at a loss for words.
"We have no comment. The ministry will further look into the matter," said ministry spokesman Henry Chen (
PNG established diplomatic relations with Taiwan in July of this year, but that decision -- made by then-prime minister Bill Skate -- was overturned when Mekere Morauta replaced him following an election by that country's parliament the same month.
Morauta then claimed Skate had failed to follow "proper procedures" in establishing diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and declared that the joint communique sealing ties with Taiwan was "invalid."
"The ball is in their court now -- it's PNG's current government which claims the communique is invalid, but it [the communique] is still binding," foreign minister Jason Hu (
"PNG never officially broke off diplomatic relations with us. They are saying the act of establishing relations was not valid to begin with," said another foreign ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The reason we have not officially terminated relations with PNG is because of the `China' factor -- as long as PNG is in the picture, Beijing is likely to devote more resources to PNG and less to other areas where we have diplomatic allies," he said.
In private, however, senior foreign ministry officials conceded that Taiwan no longer has diplomatic relations with PNG.
Sources in PNG told the Taipei Times Somare is likely to be looking for funding in Beijing, as the current cabinet is US$400 million short to meet the budget for the fiscal year 1999/2000.
China pledged US$10 million in aid to PNG, of which US$5 million would be in cash, when its foreign affairs secretary Evoa Lalatute visited Beijing at the end of August this year.
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