Wen Jiabao (
Wen starts his trip in Fiji where he will meet leaders from eight island nations in the tourist town of Nadi for the first ever China-Pacific Islands Countries Economic Development and Cooperation Forum.
But six island nations which recognize Taiwan instead of China will be missing, highlighting the long-running competition for recognition between Beijing and Taipei in the region.
Only 26 countries recognize Taiwan, and nearly a quarter of them are from the Pacific.
The evidence of the rivalry is everywhere in the Pacific.
Samoa's largest building, the five-story government office, was built with Chinese aid. Dollar diplomacy by both Beijing and Taipei is responsible for many buildings, agriculture projects and other initiatives across the region.
Taiwan's supporters include some of the poorest and smallest countries in the region -- Nauru, Palau, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands. Some have shifted alliances a number of times and become adept at virtually auctioning themselves off to the highest bidder.
Both China and Taiwan have been accused of interfering in the political process in island countries by handing out cash to their favored politicians.
The allegations have been made against Taiwan most recently in the current Solomon Islands election campaign but denied by Taipei and the Solomons government.
Associate professor John Henderson of Canterbury University in Christchurch, New Zealand, said China's new diplomatic push was partly aimed at preventing Taiwan getting any further recognition in the region but it goes beyond that.
"The main thing is symbolism. China taking its leadership role in the region seriously," he said.
"They want to get recognition of a country which is certainly destined to play a major role in the region. It's recognition of an emerging major power."
The traditional powers in the region -- the US and Europe, Australia, New Zealand -- have to learn to work alongside China, and island countries have another option for aid and political support, he said.
China has been gaining influence in the Pacific for many years, with a regular procession of Pacific Islands politicians getting five-star treatment during visits to Beijing.
"There have been more Pacific Islands minister visits to China than to any other country," said University of the South Pacific emeritus professor Ron Crocombe.
He said the engagement with China was part of the region turning increasingly to Asia, with Japan also increasing its diplomacy though efforts including the annual summit between Tokyo and regional leaders.
"The whole balance of power is going to swing to Asia," Crocombe said.
Most Pacific towns have an established Chinese population and they have been joined by a new wave of immigrants in the last two decades. Some came as a result of passport selling schemes by countries such as Tonga, Nauru and the Marshall Islands in the 1990s.
Concerns have been raised about a number of criminals among the newer arrivals. These were heightened in Fiji in 2004 when several Chinese were arrested in Suva after a police raid on the largest methamphetamine laboratory ever discovered in the southern hemisphere.
The main focus of the conference will be on economic cooperation and China is already active in fisheries, while a few of the larger island countries also offer timber and mineral resources.
In January, resource-hungry China and Papua New Guinea signed a deal to develop the latter's gas reserves and late last year also agreed to develop a cobalt and nickel mine. Trade between the island countries and China grew 58 percent to US$838 million last year, according to Chinese figures.
Liya Chu (朱如茵), whose parents are New York-based Taiwanese restaurateurs, has been crowned the champion of US television cooking competition MasterChef Junior, after wowing the judges, including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, with a feast of fusion cuisine. In the finale of the show’s eighth season, broadcast on Thursday, Chu walked away with US$100,000 after serving a spread of spiced duck breast with scallion pancakes and miso eggplant, followed by coconut pandan panna cotta with a passion fruit coulis and sesame tuille. Chu, who was 10 years old at the time of filming three years ago, faced off against then-11-year-old Grayson Price from
A university student has gained the spotlight for an interactive map he designed detailing all of China’s military bases and installations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Soochow University music student Joseph Wen (溫約瑟), who calls himself an amateur military enthusiast, said he created the map to “help people better understand the cross-strait situation.” Wen originally posted the map online on June 14 last year, but it gained greater attention after he mentioned it during an appearance on a China Television talk show. On the show, Wen said he had gathered information on the locations from publicly available Web sites, as
GLOBAL STRATEGY: Indo-Pacific alliances need reinforcement to prevent Chinese occupation of Taiwan, which would threaten Japan, Hawaii and Australia, Pompeo said The US should officially recognize Taiwan as a free, independent nation and establish official diplomatic ties, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo told an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Friday. Every US president since Harry Truman has considered Taiwan’s existence to be of utmost importance to US national security, Pompeo said. Taiwan is a principal US partner in technology and economic matters, and if China were to capture Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain, it would severely hamper the US economy, Pompeo said. Should China occupy Taiwan, it would severely weaken US influence in the Indo-Pacific region and its surrounding areas,
Opening-day ticket sales for a horror exhibition at the Tainan Art Museum were suspended twice on Saturday as the show attracted too many visitors. Titled “Ghosts and Hells: The Underworld in Asian art,” the exhibition runs until Oct. 16. It is the local version of a show that debuted at the Musee du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. It was planned and curated by Julien Rousseau. The Tainan museum said that within an hour of its doors opening, more than 1,000 people had entered the exhibition. By noon, 3,000 physical and virtual tickets had been sold, while the museum had more than 4,000