The Head of China Delegation to the Pacific Island Forum this week, disrupted and argued with Chairman of the Pacific Island Forum, Nauru President Baron Waga during the Partners Dialogue Session when his demands to be given the floor to speak was denied according to regional news reports.
The representative had asked to add a new item to the climate change agenda after the opening of the plenary meeting. This was kindly denied by President of Nauru who chaired the meeting as it did not follow protocol for setting Forum agenda. The representative called for the plenary vote on his request and it was also denied due to already full agenda.
Reports states that the Chinese official shouted across the room before angrily walking out of the meeting while other members of his delegation remained seated.
Some of the attendees at the plenary session that met with reporters later expressed their upset over the disrespect shown to the regional leaders by the Chinese head of delegation.
“This is not just any space, it’s our space, and it’s the highest-level Forum of our region” stated one of the attendees to reporter from Pacific Radio News. “To have a dialogue partner raise his voice like that at a leader… he was lucky he wasn’t thrown out and removed by security from the room.”
The incident prompted a call for review of the Forum’s guidelines in dealing with partners and countries such as China and Taiwan that uses the Forum as a platform to complete with each other.