Palau President defends turnout at Pacific Island Forum

0:00Well, let's stay with the Pacific Island Forum and bring in my next guest, the President of Palau, Sarrangle Whips, Jr. And Mr. President, welcome back to breakfast. Oh, very good morning. Give me the absence of five Pacific Island Nation leaders. Was the Pacific Islands Forum a success in your mind? Well, I don't know why everybody is concerned about the number. And it wasn't five. It was, I think, only three because there's leaders that came in and out like a Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands. Prime Minister New Zealand came a little later, President of Nauru was there. So in all, 15 of the 18 leaders showed up compared to 2014. We only had eight in Palau. So that, to me, is a signal that the Pacific is united, the Pacific is together. And we do everything to get together.

1:00Sometimes there's the mistake of issues at home. It's, we've got to get back, but the effort to be together to iron out issues and have a unified front is important. And I appreciate all the leaders making that effort to be here. Pacific leaders have issued a joint statement saying they didn't get enough notice of China's intercontinental ballistic missile test in July. But Nauru has refused to back the statement and Kiribati wasn't at the retreat. Does this raise doubts over Pacific consensus? No, you know, and when it comes to consensus, of course, we have to have a statement that we all agree to and that's the statement that we have, which you can have at this end thing opinion. You know, we try to get language that everybody can stand behind. But we also understand the sovereignty and individuality of each nation. We respect that.

2:01But so Nauru's position is Nauru's position and we respect them for their position. Was this the condemnation that you wanted or did Palau want the statement to go further at all? For Palau, it was, it's very clear. If you're going to test in the Pacific, you need to make sure that you're transparent about it. You notify and countries there are doing this need to stop. And we've had two in the past two years that have gone over without any of us that are in the firing range being notified. So Kiribati and Nauru say, singling out China is unfair when the US also test missiles in Pacific. You've argued there's a difference if China gave more warning about these tests next time, would that satisfy your objection or is it the test itself in the Pacific that's

3:01the problem from China? So let's be clear on where the US do their testing. They're in the Marshall Islands. They have an agreement with the Marshall Islands. They have a specific area that everybody knows that these missiles are going and they notify the China sent a missile into the middle of the Pacific between all our islands, which ships could be crossing, which our planes could be flying over. Why isn't there the courtesy or the respect of the sovereignty and of these nations to be able to notify? It is unfortunate that they have to act in that way. And that's why they should be called out and that's what exactly what the statement is is to say, if you need to be a responsible international member of the global community. You're listening to Radio National Breakfast.

4:02I guess this morning is the president of Palau, Sarrangal, Wip's, Jr. We're talking about the Pacific Islands Forum, which is wrapping up in Palau. Mr. President, China warned of consequences over Taiwan's attendance at PIF this year. What form do you expect that pressure to take and has Palau already felt any of that? Well, you know, they have warned us about it, but I was very clear from the beginning that we will follow established rules in the forum. And that is exactly what we did. So we did see the pre-PIF that there was a false information on media and on China. Warning people of coming to Palau because it's unsafe and protect yourself and call

5:05the embassy. And if you're there and Palau hunker now and call the embassy in Pompeii. So we saw that before. We had of course, I mean, the PIF has already happened. We're here. I think they saw how we conducted PIF following what we've all, what all previous PIFs have done, except for Solomarions, which no partners were allowed to come. And I don't know. We'll see. You know, we don't know. They told us they're going to retaliate. So they showed us a little bit of that before. We'll see what happens. Mr. President, thank you so much for joining us again. I'm still yet to visit your beautiful country, but I must make sure I get there at some stage. Thank you again. But you know, I think the more important thing is. Hello. Yes. Is that we focus on the good things that happen. For example, Australia announced the second flight of Quantice de Palais. So this is about building economies, bringing more tourists and connectivity between our

6:09islands. The announcement of our friends helping us with the Pacific resilience facility, a special segment at the for focusing on issues that we want to bring to the COP and to the pre-COP, which were energy, 100% renewable Pacific, ocean protection, but also ocean production, investment. So bring investment into the region. So these are things that I think are putting our collective voices and aspirations to meet the 2050 strategy into action. And I think that's a lot of times we get focused on China, Taiwan, China. They're here to be partners that does how they're going to help us achieve those 2050 goals. But it's unfortunate that their issues become take center stage when the focus should be

7:09on the Pacific. And that's what the Pacific Island part is about. Mr. President, thank you again for joining me this morning. Thank you.