NEW Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says China has been “too clever by half” in response to a statement from Beijing denying any involvement in this year’s Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Honiara.
Peters’ comments follow a post by China’s embassy in Tonga, which criticised accusations suggesting that they had influenced the Solomon Islands’ decision to exclude the 21 dialogue partners from next month’s leaders’ summit.
“Well, no one accused them of interference, so why did they name themselves?” Peters tells Pacific Mornings.
“Sometimes you can be too clever by half. Go back and look at that one day, proceeding, and find out and ask yourself, who named China?”
Peters recently attended the Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting in Suva, where he says that member countries were not happy with the exclusion of the 21 dialogue partners, and Taiwan.
He says there’s a need to avoid a repeat of the situation in the future.
“We’ve got very serious confidence that next year, the quorum of the right number and the correct people to invite will happen without outside interference.”