The unity of the South Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) has been fractured by attempts to block Taiwan’s admission to it by China.

Three of SPTO’s 10 Pacific Islands members, Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, are insisting that Taiwan is to be treated equally with China, which joined as a full member last April.

SPTO officials are anxious to prevent the fracture becoming a rift that could damage SPTO’s credibility as an agency deserving support from aid donors and possibly even cause the withdrawal of some of its Pacific Islands country members.

At least two SPTO meetings at which the China/Taiwan issue arose became heated ones.

Taiwan supplied SPTO with about F$400,000 in aid in the five to six years before China joined SPTO last year and then attacked a previous decision to also admit Taiwan as a full member.

The SPTO partly bowed to the Chinese by deferring Taiwan’s admission, but this aroused anger of its three pro-Taiwan government members.

At an SPTO Council of Tourism Ministers meeting held in Fiji, last December, it was again decided to defer a decision to the October 2005 meeting to be held in Papua New Guinea. SPTO officials have been instructed to report back on whether the organisation can placate China by resorting to devices under which China and Taiwan participate in such organisations as the World Trade Organisation, the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC), the Pacific Asia Travel Association, the Olympic Games, and also the annual Pacific Islands Forum heads of government meeting.

One device is to admit Taiwan, which China claims to be its colony, as a country given some form of special status but not treated as the sovereign state of the Republic of China, a name that China objects to.
Taiwan has told the SPTO that it will not press the membership issue for the time being so as to avoid trouble with China. But it says it will not accept the name of “Taiwan, China” or any other name that would undermine its claim to sovereignty. As a compromise it is prepared to be referred to simply as Taiwan, it says.

The line taken by Taiwan’s SPTO friends is that the SPTO is a politically neutral agency that is free to invite any country to join it without bending to pressure for terms or conditions from sources it wants aid from.

Since China and Taiwan could become major sources of future custom for the South Pacific’s tourism industry, the SPTO is anxious to court and capture the support of both countries. Taiwan began contributing to the SPTO budget at a time when the European Union contributions to its recurrent budget ended in 2001 and the organisation’s slipped into a dire financial position.

The Suva, Fiji, headquartered organisation decided to attempt to rake up more revenue by inviting Japan, France, India, the United States, Australia and New Zealand to join the SPTO Council of Tourism Ministers and also four small Forum members, Nauru, Palau, the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia.

France replied that French Polynesia and New Caledonia were its two representatives. Japan said it had budgetary worries, India is still thinking about membership and the United States refused, saying it had shut down its aid office for the South Pacific. Australia and New Zealand have not so far replied to the invitation.

China quickly responded to an invitation to join, apparently hoping to squeeze Taiwan out of the SPTO orbit.

Last April it paid a US$75,000 annual membership fee and last December at a tourism ministers meeting, it said it would commit US$100,000 to SPTO’s operations and development projects. The SPTO’s 2005 budget will be the first to exceed F$1 million (US$580,000).