Subscribe to The Informer for monthly expert analysis, and to Events for advance notice of visiting world leaders and distinguished guests.
You may unsubscribe from Lowy Institute newsletters at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
The most-pressing world events explained by Lowy Institute experts and global contributors, in your inbox, every Wednesday.
You may unsubscribe from The Interpreter at any time. For information on our privacy practices and how to unsubscribe, see our Privacy Policy.
Taiwan, explained.
The episode in Port Moresby is not an outlier but the logical endpoint of a decade of escalating pressure on Taiwan’s unofficial footholds (An Rong Xu/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Papua New Guinea didn’t switch recognition to China but its example changes the game, signalling Taiwan’s international space is shrinking further.
PNG signals for Taiwan, the frontier is now the office, not the embassyPNG signals for Taiwan, the frontier is now the office, not the embassy
About the author
Jozef Huljak
Jozef Huljak’s research examines Taiwan’s cultural and public diplomacy, while his broader focus is on the role of soft power in the foreign policy of states.
When Papua New Guinea announced last week that Taiwan’s representative office would “no longer be recognised” (Opens in new window) within its jurisdiction, the reflex was to file the news under a familiar heading: another Pacific state drifting into Beijing’s orbit.
That reading is tidy, but it is wrong.
Papua New Guinea has recognised only the People’s Republic of China since 1976. You cannot switch a recognition that was never granted. What Port Moresby actually did was evict a de facto mission, an unofficial office that handles trade, visas and consular work without diplomatic status. It is a smaller act on paper than a switch, but a larger one in substance, because it strikes at what actually sustains Taiwan’s presence abroad.
Taiwan’s formal diplomatic world has shrunk to 12 states (Opens in new window). Its working presence abroad runs through roughly 110 representative offices in around 60 countries (Opens in new window) that recognise Beijing, from Washington to Vilnius. Most are labelled “Taipei” rather than “Taiwan” to sidestep the sovereignty question. They are where Taiwanese citizens get help, where trade is brokered, and where the island performs the ordinary functions of the state it is denied on paper. This network, not the dwindling club of embassies, is the real infrastructure of Taiwan’s existence in the world. The signal from PNG is that the network itself is now the target.
The closures are becoming routine and rewarded.
Seen that way, the episode in Port Moresby is not an outlier but the logical endpoint of a decade of escalating pressure on Taiwan’s unofficial footholds. In 2017, Nigeria ordered Taipei’s trade office out of the capital, Abuja (Opens in new window), stripped “Republic of China (Taiwan)” from its name and cut its staff, weeks after Beijing dangled US$40 billion in investment. In 2018 Fiji renamed Taiwan’s mission the “Taipei Trade Office” (Opens in new window) and revoked its privileges, a title that then changed more than once (Opens in new window) as Beijing pushed back.
The pressure has only grown more direct. In 2021 Hong Kong forced Taiwan to withdraw its staff (Opens in new window) after demanding they sign a “one China” pledge. That same year Guyana cancelled a signed office agreement (Opens in new window) within 24 hours of a Chinese protest (Opens in new window). When Lithuania let its office use the word “Taiwanese,” Beijing erased the country from its customs system (Opens in new window) and leaned on German suppliers to drop Lithuanian parts. Each event raised the price of hosting Taiwan even unofficially.
PNG completes the arc. Nigeria and Fiji downgraded an office. Guyana blocked one before it opened. Port Moresby evicted a mission that had operated for decades, in a country that never recognised Taipei, and Beijing rewarded the act in public (Opens in new window). Taiwan has been left to reassess (Opens in new window) its economic ties with PNG.
Beijing grounds its demands in UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 (Opens in new window), a text of just 155 words adopted in 1971 that moved China’s UN seat from the Republic of China government then in Taipei to the People’s Republic of China. The resolution never mentions Taiwan and says nothing about its status. Yet Beijing has stretched the meaning well beyond those original words (Opens in new window) to insist that “one China” bars any official Taiwanese presence anywhere. PNG’s phrasing of a presence “no longer recognised or required” turns that reinterpretation into practice. The timing sends the same message. The closure comes in the 50th year of relations between PNG and China, only weeks after Prime Minister James Marape’s visit to China (Opens in new window) to seek investment.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape, centre, with members of his cabinet during talks on 29 April 2026 with executives of Guangdong Rising Holdings Group, Guangzhou, China (PMNEC)
Taiwan’s fortunes do not run in only one direction. It has also opened offices under its own name, in Somaliland in 2020 (Opens in new window) and Lithuania in 2021 (Opens in new window). But those are the exceptions that prove the rule. Each became a target rather than a template, and Lithuania’s reward was a trade blockade. The openings are rare and punished. The closures are becoming routine and rewarded.
It is fair to object that PNG is small, short of cash and hardly decisive, and that Taipei insists the office keeps working. But the significance is in the precedent. Port Moresby has demonstrated a method that costs almost nothing: declare “administrative alignment,” collect the investment, and absorb no penalty, because Taiwan has little with which to retaliate. The international response so far is real but largely rhetorical. The US Congress, the Australian Senate and the European Union have all affirmed (Opens in new window) that Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor bars its participation.
Whether PNG becomes a model depends less on Port Moresby than on Taipei’s partners. If recognising Beijing quietly comes to include an obligation to close Taiwan’s offices too, the informal network that substitutes for embassies will thin from the edges inward. The uncertainty is genuine: because these offices are unofficial, the pressure to shut them is deniable too, and hard to deter. But the trend is clear enough. The figure that best measures Taiwan’s place in the world may soon be not how many embassies it still holds, but how many offices it is still allowed to keep.
