{"id":9314,"date":"2026-07-18T06:25:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T01:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=9314"},"modified":"2026-07-18T06:25:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T01:25:00","slug":"us-says-it-is-deeply-concerned-by-png-closure-of-taiwan-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=9314","title":{"rendered":"US says it is &#8216;deeply concerned&#8217; by PNG closure of Taiwan office"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">TAIPEI, July 18 (Reuters) &#8211; The United States is &#8220;deeply concerned&#8221; by reports that Papua New Guinea has ordered the closure of Taiwan&#8217;s representative office in the \u200ccountry, the State Department said on Friday, adding it was part of Beijing&#8217;s \u200cintimidation campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Pacific has long been an area for diplomatic competition between China and Taiwan, which Beijing views \u200bas its own territory with no right to the trappings of a state. The democratically ruled island rejects China&#8217;s sovereignty claims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Papua New Guinea Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko said on Thursday that Taiwan&#8217;s office would be closed, drawing praise from Beijing and condemnation from Taipei. Papua \u200cNew Guinea, like most countries, only \u2060has formal ties with China, not Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We are deeply concerned by reports that the Government of Papua New Guinea has unilaterally ordered the \u2060closure of the Taipei Economic Office in Port Moresby,&#8221; a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Taiwan is a reliable, democratic partner, and its relationships around the world provide &#8220;significant benefits&#8221; to \u200bthe \u200bcitizens of those countries, including Papua New Guinea, \u200bthe spokesperson added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;This is yet another \u200cexample of Beijing&#8217;s intimidation campaign against Taiwan and its supporters around the world, which undermines the sovereign decisions of countries choosing to partner with Taiwan and threatens international peace and prosperity.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Papua New Guinea foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Earlier on Friday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson reiterated that the government &#8220;highly commends&#8221; Papua New \u200cGuinea&#8217;s decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Speaking in Taipei the same day, Vice \u200bPresident Hsiao Bi-khim said Taiwan faces an extremely difficult \u200bdiplomatic situation because China is suppressing \u200bthe island &#8220;everywhere&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Only 12 countries now maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, \u200cthree of which are in the Pacific &#8211; \u200bPalau, Tuvalu and the \u200bMarshall Islands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">New Zealand&#8217;s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement that it was aware of Papua New Guinea&#8217;s announcement about the closure of Taiwan&#8217;s \u200boffice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We will seek further information \u200cabout this decision in due course,&#8221; it added, without elaborating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by Ben \u200bBlanchard; Additional reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney and Joe Cash in Beijing; \u200bEditing by Neil Fullick and Stephen Coates)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TAIPEI, July 18 (Reuters) &#8211; The United States is &#8220;deeply concerned&#8221; by reports that Papua New Guinea has ordered the closure of Taiwan&#8217;s representative office in the \u200ccountry, the State Department said on Friday, adding it was part of Beijing&#8217;s \u200cintimidation campaign. The Pacific has long been an area for diplomatic competition between China and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/20f5e9307f8f08314d537865502e85dcc219178fe733afbeccc391a2d27d07f9\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h533;quality_80;format_webp\/https:%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2Fb02e3c581bab2a6ac278d1899ce15c07","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}