SYDNEY (Reuters) – Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka said on Tuesday he was forced to cancel an official visit to China after enduring a minor head injury that required him to stay at home.
The visit was announced earlier on Tuesday by the Chinese embassy in Fiji, which said Rabuka would attend the opening of the World University Games in Chengdu, alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Rabuka, elected in December, said he had been forced to cancel the visit after tripping on the stairs while looking at this phone, resulting in an injury to his head.
“I’ve just come back from the hospital where I had a dressing put on my head for a small accident I had this morning,” Rabuka said in a video message uploaded to Facebook, pointing to small blood splatters on his business shirt.
“I have had to inform China I will not be able to undertake the trip that was coming up tomorrow night,” he continued, adding he hoped to accept future invitations to the country.
Rabuka’s visit was planned as China ramps up its push for security and trade ties with the Pacific Islands to compete with the United States and its allies.
Rabuka has previously said he was reviewing a police cooperation agreement with China, signed a decade ago by the former government.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare signed a policing deal with China during a visit to the nation earlier this month, building on a security pact struck last year.
Australia’s Pacific Minister Pat Conroy said on Tuesday Sogavare had reassured him during a visit to the country that Australia remains the Solomon Island’s “primary security partner”.
“Every single Pacific leader agreed that security should be driven by the Pacific, that if any country in the Pacific has a gap in their security, they should ask other members of the Pacific family to fill it first,” Conroy told reporters.
(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Emma Rumney)
