Pacific leaders thrash out stance behind closed doors

Or will the leaders, who make decisions on consensus, be deadlocked again by a country exercising an effective veto power?

The decision will come down to one of the more unique gatherings across all international organisations: the PIF leaders retreat.

The retreat is the climax to each PIF summit, and places the leaders of each country, and the PIF secretary general, into a room to thrash out thorny issues.

Only leaders are allowed, with one note-taker who is generally out of the room, meaning representatives cannot hide behind advisers.

The end result is an agreed communique, with clauses on all manner of issues facing the region, forming shared positions.

Or there can be blockages: the most famous being Australian prime minister Scott Morrison's refusal in 2019 to accept particular language on climate at the Tuvalu-hosted summit.

That retreat blew out, lasting 12 hours, with Mr Morrison's stance reducing former Tonga prime minister Samuela 'Akilisi Pohiva to tears.

A lead-up meeting of foreign ministers to the 2026 meeting, staged in Fiji in August, failed to reach consensus on whether to condemn China's missile, much to the chagrin of several nations.

Australian and New Zealand officials blame Kiribati and Nauru for refusing to agree, which produced a toned-down statement.

Palau President Surangel Whipps, whose nation is allied with China's antagonist Taiwan, said the issue would be revisited behind closed doors.

"A unified Pacific voice is critical in getting Beijing to respect sovereignty, to respect transparency and to be a responsible partner," he said.

However, there is a school of thought that the issue is best left in the past, and leaders should spend their time on other more productive enterprises.

More than a dozen nations have issued their own condemnations of this and a prior test.

Mr Whipps says the nature of the tests warranted another crack at consensus.

"They sent a missile next to French Polynesia, another one next to Tuvalu, crossing over our airspace. They never bothered to tell us that that's what's happening," he said.

"I said 'there's a lot of space between Japan and Guam, why don't you send it there? Why does it have to come to the middle of the Pacific when last year we just signed a declaration of peace for the Pacific?

"We don't want our backyard, our homes to be threatened and really disrespected."

Anthony Albanese said US missile testing in the region was "very different" as there was a compact governing its use and it provided notification.

How the issue will be treated by the leaders will provide a guide to how unified the region really is.