TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is investigating claims that the Chinese government spied on a senior Pacific leader while he was visiting the Pacific island nation.

Rabuka stressed that while the allegations are not yet proven, it would be a "concern" for Fiji if they are true, per ABC. "We are responsible for everyone who comes into Fiji and we should be looking after their interests until they leave our sovereign territory," he said.

He said China should not "use" the Pacific to implement its own regional strategy, but expressed that he did not believe Beijing was "intentionally using" the Pacific for that reason. The prime minister said Fiji and other Pacific Island nations should continue to "exercise sovereignty" and conduct diplomatic relations based on the "conventions of the world."

China and Fiji established diplomatic ties in 1975 and have inked bilateral security and policing agreements. However, former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama began distancing from China near the end of his final term. Rabuka continued to drift away from Beijing, by nixing a major police agreement with China in January.

“Our system of democracy and justice systems are different, so we will go back to those that have similar systems with us,” he said at the time.

His government also recently reinstated Taiwan’s representative office's former name, the Trade Mission of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the Republic of Fiji and restored diplomatic privileges to the trade mission. Under pressure from China, the Bainimarama administration renamed the overseas mission as the Taipei Trade Office in Fiji in 2018, according to Taiwan’s foreign ministry.