In a legislative hearing in Taipei, Taiwan's foreign minister named what many have long suspected but rarely stated so plainly: that China is not merely winning diplomatic contests in the South Pacific, but purchasing them. The closure of Taiwan's representative office in Papua New Guinea — ordered by a single minister, without Cabinet consensus — became the occasion for a broader reckoning with how Beijing extends its reach not through armies alone, but through the quiet cultivation of individual loyalties. Taiwan, which supplies a third of PNG's LNG export market, finds itself navigating a d