Taiwan has faced intensifying economic and diplomatic pressure from China ever since the 2016 election of its president, Tsai Ing-wen, whose campaign for re-election in January could now face a significant setback.

But there are some signs that China’s efforts to isolate Taiwan are building support for Ms. Tsai’s government, not eroding it. The same goes for Beijing’s unwavering support for the government and the police in Hong Kong, where the “one country, two systems” governing model — which Mr. Xi has dangled as an incentive to Taiwan to unify with the People’s Republic of China — has been severely tarnished by the continuing unrest there.

Even before those protests, however, polls in Taiwan showed negligible support for unification with China under any arrangement.

“China’s suppression of Taiwan in the international arena cannot change the indisputable fact of Taiwan’s existence, nor can it coerce the Taiwanese people into abandoning their democratic and free way of life,” Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Friday, which criticized Kiribati and Beijing with equal intensity.

The statement accused Kiribati’s president, Taneti Maamau, and his governing party of holding “highly unrealistic expectations regarding China.” It claimed that Mr. Maamau had sought a donation, to be used for the purchase of commercial aircraft, rejecting Taiwan’s offers to provide loans to purchase them.

Kiribati — a former British colony composed of 33 coral atolls and reef islands, scattered across a swath of the Pacific Ocean about twice the size of Alaska — informed Taiwan of its intent to sever relations, but it did not immediately announce its intention to recognize Beijing. That is expected soon. Repeated calls to the president’s office were not answered.

The country has a gross domestic product of less than $200 million and earns much of its income by charging fees to foreign fishing fleets that operate in its waters. The value of fishing in Kiribati-controlled waters was worth over a billion dollars per year in 2014, nearly as much as the entire catch in waters owned by all the other Pacific island countries and territories, according to a study financed by the Australian government.