I dont understand the word Forcing here. Norway had a choice to continue denying The one China policy. Putting pressure on Norway thru various means is not forcing. Forcing would be done via a military operation leaving little choice.
However, this isn't existential because even if China refuses to trade with Norway entirely, through the EEA the Norwegian people could continue receiving goods from China mediated through a different EEA country that has trade agreements.
At it's most dire what occurred simply wasn't an existential threat to Norway and the geographical distance meant that military reactions to trade disputes simply weren't going to occur. Thus the "force" here was mostly one of appearances, rather than reality.
That said, I'm not entirely sure I agree that this doesn't meet the definition of "forcing". Politics is squishy like that. Just because fishing is less than 1% of the GDP doesn't mean it has minimal impact on Norwegian society. The fishing industry has significant historical and cultural significance to Norway and abandoning support of that industry could very well be political suicide within Norway for the politicians that refused to play ball. You could say its simply spineless, but the optics of them snubbing China and at the same time snubbing their own fishing industry aren't especially good.
So yes, China was definitely forcing Norway to recognize Taiwan and Hong Kong as a being a part of China.
I mean, they'd still have the option of denying the one China and going to war, by your definition. Basically, the way you see it, nobody can force you to do anything, as you can always kill yourself.
Blackmail, threats, deceit, etc are other ways to force. Not saying that occurred here, just that your definition has a narrow scope.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/forced
> enforced or compulsory
Is the first definition of the word. How was it compulsory for Norway to comply? They had their officials at gunpoint?
Also, words often have more than just their first definition.