Chinese diplomats or henchmen have been pressuring lawmakers from various countries to forego a conference about policy toward China being held in Taiwan by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).
The first day of the conference was this Monday, July 29, 2024.
In its report on the pressure campaign, the Associated Press describes IPAC as “a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing,” which sounds vague. IPAC’s own explanation of purpose speaks of “demanding accountability from China” as the only way to “uphold the rules-based system.” That’s still too much beating around the bush, but some stronger statements can also be gleaned from the IPAC site.
Moreover, AP has reported that at an IPAC meeting in Tokyo in 2023, leaders called for “a tougher international approach to China to reduce the possibility of war over Taiwan and respond to human rights violations.” And IPAC director Luke de Pulford has said that China “is clearly our number one threat.”
If that’s the kind of thinking to which IPAC is prone, no wonder China has been badgering members to skip meetings, especially a meeting in the Republic of China, which the People’s Republic of China has been eager to gobble up for about 75 years. Things would be much easier for the Chinese Communist Party if nobody ever opposed it in any way.
De Pulford “said the pressure from Chinese officials the past few days has been unprecedented. During past IPAC meetings in other locations, lawmakers were approached by Chinese diplomats only after they concluded. This year, the first in which IPAC’s annual meeting is taking place in Taiwan, there appeared to be a coordinated attempt to stop participants from attending.”
Some of the reactions of the persons on the receiving end of the pressure:
● Sanela Klarić, Bosnia. “They contacted president of my political party, they ask him to stop me to travel to Taiwan. They’re trying, in my country, to stop me from traveling…. This is really not okay. I really am fighting against countries or societies where the tool to manipulate and control peoples is fear. I really hate the feeling when somebody is frightening you.”
● Centa Rek, Bolivia. “I told him [a Chinese diplomat] that it was an unacceptable intrusion, that I would not accept an order or intrusion from any government. These were personal decisions and that it seemed to me that he had gone beyond all international political norms.”
● Meriam Lexman, Slovakia, “said the pressure underscored her reason for coming to Taiwan. ‘We want to exchange information, ways how to deal with those challenges and threats which China represents to the democratic part of the world, and of course, to support Taiwan.’ ”
The lawmakers who have been getting the calls seem to be mostly from smaller countries, which de Pulford says is probably because the Chinese government felt it would be easier to “get away with it” in their case. But, he adds, the harassment only made the lawmakers even more determined to attend the conference.
