Beijing tries to stop foreign politicians from attending key Taiwan conference

Lawmakers’ group will meet to address ‘threats to rules-based and human rights systems posed by rise of China’

Beijing is pressuring lawmakers from at least six countries not to attend a summit focused on China in Taiwan, participants told the Associated Press.

Politicians in Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and an Asian country that declined to be named, say they are getting texts, telephone calls and urgent requests for meetings that would conflict with their plans to travel to Taiwan, in what they describe as efforts to isolate the self-governed island.

The summit, which starts on Monday, is being organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of current and former lawmakers from 35 countries that describes itself as a platform for “addressing threats to the rules-based and human rights systems posed by the rise of China”.

AP spoke to the organisers and three politicians and reviewed texts and emails sent by Chinese diplomats asking whether they were planning to participate in the summit.

In some cases, politicians described vague enquiries about their plans to travel to Taiwan. In other cases the contact was more menacing: one lawmaker told AP that Chinese diplomats messaged the head of her party with a demand to stop her from going.

“They sent a direct message to the president of my party to stop me from travelling to Taiwan,” Sanela Klarić, a member of parliament in Bosnia and Herzegovina, claimed. “He showed me the message from them. He said, ‘I’ll advise you not to go, but I cannot stop you, it’s something you have to make a decision.’”

Ms Klarić said the pressure was unpleasant but only steeled her determination to go on the trip.

“I really am fighting against countries or societies where the tool to manipulate and control peoples is fear,” said Ms Klarić, adding that it reminded her of threats and intimidation she faced during the Balkans war in the 1990s. “I really hate the feeling when somebody is frightening you.”

China is routinely accused of threatening retaliation against politicians and countries that show support for Taiwan, which has only informal relations with most countries.

China vehemently defends its claim to Taiwan, which it views as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary.

Last week, Beijing criticised Taiwan over its annual Han Kuang military drills, saying the ruling Democratic Progressive Party was “carrying out provocations to seek independence”.

“Any attempt to whip up tensions and use force to seek independence or reject reunification is doomed to failure,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.

The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which aims to coordinate a response to perceived threats from Beijing, has long faced pressure from the Asian giant.

Some of its members have been sanctioned by Beijing, and the group was targeted by Chinese hackers in 2021, according to a US indictment unsealed earlier this year.

But Luke de Pulford, the group’s director, claims that the pressure from Chinese diplomats in the past few days has been unprecedented.

During past meetings in other places, the group’s lawmakers were approached by Chinese diplomats only after they concluded. This year, the pressure has sharply escalated and appears to be a coordinated attempt to stop participants from attending.

“This is gross foreign interference. This is not normal diplomacy,” de Pulford said.

“How would PRC officials feel if we tried to tell them about their travel plans, where they could and could not go? It’s absolutely outrageous that they think that they can interfere in the travel plans of foreign legislators,” he said, using the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

The summit will see participation by politicians from 25 countries and feature meetings with top Taiwanese officials, according to a press release.

The Taiwanese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China has been peeling off Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, often with promises of development aid, in a competition between the two that has swung in Beijing’s favour in recent years. The Pacific island nation of Nauru switched recognition to Beijing earlier this year, a move that reduced Taiwan’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies to 12.

But China’s approach has also triggered a backlash.

In 2021, Beijing downgraded relations and blocked imports from Lithuania, a member of the EU and Nato, after the Baltic nation broke with diplomatic custom by agreeing that a Taiwanese representative office in its capital of Vilnius would bear the name Taiwan instead of Chinese Taipei, which other countries use to avoid offending Beijing.

The following year, the EU adopted a resolution criticising Beijing’s behaviour towards Taiwan and took action against China at the World Trade Organisation over the import restrictions.

Most of the politicians targeted appear to be from smaller countries, which de Pulford said was probably because Beijing “feels that they can get away with it”. But he said the coercive tactics have only made participants more determined to participate.

Miriam Lexmann, a Slovakian member of the European Parliament whose party head was approached by Chinese diplomats, 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”, she said.