Beijing persuades lawmakers not to attend Taiwan conference

Chinese diplomats are pressuring lawmakers from at least six countries not to attend a China-focused summit in Taiwan.

Politicians in Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and one other Asian country that declined to be named, say they are getting texts, 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 begins Monday (29 July) and is being held by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing. The Associated Press spoke to the organizers and three lawmakers, and reviewed texts and emails sent by Chinese diplomats to the lawmakers asking whether they were planning to participate in the summit.

“I’m Wu, from Chinese Embassy,” read a message sent to Antonio Miloshoski, a member of parliament in North Macedonia. “We heard that you got an invitation from IPAC, will you attend the Conference which will be held next week in Taiwan?”

In some cases, lawmakers described vague inquiries about their plans to travel to Taiwan. In other cases, the contact was more menacing: One lawmaker said 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 traveling to Taiwan,” said Sanela Klarić, a member of parliament in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “He showed me the message from them. He said, ‘I will advise you not to go, but I cannot stop you, it’s something you have to make a decision.’”

China routinely threatens retaliation against politicians and countries that show support for Taiwan, which has only informal relations with most countries due to Chinese diplomatic pressure. 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 peoples fear,” said Klarić, adding that it reminded her of threats and intimidation she faced while suffering through the Balkans war in the 1990s. “I really hate the feeling when somebody is frightening you.”

China vehemently defends its claim to Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing views as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary. Last week, Beijing criticized Taiwan for its annual Han Kuang military drills, saying that Taiwan’s 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 told reporters.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which aims to coordinate diplomacy in response to perceived threats from Beijing, has long faced pressure from the Chinese government. Some members have been sanctioned by Beijing, and in 2021 the group was targeted by Chinese state-sponsored hackers, according to a U.S. indictment unsealed earlier this year.

But Luke de Pulford, the alliance’s director, says the pressure from Chinese officials the past few days has been unprecedented.

During past meetings in other locations, 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 would 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 added, using the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

Lawmakers from 25 countries are expected to attend this year’s summit and will feature high-level meetings with 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 the island’s diplomatic allies, often with promises of development aid, in a long-running competition between the two that has swung in Beijing’s favor 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 at-times heavy-handed approach has also triggered backlash.

In 2021, Beijing downgraded relations and blocked imports from Lithuania, a member of both 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 criticizing Beijing's behavior toward Taiwan and took action against China at the World Trade Organization over the import restrictions.

Most of the lawmakers targeted appear to be from smaller countries, which de Pulford said was likely because Beijing “feels that they can get away with it.” But he added that the coercive tactics has 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.