Beijing pressures lawmakers from 6 countries not to attend conference in Taiwan

BEIJING — Chinese diplomats are pressuring lawmakers from at least six countries not to attend a China-focused summit in Taiwan, participants told The Associated Press.

Politicians from Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and another Asian country that asked not to be identified, say they are receiving text messages, 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 autonomous island.

The summit begins on Monday and is hosted by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. a group of hundreds of legislators from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing. The Associated Press spoke with organizers and three lawmakers, and reviewed texts and emails sent by Chinese diplomats to lawmakers asking if they planned to participate in the summit.

“I’m Wu from the Chinese embassy,” read a message sent to Antonio Miloshoski, a member of North Macedonia’s parliament. “We heard you received an invitation from IPAC. Will you be attending the conference in Taiwan next week?”

In some cases, lawmakers outlined vague questions about their plans to travel to Taiwan. In other cases, the contact was more threatening: One lawmaker told the AP that Chinese diplomats sent a message to the head of her party demanding that he prevent her from going.

“They sent a direct message to the president of my party to prevent me from traveling to Taiwan,” said Sanela Klarić, a member of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s parliament. “He showed me their message. He said: ‘I will advise you not to go, but I can’t stop you, it’s something you have to make a decision.’”

China regularly threatens retaliation against politicians and countries that show support for Taiwan, which only maintains informal relations with most countries due to Chinese diplomatic pressure. Klarić said the pressure was unpleasant, but it only strengthened his determination to undertake the journey.

“I’m really fighting against countries or societies where the tool to manipulate and control people is fear,” Klarić said, adding that it reminded him of the threats and intimidation he faced while suffering through the Balkan war in the 1990s. “I’m really fighting “I hate the feeling of someone scaring you.”

China vehemently defends its claim to Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing considers its own territory and can be annexed by force if necessary. Last week, Beijing criticized Taiwan for its annual Han Kuang military exercisessaying that Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party was “carrying out provocations to seek independence.”

“Any attempt to stoke tensions and use force to seek independence or reject reunification is doomed to failure,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning told reporters.

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

The Interparliamentary 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 attacked by Chinese state-sponsored hackers, according to a US indictment revealed earlier this year.

But Luke de Pulford, head of the alliance, says the pressure from Chinese officials in recent days is unprecedented.

During previous meetings held elsewhere, Chinese diplomats approached lawmakers only after they concluded. This year, pressure has increased dramatically and appears to be a coordinated attempt to prevent participants from attending.

“This is serious foreign interference. “This is not normal diplomacy,” he said of Pulford. “How would PRC officials feel if we tried to tell them about their travel plans, where they could go and where they couldn’t? “It’s absolutely outrageous that they think they can interfere with the travel plans of foreign lawmakers,” 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 news release. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China has been weaning itself off the island’s diplomatic allies, often with promises of development aid, in a long-running competition between the two that has tilted in Beijing’s favor in recent years. The Pacific island nation of Nauru changed recognition to Beijing earlier this yeara move that reduced Taiwan’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies to 12.

But China’s sometimes harsh approach has also provoked backlash.

In 2021, Beijing degraded 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, Vilnius, would be named after Taiwan rather than Chinese Taipei, which other countries used to avoid offending Beijing. The following year, the EU adopted a resolution criticizing Beijing’s behavior towards Taiwan and took action against China at the World Trade Organization over import restrictions.

Most of the lawmakers targeted appear to be from smaller countries, which De Pulford said is likely because Beijing “feels like they can get away with it.” But he added that coercive tactics have only made participants more determined to participate.

Miriam Lexmann, a Slovak member of the European Parliament whose party chief was contacted by Chinese diplomats, said the pressure underlined her reason for coming to Taiwan.

We want to “exchange information, ways to address the challenges and threats that China poses to the democratic part of the world and, of course, support Taiwan,” he said.

__

Associated Press video journalist Johnson Lai contributed to this report from Taipei, Taiwan.