Taiwan takes center stage at international forum meant to rein in China
Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China will announce communique on Wednesday
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China is holding a two-day conference in Washington. (Photo posted on IPAC's Twitter account)
JACK STONE TRUITT, Nikkei staff writerSeptember 14, 2022 06:32 JST
WASHINGTON --
Legislators from 30 countries have gathered here this week to agree on a plan for countering what they say is behavior from the Chinese Communist Party that threatens democracy and the international order.
On Wednesday, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) intends to adopt a communique that will focus on supporting Taiwan and Ukraine, defending human rights and strengthening democracies globally as well as the current international system.
Front and center at the summit are tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
"Supporting Taiwan is not only about Taiwan. It's not only about the global high-tech supply chain. It is also about your country, your people and your democratic way of life," said Fan Yun, a member of Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, the self-ruled island's parliament.
Members said Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine illustrates the urgency surrounding China's potential use of force against self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing says is part of China.
"Supporting Taiwan is not only about Taiwan. It's not only about the global high-tech supply chain. It is also about your country, your people and your democratic way of life," said Fan Yun, a member of Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, the self-ruled island's parliament.
Members said Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine illustrates the urgency surrounding China's potential use of force against self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing says is part of China.
"I believe there is no way that we get to the end of this decade without something happening in one way or the other with regards to Taiwan," said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and an IPAC co-chair from the U.S.
IPAC's stated goals include holding China "to the standards of the international legal order." When the alliance was formed in 2020, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said: "We urge this handful of politicians to respect facts and basic norms of international relations, discard their Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice, and stop exploiting various issues to interfere in China's internal affairs and political manipulation for selfish gains."
Ukraine was also announced Tuesday as the latest legislative member addition to IPAC, which has grown from eight founding legislatures to 29 since its inception in June 2020.
Oleksandr Merezhko, a Ukrainian parliament member and IPAC co-chair, criticized China's claims of neutrality in the war in Ukraine, arguing that Beijing's purchases of Russian oil and votes against United Nations resolutions supporting Ukraine help Moscow circumvent Western sanctions.
"China claims that it is neutral. It's not neutral," he said, citing Chinese President Xi Jinping's self-described "no-limits" partnership with Russia. "They made this alliance just three weeks before the invasion, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And it's a very telling fact."
Taiwanese politician Freddy Lim said the atmosphere at this IPAC summit and similar political gatherings since the Russian invasion has been notably different.
Politicians from the U.S. and elsewhere no longer insist on giving China more time to assimilate into the international order.
"Twenty years ago, when we wanted to stand firm, we were called troublemakers," he said.
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, also an IPAC co-chair, took aim at the belief that increased trade and economic entanglement with China from the West would incentivize Beijing to conform to the American-led international system.
"We thought their participation in international organizations would move them as a positive contributor to the international order. Unfortunately, China accepted the invitation, but used it to its own advantage," said Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Other politicians from across the Indo-Pacific asserted their own concerns surrounding Beijing's increased geopolitical sway, and the allegations of ongoing human rights violations against the Uyghur ethnic group in China's Xinjiang region.
"[China] sometimes makes the accusation that they 'don't want Western values to be impressed on us,' but universal rights are not the exclusive domain of the West," said Yasue Funayama, an IPAC co-chair and member of Japan's upper house of parliament.
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Essentially the G7 and their supporters want China to bow to their hegemony & Pax Americana and change its political and economical model to 'integrate' in the so called 'international' order. They make all the important standards & rules in small settings like the G7 and we should just blindly adopt them across the political, economical, agricultural, cultural and trade field because that is what is needed to integrate in Pax Americana. And otherwise we are a threat to the so called 'liberal international order' (euphemism for western hegemony led by the USA). They will decide our destiny otherwise a threat to the international order. Those hegemonical white man burden & civilizing mission fucks.
Expenses — UAH 2.57 trillion (about $70 billion)