The horrifying scene of Next Media founder Jimmy Lai being openly escorted with chains around his waist and handcuffs on his hands shocked the global democratic community. Many political figures from different parties in Taiwan have publicly expressed their support. However, aside from expressing solidarity, we also ask ourselves what more can be done in Taiwan’s political arena on a practical level.

Perhaps Taiwan can consider starting with the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).

IPAC was established on Jun 4th, 2020, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. What began as a joint initiative of 18 members of parliaments from eight countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, Japan, Norway, Sweden and Germany, and the European Parliament, has now expanded to an alliance comprising more than 100 MPs from 19 of the world’s democratic legislatures. It has been described as “one of the most geographically and politically diverse coalitions ever.” The organization was founded with the stated purpose of “working towards reform on how democratic countries approach China.”

What other country in the world would be more suited than Taiwan’s parliamentary members to make recommendations on the above-mentioned objectives? Unfortunately, according to IPAC’s official website, it appears that no Taiwanese legislators have yet become its members.

IPAC’s five broad categories of work are “safeguarding international rules based order,” “upholding human rights,” “promoting trade fairness,” “strengthening security,” and “protecting national integrity,” each of which is in fact directed at China. For example, under “strengthening security,” it emphasizes that “democracies must develop complementary security strategies to address challenges presented by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).”

Unfortunately, it seems that since the establishment of IPAC, there has been very limited coverage by the Taiwanese media, and few political parties or figures in Taiwan have discussed the strategic importance of IPAC in social media or on public occasions. As far as we know, it seems that only the New Power Party has publicly advocated for participation in IPAC on Facebook and Twitter.

In the short period of time since IPAC’s establishment, there have been several public campaigns, including “Prevalence of forced labor in the Tibetan Autonomous Region,” “Persecution of predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” the Hong Kong national security law and the extradition law amendment bill in Hong Kong. Taiwan’s political, academic, and social activist communities have the strong argumentative capacity, moral legitimacy, and speaking points on each of these issues. It would in fact be a great pity if Taiwan were absent from IPAC.

What the Taiwan government can do is to express its willingness to participate and assist with a more active stance and more concrete resources to the IPAC Central Secretariat. Members of the legislature from all political parties in Taiwan should also unite to strive for participation. Many of the co-chairs and members of IPAC are long-time friends of Taiwan, including U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio and U.S. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. In the near term, Taiwan’s embassy in the U.S. can perhaps try to reach out to these pro-Taiwan congressmen so that Taiwan’s members of the Legislative Yuan can also join IPAC.

In the interim, is it possible for the Taiwanese government to offer budgetary support for IPAC to hold its annual conference in Taiwan after the pandemic has subsided? If the conference can be held in Taiwan, it will reinforce the strategic importance of Taiwan as a “beacon of democracy in Asia.”

As a matter of fact, the invitation of foreign guests has been a long-standing practice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan, and members of various international parliaments have always been the target of our diplomatic missions. It would be of great political significance to invite IPAC members to Taiwan to hold conferences or workshops.

In addition to co-chairs and members, IPAC has invited many cross-disciplinary professionals to serve as advisors, including former journalist for The New York Times Vicky Xiuzhong Xu (co-author of “Uyghurs for sale,” a report published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute), and Chinese human rights activist Wei Jingsheng, etc. That is, besides lawmakers in Taiwan, members of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy or quasi-non-governmental think tanks can also try to engage in other ways.

It is a wonderful thing for political figures to show their support for Hong Kong on Facebook but it would be even more powerful to stand with Hong Kong together with the global democratic community!

(Liu Shih-chieh, Taiwanese diplomat)

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