Forty-nine lawmakers from 24 countries gathered in Taiwan on Tuesday to discuss how China is raising tensions with the democratically ruled island and to assess the economic impact a potential conflict could have on the international community.
The two-day summit was organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, a group that includes hundreds of lawmakers from 35 countries who are concerned about how democracies deal with China. The conference brought the largest-ever foreign parliamentary delegation to Taiwan.
In a keynote speech Tuesday, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said China’s threat to any country is a threat to the world.
“Taiwan will do everything in its power to support the ‘democracy umbrella’ with its democratic partners, so as to protect them from the threat of authoritarian expansion,” he told attending lawmakers.
The rare meeting that has brought so many lawmakers from across the globe to Taiwan is part of a trend of foreign visits that has surged since former U.S. House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island in August almost two years ago.
Despite having its own army, currency and democratic political system of government, Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations and has few formal diplomatic allies. China opposes any international engagement with Taiwan, which it regards as a part of its territory, and has been whittling away at the number of countries that have official ties with the island. Taiwan currently has 12 diplomatic allies.
In response to the surge in international attention and visits, China has carried out a series of major military exercises around the island over the past two years and almost daily military harassment that has included a mix of fighter jets, naval and coast guard vessels and drones. It has also amped up its rhetoric that unification is inevitable.
UN Resolution 2758
At Tuesday’s conference, attending lawmakers adopted a model motion they say will pave the way for them to pass similar resolutions in their parliaments at home. The aim of the motion is to counter China’s interpretation of United Nations Resolution 2758 in their legislatures.
U.N. Resolution 2758 was passed on Oct. 25, 1971 and is a key international agreement that Beijing uses to isolate Taiwan. Experts note, however, that the resolution only decided that the People’s Republic of China would replace the Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. It did not, however, determine Taiwan’s sovereign status.
While some countries, such as the United States, have rejected China’s claim that the U.N. resolution supports its sovereignty claim over Taiwan, some foreign lawmakers attending the summit say the model resolution adopted by IPAC members could inform governments about the possibility of China using its interpretation of the U.N. resolution as a pretext to launch a potential military attack against Taiwan.
