The “status quo” across the Taiwan Strait must not be changed unilaterally, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) said on Wednesday at the conclusion of its annual meeting in Washington, expressing support for Taiwan.
The communique declared that IPAC would continue to jointly defend peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, as well as Taiwan’s economic and trade security, through the legislative bodies of its member countries.
More than 60 parliamentarians from different countries attended this year’s meeting and passed the communique without objection at its conclusion.
Photo: CNA
The meeting also included a session on strengthening democratic support for Taiwan, which was attended by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Fan Yun (范雲), New Power Party Legislator Claire Wang (王婉諭) and independent Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐).
“If, in fact, the Chinese Communist Party is successful in subjecting the people of Taiwan to living under tyranny, it will be a moment that will steer the course of human events for generations,” US Senator Marco Rubio, an IPAC cochair, said during the meeting.
The communique also discussed human rights, defense of the rules-based global order, the political situation in Hong Kong, the strengthening of democracy worldwide and support for Ukraine.
The communique condemned China’s military exercises near Taiwan and its coercive military threats. It called on countries worldwide to oppose China’s tactics in the Strait, to promote state visits to Taiwan and upgrade the status of the country’s missions abroad.
It also called for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the WHO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, Interpol, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and other international covenants and organizations.
The communique also called on governments of all countries to convey to China that military aggression against Taiwan would come at a heavy price, and to consider substantive sanctions in response to military escalation by China.
Countries should make good use of intergovernmental mechanisms to curb economic coercion by China, and to ensure continued relations with Taiwan, it said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday in a statement said that Taiwan would continue to work with IPAC and other like-minded international partners to jointly maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, and to defend the core values shared by global democracies.
IPAC is an international cross-party group of legislators working to develop policies that democratic countries can follow in their approach to China, according to the alliance’s Web site.
Its current members include cross-party legislators from the European Parliament, the US, the UK, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Canada, India, Italy, Japan, Lithuania and Ukraine, among others.
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS