Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect.
Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision.
Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I had a great visit to Prague & thank the Czech authorities for their hospitality & ensuring my safety.”
Photo: Taipei Times
She also stressed that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) unlawful activities will not intimidate her from voicing Taiwan’s interests in the international community.
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee Majority on Saturday shared Hsiao’s post on its official X account and wrote: “Just as CCP crushed democracy in Hong Kong, it tried crushing the car of VICE PRESIDENT of Taiwan INSIDE a NATO member state.”
“This is the CCP’s criminality on display for the whole world to see,” it wrote. “This isn’t diplomacy, it’s coercion.”
On the same day, the official X account run by Democrat members of the US House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the CCP shared US magazine Newsweek’s report on the incident.
“The CCP’s planned attack on Taiwan’s then-VP-elect in Czechia is a clear escalation that highlights the growing threat of the CCP’s transnational repression,” it wrote.
“This is why the Taiwan Allies Fund Act was reintroduced this year,” it wrote, adding that the “[US] Congress must pass it now.”
Separately, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) on Saturday issued a statement on its X account, along with 60 signatures from lawmakers from 30 countries, calling on countries to condemn China’s attempt at politically motivated violence.
The IPAC said if the plan succeeded, it would have constituted state terror, and even as an attempt, the episode represented the crossing of a threshold.
“A state which is willing to plan such an overt act of politically motivated violence in a foreign country is not a state that can be said to respect international diplomatic norms,” the statement said.
The IPAC also expressed solidarity with Hsiao and Taiwanese who might be subject to coercion by China while traveling abroad.
Hsiao replied by sharing the IPAC statement on her X account and writing: “Thankful to global parliamentarians who have expressed solidarity against violence and coercion. Taiwan will not be isolated by intimidation.”
Additional reporting by Su Yung-yao
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