The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) is not “anti-China” but instead seeks to help democratic governments develop more realistic policies toward China, group founder Luke de Pulford said.
De Pulford, who established the global network of lawmakers in 2020, said the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) branding of IPAC as “anti-China” was part of Beijing’s campaign to discredit its critics.
“When they see lawmakers from different traditions around the world speaking with one voice about concerns related to the behavior of the contemporary CCP, they want to shut it up,” he said in an interview with the Central News Agency on Wednesday last week.
Photo: CNA
He described IPAC as a broad coalition of legislators from different political backgrounds who often hold differing views on China and how to engage with it.
“The CCP has upset them, and they want it to be addressed,” he said. “They’re slowly coming to a realization of what the CCP is today, as opposed to what we hoped it might become or what they thought it was.”
Many IPAC members have “a deep love and respect for China, Chinese culture and the Chinese people,” De Pulford said.
“They’re people who do not like authoritarianism and don’t like the behavior of an authoritarian government. That isn’t the same as being anti-China, so we shouldn’t accept that characterization,” he said.
Beijing’s efforts to portray IPAC as anti- China had failed to curb the organization’s rapid growth, particularly in Latin America, he added.
IPAC comprises 320 lawmakers from 45 legislatures worldwide.
The alliance’s objective is not to change China’s behavior, but to encourage democracies to adopt more realistic policies toward China, De Pulford said.
“People are not prepared for escalation in cross-strait tensions, and they’re not doing nearly enough to try to deter escalation,” he said. “So we don’t have realistic policies, and we need them. IPAC is there to use the parliamentary toolbox to force that conversation. That’s its mission — to change democratic policy on China.”
Since its founding, IPAC has regularly issued statements and resolutions on Taiwan, emphasizing the importance of maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, supporting Taiwan’s self-determination and resisting Beijing’s diplomatic and economic coercion.
During IPAC’s summit in Taipei in 2024, Taiwan formally joined the alliance, with Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) and Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Chen Gau-tzu (陳昭姿) serving as IPAC cochairs.
IPAC invited Taiwan’s main opposition the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to join when the alliance was founded, but the party has yet to do so, De Pulford said.
“I’ve had conversations with the KMT; some of them better than others. It’s been quite rocky over the past few years, but we’re very much open to KMT participation, and we hope that they join at some point.”
“Political parties in Taiwan that want to have fruitful relations internationally, if they overlook IPAC, they’re overlooking some of their strongest friends internationally,” he added. “It makes no sense.”
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