IPAC STATEMENT ON INTIMIDATION OF IPAC LAWMAKERS BY REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA We, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China condemn the coercive measures—both direct and indirect—taken by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) against delegates to the IPAC Taipei Summit. Peter Keniloria MP of the Solomon Islands, Miriam Lexmann MEP, of Slovakia, Catalin Tenita, MP, of Romania, Fatmir Bytyqi MP of North Macedonia, and Senator Centa Rek Lopez of Bolivia, among others, have been subjected to wholly inappropriate efforts by the PRC to limit their fundamental freedoms, both before, and after the Summit, held on 29-31 July 2024. In addition, PRC spokespeople have issued several statements condemning IPAC, saying that our work on Taiwan is “external interference” which ”won’t be tolerated”. Vibrant and active democracies are based on political freedoms that include the sharing and contesting of ideas in open discussion, unhindered political association, and the right to express political views without sanction or intimidation. These rights are enshrined in The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the PRC is a signatory. The PRC’s coordinated program of political interference and intimidation over recent days, directed specifically against delegates to the IPAC 2024 Summit, is a clumsy and openly coercive series of actions designed to limit engagement and dialogue between democratically elected representatives. The PRC will not succeed in its efforts to prevent us discussing their persistent and deliberate conflation of their “One China Principle” with the “One China Policies” of different countries around the world. They will not succeed in preventing us from campaigning to raise awareness around their troubling efforts to distort UN Resolution 2758, and to re-write the history books to fit their current narrative regarding Taiwan. Neither the PRC, nor any other country, has the right to threaten foreign lawmakers for having entirely legitimate discussions of international law and global prosperity, nor seek to curb the freedom of movement of democratically elected lawmakers. IPAC is - and will remain - a place where like-minded legislators can come together, united in the belief that only by standing together in the context of an increasingly revisionist and authoritarian PRC, will democratic countries uphold the rules-based system and guarantee freedom and human rights for all. We stand resolutely with our colleagues against the PRC’s deplorable intimidation, and call upon our governments to spare no effort in protecting the freedoms of their parliamentarians, upon which the health of our democracies depend. #StandTogether