China Pressures Lawmakers to Boycott Taiwan Conference

Chinese diplomats have been pressuring lawmakers from at least six countries, including Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia, and one unnamed Asian country, to not attend a China-focused conference in Taiwan. The conference, organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), begins Monday in Taipei and aims to address threats posed by China's rise. Politicians reported receiving texts, calls, and urgent meeting requests from Chinese diplomats, with some contacts being described as menacing. This pressure is seen as an unprecedented effort by China to isolate Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory. IPAC, a group of lawmakers from 35 countries, has faced previous pressures and sanctions from Beijing, but the current efforts to prevent attendance at the Taiwan conference are notably intense.