July 29, 2024
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has announced at the Quad Foreign Ministers meeting that Australia will contribute $18 million for a Canberra-based "Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre" for countries in the Indo-Pacific region which are rolling out new cable networks.
It comes as politicians from at least six countries say Chinese diplomats are pressuring them not to attend a China-focused summit in Taiwan, in what they describe as efforts to isolate the self-governed island.
Representatives from Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and one other Asian country that declined to be named say they are getting texts, calls and urgent requests for meetings that would conflict with their plans to travel to Taipei, the island's capital.
The IPAC summit in Taiwan begins on Monday and is being held by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, a group of hundreds of politicians from 35 countries concerned about how democracies approach Beijing.
The summit was held as Foreign Minister Penny Wong meets her US, Japanese and Indian counterparts in Tokyo for the Quad Foreign Ministers meeting.
All four nations say the grouping is focused on building a "positive" agenda for the region, but the Quad has also devoted considerable time and effort to pushing back against China's growing financial and strategic clout in Asia.
The four countries issued a joint statement criticising China's increasingly aggressive behaviour in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
It includes some fairly strong language criticising China's belligerence in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, criticising the "militarisation of disputed features" and "coercive and intimidating manoeuvres in the South China Sea"'
Speaking in Tokyo, Japan's Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said: "We have co-founded our response against information manipulation and interference by foreign countries."
Quad nations have been working to help countries across the Asia-Pacific to bolster infrastructure and maritime surveillance, as well as trying to lock out Chinese companies from critical undersea submarine telecommunication cables which carry internet traffic.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong, speaking at the meeting, said conflict within the region is risking lives and costing lives.
"Countries face coercive trade measures, unsustainable lending, political interference and disinformation," she says.
She also said Australia has launched a Cable Connectivity and Resilience Centre.
"[It is] our contribution to the Quad leaders partnership for cable and connectivity," she said, saying it would support the resilience of undersea cable networks in the region.
The centre, she said, will provide technical assistance and training, bringing together governments and industries.
"[These cables] connect all of us, upward of 95 per cent of digital traffic, is carried by these cables, every millisecond of the day," said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
This year, 49 parliamentarians from 23 nations are in Taiwan for high-level meetings with Taiwanese officials, according to a press release from the group.
IPAC was founded in 2020 by former UK politician Iain Duncan Smith as a means to endorse an internationally united tougher stance towards Chinese aggression.
In its infancy, the group represented 19 MPs across eight countries and the European Parliament, but over four years, it's rapidly grown.
IPAC now includes 21 Australian politicians from the Labor, Liberal and National parties. Of note, Liberal senator David Fawcett and Labor senator Deborah O'Neill are both in Taiwan for the 2024 summit.
Chinese government intimidation towards IPAC members is not new.
Since 2000, Beijing has sanctioned IPAC members, and in 2021 the group was targeted by Chinese state-sponsored hackers, according to a US indictment unsealed earlier this year.
But Luke de Pulford, the alliance's director, says the pressure from Chinese officials in the past few days has been unprecedented.
During past IPAC meetings in other locations, politicians were approached by Chinese diplomats only after they concluded.
This year, the first in which IPAC's annual summit is taking place in Taiwan, there appears to be a coordinated attempt to stop participants from attending.
Beijing vehemently defends its claim to Taiwan and views it as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary.
The texts and emails sent by Chinese diplomats included vague inquires related to attendance and direct requests to make alternative travel plans.
"I'm Wu, from Chinese Embassy," read a message sent to Antonio Miloshoski, a member of parliament in North Macedonia. "We heard that you got an invitation from IPAC, will you attend the Conference which will be held next week in Taiwan?"
Another MP said that Chinese diplomats messaged the head of her party with a demand to stop her from going.
"They contacted president of my political party, they ask him to stop me to travel to Taiwan," said Sanela Klarić, a member of parliament in Bosnia. "They're trying, in my country, to stop me from travelling … This is really not OK."
China routinely threatens retaliation against politicians and countries that show support for Taiwan, which has only 12 diplomatic allies remaining.
Klarić said the pressure was unpleasant but only steeled her determination to go on the trip.
"I really am fighting against countries or societies where the tool to manipulate and control peoples is fear," said Klarić, adding that it reminded her of threats and intimidation she faced while suffering through wars in Bosnia in the 1990s. "I really hate the feeling when somebody is frightening you."
The ABC understands that no Australian IPAC members or delegates were contacted by Chinese officials.
Australian Liberal senator James Paterson, who is one of IPAC's 64 co-chairs but not attending the 2024 summit, called Beijing's interventions "completely inappropriate" and criticised Chinese officials for attempting to "dictate" how democratically elected representatives from foreign nations chose to engage with Taiwan.
Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie told the ABC the reports were "not surprising".
"We've become accustomed to coercive behaviour from the PRC that is both provocative and intimidatory. But IPAC should continue as planned," he said.
IPAC's De Pulford labelled the pressure "gross foreign interference".
"How would PRC officials feel if we tried to tell them about their travel plans, where they could and could not go?" he said, using the acronym for China's official name, the People's Republic of China. "It's absolutely outrageous that they think that they can interfere in the travel plans of foreign legislators."
Both the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Taiwanese Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Bolivian senator Centa Rek said that she submitted a letter of protest after a Chinese diplomat called her and told her not to go to Taiwan, saying the island was run by an "impostor president" and that the summit was hosted by an organisation "not accepted within the terms of the policy of mainland China."
When Rek refused, the diplomat said he would report her decision to his embassy, which Rek interpreted as a "veiled threat".
"I told him that it was an unacceptable intrusion, that I would not accept an order or intrusion from any government," Senator Rek said. "These were personal decisions and that it seemed to me that he had gone beyond all international political norms."
Most of the politicians targeted appear to be from smaller countries, which De Pulford, the alliance's director, said was likely because Beijing "feels that they can get away with it."
But he added that the coercive tactics have only made participants more determined to take part in the summit.
Miriam Lexmann, a Slovakian member of the European Parliament whose party head was approached by Chinese diplomats, said the pressure underscored her reason for coming to Taiwan.
We want to "exchange information, ways how to deal with those challenges and threats which China represents to the democratic part of the world, and of course, to support Taiwan," she said.
