International Lawmakers Oppose Unilateral Changes to Cross-Strait Status Quo

TaiwanPlus News

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group made up of lawmakers from various nations concerned about growing challenges from China, has passed a declaration opposing unilateral changes to the status quo across the Taiwan Strait and laying out what they consider would constitute violations of that status quo.

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00:00Just a week after hosting Taiwan's Vice President Bi Kim Xiao at their annual meeting in Brussels,

00:05an international group of lawmakers has responded to China's expanding influence with a major

00:10declaration on the Taiwan Strait. In it, the Interparliamentary Alliance on China, or

00:16IPAC, opposed any unilateral change to the status quo across the strait, where tensions between

00:22Taiwan and China are rising. They also laid out what they would consider a violation of that

00:27status quo. That includes things like preventing Taiwan from exercising independent governance,

00:33controlling its borders, maintaining a functioning economy, or keeping its society safe from malicious

00:38political interference, as well as preventing Taiwan from establishing relations with other

00:43countries or forcing Taiwan to accept a political agreement that its government and citizens have

00:48not agreed to. This is seen as a significant move in Taiwan. China considers Taiwan part of its

00:55territory and has not ruled out the use of force to take control of it, while Taiwan rejects these

01:00claims. Countries around the world have weighed in on cross-strait tensions in the past, often by

01:06saying they support maintaining the status quo. But rarely do they define what exactly they consider

01:11the status quo to be. Experts say countries purposely keep it vague, to avoid taking a side between China

01:18and Taiwan, which have very different interpretations of the term.

01:22So for these lawmakers to pass a declaration, giving specifics is a big deal. One Taiwanese

01:46lawmaker who attended this year's IPAC meeting, welcome to the move.

02:00This declaration is not binding, nor does it represent the views of any particular government,

02:05only those of the lawmakers who endorsed it. But this could be the start of a larger movement.

02:11IPAC members said in a statement that they plan to put out similar initiatives in their own

02:15parliaments. The hope is to push back against China's aggression by having more countries around

02:20the world uphold these principles. John Su and Cadence Quaranta for Taiwan Plus.

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