00:00We heard fairly early on that Malawi had come under pressure from the PRC, but not the politicians
00:06directly. It was actually the Malawian government. It was the presidential office who had heard
00:12directly from the government of the People's Republic of China who had threatened them.
00:17And they had indicated that the presence of the Malawian president in China would not be welcome
00:24unless the two co-chairs for Malawi for IPAC left the network. So we then heard from our Malawian
00:33politicians who confirmed that they had indeed been under pressure to leave. And they wrote us a letter
00:39effectively leaving IPAC, which looked like it had been dictated by the embassy of the People's
00:47Republic of China because it contained language in it about the one China principle and particularly
00:53mentioned Taiwan. There were many other attempts at coercing IPAC members. Before the Taipei summit
01:00took place, somehow China got hold of our delegates list. So everybody that we were going to invite
01:06to the summit. And in the days leading up to the summit, they contacted lawmakers in 11 countries
01:12to try to pressure them to stop them from going to Taipei. But more recently, the PRC has been on
01:18more of a charm offensive, and they're wanting to speak to our members. And they're wanting to draw them into
01:24slightly more routine, quasi diplomatic exchanges in order to try to discover what they're up to, and exert pressure
01:33in the usual way, you know, through bilateral meetings, as opposed to direct coercion, which is what IPAC has
01:39experienced too much of, I think.
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