Liberal MP Judy Sgro said she still plans to lead a delegation of MPs to Taiwan this October, despite China’s decision to impose sanctions on New Zealand lawmakers who recently visited the self-governing territory claimed by Beijing.
Ms. Sgro is chair of the Canada-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group in Ottawa.
The veteran MP, a member of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s governing Liberal caucus, said she’s not deterred by the punishment China is levying on Western politicians.
“I will not be told what to do by a foreign government,” Ms. Sgro said in a statement. “I am a duly-elected parliamentarian who believes in democracy and thinks it’s time China did too.”
She said her trip will include both Conservative and Liberal MPs.
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The Chinese government confirmed Thursday that it had barred four New Zealand MPs from traveling to China for a year because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip. It considers such visits to be interference in its internal affairs.
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Canada ended formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1970 and instead, under then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, recognized the PRC.
Since then, Canada’s One China policy recognizes the PRC as the sole legitimate government of China but at the same time neither challenges nor endorses Beijing’s position that Taiwan is China’s territory. Like many Western countries, Canada maintains robust unofficial relations with Taiwan.
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China’s envoy in Canada recently warned the Carney government that a new strategic relationship it struck with Chinese President Xi Jinping would be damaged if Ottawa sent more military vessels through the Taiwan Strait or if Canadian parliamentarians kept travelling to Taiwan to meet with the territory’s government.
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Shortly after, Conservative MP Michael Chong visited Taiwan and met with Taiwan’s President, and Canada sent the frigate HMCS Charlottetown through the Taiwan Strait on May 22-23.
Mr. Chong, the Conservative foreign affairs critic, predicted China would increase the pressure on Canada to stop parliamentarians from visiting Taiwan.
“This is a precursor of a test of the Liberal government’s new strategic partnership with the People’s Republic of China that will come when Canadian MPs travel to Taiwan in the coming months,” he said in a statement.
“Under the strategic partnership, it appears that Beijing wants to stop MPs from going to Taiwan and wants the government to remain silent when Beijing uses belligerent tactics against those MPs.”
Mr. Chong urged Mr. Carney’s government to publicly state “its support for Canadian MPs visiting Taiwan and by publicly defending those MPs against Beijing’s coercive tactics.”
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