Canada

Conservative MP and parliamentary foreign affairs committee vice-chair, Michael Chong says China is attempting to “move the goal posts” by trying to prevent Canadian officials from visiting Taiwan.

Chong, who is also the Conservative foreign affairs critic, is in Taiwan this week to meet with Taiwanese officials, including Lai Ching-te, president of the Republic of China Taiwan. Several delegations of Canadian parliamentarians have travelled to the sovereign territory over the years.

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Chong said his trip is meant both to show solidarity with Taiwan — which he said is facing threats from an authoritarian China — and to assert Canada’s sovereignty by demonstrating no foreign government, namely China, can dictate the travel of Canadian parliamentarians.

“For decades, Canadian MPs from both sides of the aisle have been visiting Taiwan as part of a broader pattern of enhancing two-way relations between Canada and Taiwan,” Chong said in an interview on CTV Power Play with Vassy Kapelos from Taiwan on Wednesday.

“They’re trying to move the goal posts by saying that that travel should no longer take place,” he also said. “My visit here is a declaration that it should take place, and that we can’t allow, as a democracy, an authoritarian state like Beijing to dictate our terms of engagement in the world community.”

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And, asked whether he hesitated to take the trip given he and his family have been targeted by China in the past, Chong again said: “No.”

“I’ve got the privilege of being elected to high office, of being a member of Parliament in the Parliament of Canada, (and) that gives me the ability to be a voice for the voiceless,” Chong said. “There are countless citizens in democracies around the globe that are facing transnational repression, that are suffering in silence because of the threats coming from authoritarian states.”

Chong said he told the federal government about his plans to visit Taiwan and meet with its officials ahead of time and that they issued a statement of support.

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