Even Refusing to Take a Stance Is Not Enough?! The CCP's Transnational Repression Has Expanded to Ordinary Taiwanese! Legislator Chang Ya-lin Exposes Beijing's Intimidation Tactics: They Don't Even Spare Their Own People!

Taiwanese Legislator Chang Ya-lin was invited to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) summit. In an interview, she provided an in-depth analysis of the methods and expanding trends of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) transnational repression, pointing out that Beijing has expanded its targets from political figures to ordinary civilians and business people. Chang urged the Taiwanese public to face the threat squarely and emphasized that Taiwan should respond to China's economic coercion and infiltration by amending laws, strengthening exchanges with international allies and NGOs, and building resilience to prevent the leakage of AI and technology.

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Freedom is increasingly spreading, yes, you no longer have the freedom to not take a stance. Whether it is the case of the slate workers or Huang Yi, we have already seen that this is not just targeting political figures. Even if you are just an ordinary civilian, a business person, or someone who just wants to do business, you have become a target of their transnational repression. China has been using various forms of economic coercion to pressure countries to abandon decisions made in their own national interests. So, what should we in Taiwan do? What can Taiwan do? What can the Taiwanese government do? What can Taiwanese people do? Taiwan can do many things.

Hard news, please use your left hand. I am the host Sitai, welcome everyone to watch. We are now attending the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. I am very honored to meet here Legislator Chang Ya-lin from Taiwan. Legislator, thank you very much for accepting our interview. Um, well, hello everyone, I am the only Taiwanese representative at this IPAC, I am legislator Chang Ya-lin. How do you view the results of today's IPAC conference? Oh, I think because today, well, not just today, during this period of meetings, everyone is actually very concerned about the current predicament Taiwan is facing, and even the problems we encounter here in the West Philippine Sea. So I myself see that everyone here is willing to put forward things, whether it is having discussions and communications with their own economic and trade offices, launching debates in parliaments, or some people wanting to put forward motions and the like. I feel that these are all great, and they are all very helpful for Taiwan to have more visibility in discussions among different countries internationally. This matter can also help politicians from different countries to understand why Taiwan's issues are so important to their countries and their people. So today I actually mentioned at the meeting that I am very grateful for everyone's commitment to Taiwan, but I believe there is a big gap between politicians who understand us well, politicians who do not understand us, and the people and the government. This is something that really requires everyone to go back and ask their governments to do more research to bridge this gap. Only then will everyone know that Taiwan's participation in this world, besides the importance of the Taiwan Strait to economy, trade, and technology, can actually make better contributions to many countries in the field of medical care. Only in this way can we let their people and their governments support Taiwan.

Um, why do you think that this kind of international meeting related to policies toward China is also crucial and very important for Taiwan? I think it is because in the past, Taiwan was almost represented by China in the world, because we could not participate in many international organizations, because they misappropriated Resolution 2758, expanding and distorting the interpretation inside it, which led to many international conferences where we could not speak for ourselves. I think everyone is very clear that in the era of the WHO, whether it was during SARS or Covid-19, we were unable to speak up in the world. Therefore, I believe that if we come to participate in such an international meeting today, we can bring some of our front-line observations in Taiwan and have these parliamentarians take them back to various countries.

Today the iPad debate was actually very wonderful. I heard from many people from Japan, South America, and Africa. Many parliamentarians care a lot about Taiwan, yes, and they care deeply about Taiwan's situation. But what I admire the most is the team from Panama. Yes, this year they sent a particularly large number of people, because the pressure from China is getting closer step by step, meaning it increases every single day. Today they also talked about the future; they will also strive toward the direction of establishing diplomatic relations with Taiwan, yes. How does the committee member view this matter? Well, actually yesterday, right next to me sat a Panamanian lawmaker, so they actively told me that they are working hard toward the goal of resuming diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and domestic support for this is actually very high. Right now in their own parliament, more than half of the lawmakers have also joined a pro-Taiwan group in Panama. So I am actually quite looking forward to it myself, because I believe that under China's control, Central and South America or the African region face a lot of economic oppression, as well as all kinds of oppression regarding economic, political, and various human rights issues, so I think this matter is very important to us. Since you are a legislator of Taiwan, today you also heard a lot about various methods of transnational repression and cross-border oppression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and how they apply pressure to other countries? Unfortunately in Taiwan, everyone often lives in their own world, not caring much about things happening abroad, and not even caring much about such behavior from the next-door neighbor. So how can you communicate with Taiwanese voters? Because everyone has that sacred ballot, to tell them what the risks posed by the CCP to Taiwan are at present, what the risks to foreign countries are, and whether there are any countermeasures? And why they need to understand this matter? Well, I think in recent years, the methods of transnational repression by China have become increasingly varied. For instance, when I previously went to Thailand to attend an international conference, I also described in it that in the past, under the 22 articles, it was about penalizing Taiwan independence elements, right? And the majority might have been mainly political actors. But in the Anti-Secession Law passed this year, it actually talks about a very important point: regardless of whether you are penalized, regardless of whether you are a Taiwan independence element, as long as you do not support unification, basically you have already violated this law. It allows the boundary of this law to become increasingly blurred and increasingly expansive. Yes, you no longer have the freedom of non-expression, because its definition is that you don't actually support it, right?

So, this matter, we have already seen from many of our cases, whether it is the Shiban minfu (laborers) or the Huang Yi case, that it is not just targeting political figures. Even if you are just an ordinary citizen or a business person, if you just want to do business, you have become a target of their transnational repression. Therefore, the types of victims, according to some statistics in Taiwan, are actually increasing. This includes our prosecutors and our immigration task forces being targeted. So, I think, and this kind of issue is actually being watched by the international community. This directly affects us in Taiwan because these cases also occurred within Taiwan. So, I think this matter is really worth everyone's attention, because it truly needs more people to pay attention and more people to oppose it. These voices must be heard and seen. As for the foreign cases you heard about at IPAC these past few days, which one left the deepest impression on you? Regarding the foreign cases that left the deepest impression, let me think. Yes, I remember it was somewhere... was it Lithuania? In Lithuania, they mentioned something like a travel ban, and it was a total ban that even affected their entire family. Yes, just because they were very friendly toward Taiwan at the time and supported Taiwan, they were targeted. Yes, but I think—and it is not just them, including Slovenia, they also had cases, and Panama also received them—I believe that how the people, ministers, or members of parliament of any country want to express themselves, or who they want to be friends with, is a personal choice. How can they use such methods to oppress people? This is truly a violation of human rights and freedom of speech, as well as our most important democratic spirit. Yes, so I think these are unacceptable. More importantly, I feel that it has already violated international law and the right of each country to make its own decisions. And actually, IPAC recently mentioned that—you just have to be in Africa, Luke spoke about this quite in detail today. If you are just an IPAC member, you will definitely be targeted. That is correct. And they will also pressure your country. If your parliament has opposition parties... if your parliament has IPAC members, that is correct. They will, for example, cancel the president's visit to China. That is correct, yes, yes. So it also depends on each country's status and weight in the international community. I think China's oppression of Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America is even more intense. Because, like when I previously went to international forums to speak about transnational repression, I did not receive direct pressure from China, but the organizations that invited me received direct pressure from all sides. So, this is actually China constantly using various forms of economic coercion to pressure countries to decide their own affairs based on their own national interests. Therefore, every friend in Taiwan should care about this, because we often need friends, right? And they often say on the other side that we are family, we are compatriots. How can you treat family like this? Yes, exactly, that is right. You only treat enemies like this. So, on one hand, they say you are family, and on the other hand, they treat you as an enemy. So, Taiwan really needs more international friends. Yes, and I think it is actually quite good, because as Luke mentioned today, we have added four more countries, cross-party, and countries like Brazil in South America, Poland in Europe, and Honduras in Central and South America. Yes, and I think we are gaining support from more and more countries, giving Taiwan more visibility, and allowing the China issue to be viewed from different perspectives. Because, as everyone discussed yesterday, why are they so harsh? Some might be due to economic coercion, some might be due to the loss of manufacturing capacity, some might be due to human rights values, and then there is technological intervention, privacy infringement, etc. So, I actually think China has really done many terrible things, and this is regardless of which continent you are on. Even if you are in South America or Australia, everyone is actually feeling the infringement by China on their national security and economic security. So, I think this is truly an issue that everyone should pay attention to, regardless of whether you are Taiwanese or not.

As a Taiwanese, you should be even more concerned about these issues. That sounds like a lot of pressure. So what should we in Taiwan do? What can the Taiwanese government do? What can the Taiwanese people do? Taiwan can do many things. Actually, I think we have discovered some loopholes in the Democratic Unity Promotion Act, and the law needs to be amended. In the past, our Anti-Stalking Act did not specifically target harassment, stalking, etc., directed by foreign governments, so this law should be amended. Another one is the Anti-Infiltration Act, which should also be amended. This is from a legal perspective. From the perspective of our relations with other countries, I think that as members of parliament, we can have more exchanges because we can share this information. Since we are truly facing transnational repression every day, right? So we actually have a lot of first-hand information that we should use to alert our other friends, so they can know how to respond. Including the discussion today about resilience, Taiwan has actually been working on this issue of resilience in the past, and they want to reduce exports to China and build their own national resilience. Taiwan has been doing this for the past ten years. Yes, and we can tell our friends about the struggles and lessons we have encountered along the way, because by letting our friends become strong together, we can all face China together. And then we can make breakthroughs, just like Panama said, or Honduras when they came to me, the things that China originally promised them were never delivered, right? So after they went through these processes, they would know who can truly build a relationship and who is a good friend that is truly helpful to their country, right? So I think that more exchanges between members of parliament are very important. Thirdly, I think our general NGOs and the public can also have many exchanges, because our civil society in Taiwan is truly very strong. We have many, including the reports from several defenders we saw today that mentioned the United Front, or we also saw the Jamestown Foundation yesterday talking about how these affiliated organizations are spread across various countries. Yes, Taiwan is also very strong in this regard. If our non-governmental organizations have more exchanges and bring these experiences to the world through our civil groups, this will also help Taiwan have a strong discourse power in this field and on this issue. At the same time, there are many other issues, including public health, which many countries are in great need of, and also how we build smart healthcare with AI, and how we build these smart technologies. In introducing these AI concepts, I think Taiwan is definitely more suitable than China. Because, as I emphasized at the conference in Bangkok last week, when we use AI, DeepSeek is very powerful, that is true, it is very powerful. But its entire process of collecting information is actually a complete violation of human rights and privacy. Now, in fact, how we develop AI without sacrificing the interests of minorities or even children is something Taiwan is learning in this process. So if we want to help other countries, this is also a very good topic that can be exchanged with other countries' societies or other governments in a non-official way!

What you are talking about really resonates with me. Actually, the emergence of DeepSeek today mainly highlights the fact that we Western and democratic countries do not protect our own intellectual property enough, allowing these things to leak, allowing these things to be stolen. Then, some businessmen are willing to trade with the other side, and their technology is obtained through stolen chip information and all kinds of equipment, all of which bypass the Great Firewall. You still have to protect yourself properly. I think the existence of DeepSeek today makes everyone realize that we do not protect ourselves enough, and we should strengthen these preventions to keep our things from being invaded and stolen. However, because I feel the development of AI is simply too fast, everyone's awareness is actually not there—meaning governments want to defend against it, but we cannot keep up with the speed at which China wants to take it. Therefore, I personally think: why is it still necessary to make the legal frameworks for AI relatively clear across various countries? Otherwise, you will leave it with more loopholes. Thank you very much, Commissioner, and we will see you in Taiwan, see you in Taiwan.