"The One-China Policy Is Utterly Absurd!" IPAC Executive Director's Shocking Statement: The World Should Switch to a "One Taiwan Policy"!
This episode features an interview with Luke de Pulford, Executive Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), delving into IPAC's efforts in countering transnational repression, supporting Taiwan, and promoting a "One Taiwan Policy." The interview covers the establishment of the Taiwan Friendship Group in the Panamanian National Assembly, the Jimmy Lai case and the deteriorating human rights situation in Hong Kong, China's extraterritorial jurisdiction and extradition risks, and how Taiwanese citizens can support IPAC through practical actions and break through the apathy toward Cold War policies.
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In your speech, you just mentioned that IPAC is promoting a "One Taiwan Action, One Taiwan Policy." Could you explain to the audience what this means? Well, Ambassador Freddy Lim put it very well earlier. The way we talk about Taiwan, you know, is as old-fashioned as the Bee Gees. It's absolutely absurd. We talk about Taiwan policy as if we were still living in the early 1970s, but we are not anymore. It's a completely different place now. Martial law has ended since then, and Taiwan has developed a completely different approach internally. It is now a very thriving democracy, which is admired by the whole world in terms of democratic organization. So why are we still pretending that we are in the 1970s, as if we are still stuck in the Cold War and the post-civil war period? It makes no sense at all. So, Freddie put forward this argument: why are we still talking about a One China policy? We don't claim, and the Taiwanese people don't claim, to possess the whole of China. It simply doesn't make sense. And despite some issues with the constitution and a whole bunch of unresolved problems—those things that truly belong to historical legacies, you know, those historical anachronisms—okay.
Hello everyone, welcome to "Freedom Is Not Free" and the "Hard News" channel. Today, we are attending the annual conference of the European Federation of Taiwanese Associations (EFTA), and beside me is Luke de Pulford, Executive Director of IPAC, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. Hey Stan, it's great to be here. Thank you so much for agreeing to be on my show. Luke, that was a great speech. How do you feel about today's event? It's fantastic. I think this is the largest gathering of Taiwanese people in Finland ever, because there are more Taiwanese people in this room today than live in the entire country. So, this shows the scale is quite significant. And I've really enjoyed this event because there are some people here I truly admire. Freddy Lim is here; he is a great pride for Taiwan overseas. Dovilė Šakalienė, who was sanctioned by China, and the former Lithuanian Minister of National Defense have been speaking here. We also invited Finnish members of parliament, which is great. This is a substantive discussion. We are able to delve into some of the really thorny issues surrounding Taiwan—issues that need to be clarified so we can move forward. And I think everyone is very engaged, so it has been great.
That is exactly the second question I wanted to ask you, because we are gathered here today to discuss very thorny issues, very thorny topics, and they are not the kind of lighthearted, carefree subjects that people are supposed to talk about. When discussing Taiwan, like bubble tea and beautiful Taiwanese culture, of course, we are talking about coercion, we are talking about lawfare, we are talking about unrestricted warfare and United Front operations, and this is exactly what IPAC is working hard to do: to protect Taiwan and to protect all people, those who are suffering under totalitarian regimes. Speaking of IPAC's activities this year, could you give a brief summary? What has your organization done? Well, IPAC has been dealing with a whole range of China-related issues. It has been working very hard to counter what people call transnational repression. So, truthfully, Beijing tends to cross borders to silence and intimidate people. A lot of work has been done, much of it behind the scenes, trying to prevent this from happening, trying to push for legal amendments, trying to ensure that relevant reports are released, and striving to ensure that countries are prepared to face this growing threat from Beijing.
On the Taiwan front, there have been many activities. For example, just last week in Panama, we successfully established the first, the first-ever friendship group between the National Assembly of Panama and the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan. The reason this is interesting is that Beijing was at the time seeking and trying to coerce a whole group of Panamanian members of parliament to withdraw from IPAC, and all this just made them want to join IPAC even more. And they went on to form this group. Now, Stan, listen to this, guess how many people joined this pro-Taiwan group? Considering there are about 75 members of the Panamanian National Assembly, 46—that is already two-thirds of the entire house, an absolute majority. They joined, so this shows that there is indeed a strong will and momentum building support for Taiwan within IPAC, especially in Latin America. This is really encouraging, and we will see more progress there, and we have been working hard for this.
You should have also seen that just yesterday, the Vice President of Taiwan was in Italy, at the invitation of one of our members, European Parliament member Pina Picierno, who is a Vice President of the European Parliament. This is fantastic. We are doing everything we can to push back against Beijing's distortion of international law regarding Taiwan-related issues, while clarifying the status quo. And for our listeners, because you might not fully understand the whole set of policies, basically, surrounding this entire area, everyone is in a muddle about what they think, and in a muddle about their own policies toward Taiwan, especially democratic countries. They should lean toward being more explicit. We are trying to push them to take a stand, to make it clear so that we know if Beijing crosses the line, they will pay a very heavy price. But there is still a long way to go to reach that point, so our members around the world are working hard, very hard, to deal with these things, and will continue to do so as the year progresses.
In your speech, you just mentioned that IPAC is pushing for a "One Taiwan Action, One Taiwan Policy." Could you explain to the audience what this means? Well, Freddie Lim put it well earlier. The way we talk about Taiwan, you know, is as old-fashioned as the Bee Gees; it is completely absurd. We talk about Taiwan policy as if we were still in the early 1970s, but we are not. It is a completely different place. Martial law has ended since then, and you have had a completely—Taiwan itself has adopted a very different approach. Today, it is a very thriving democracy, admired by the whole world for the organization of its democratic system. So why are we still pretending that we are in the 1970s, as if we are still stuck in the period after the Cold War and the civil war? It makes no sense at all. So Freddie put forward this argument: why are we still talking about a One China policy? We are not claiming, and the Taiwanese people are not claiming, to possess all of China. That is simply not the case. And despite some problems with the constitution itself and a whole bunch of unresolved questions—those are really historical baggage, you know, those things that are historically out of step—the international community still hides behind these things to maintain this strange One China policy. So Freddie's argument is that this is simply outrageous; it doesn't even make any sense. We shouldn't be talking about it anymore.
And I responded that, exactly, what we should be talking about is an "One Taiwan Policy," because that is what the status quo truly must mean if it has any meaning at all. If the status quo has any meaning, it must mean Taiwan's own autonomy, otherwise what meaning does it have? It must at least mean that. So if it means that, then of course that should be our policy, if we oppose unilaterally changing the status quo, if we oppose undermining Taiwan's self-determination, and if that is the policy, it must be clear. So that is what I mean when I say an "One Taiwan Policy," that should be our policy. And from Taiwan, let us shift our focus to China and Hong Kong, of course, because the human rights situation in both Hong Kong and China is extremely shocking. Yes, regarding the new developments in the Jimmy Lai case, or Joshua Wong, does IPAC have any plans to do something about the current developments in Hong Kong? Well, this is a big issue, and it is a truly painful one. And it is painful because many people I know are involved, and I am involved myself. I have been listed as a co-conspirator in Jimmy Lai's trial. Our members will do everything they can; there is a deeply rooted campaign trying to assist Jimmy or pressure governments worldwide to assist Jimmy Lai, and many of them are IPAC members, though not all. You know, there is a large group of people who truly care about Jimmy Lai's case, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, the British government has not shown a willingness to actually take concrete action to match its words and deeds regarding Jimmy Lai. To this day, they have failed to grant him any consular assistance, which is truly absurd. He is a British citizen, he has never held a Chinese passport, yet Britain merely accepts China's assertion of his nationality, undermining his actual citizenship, which is British. So that is the current state of that matter. Unfortunately, we have been continuously pushing and we regularly debate Jimmy, especially in the British Parliament, but it is very difficult to get the government to take action. We will continue to do our best. The reason I say it is difficult is because Hong Kong's rights have been repeatedly suppressed, and for everyone involved, it is simply too exhausting, week after week, endlessly, until in the end it loses its news value and people stop reporting on it altogether.
Yeah, so yesterday we had three sentencings, and there was some related news on the wire services, but actually not that much. And of course, there is virtually no political response domestically in the UK. So the situation is truly shocking, that such terrible violations can occur with almost no attention paid. And you know, we are fighting a battle there, so we continue to do what we can to raise awareness, we use parliamentary tools as much as possible, but the government that should truly take action is the British government, and Britain has not shown a willingness to do so. Therefore, apart from constantly criticizing them for failing to do this, it is hard to know what else we can do, what can actually be done, besides helping people who want to come over, which IPAC does a lot of in this regard.
And another issue is the current legislative actions by the Chinese government, including the National Unity Law, the recently revised mobilization law, and entry-exit regulations. China is asserting its sovereignty overseas, explicitly pointing out that non-Chinese individuals and legal entities can be held accountable. Under the National Unity Law, does IPAC plan to take any action regarding this law and against China's assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty? So the answer is yes, I won't reveal all the details here because an action is currently being planned, but we also started a campaign years ago against extraditions to China, based on the principle that we should not extradite anyone to China, where you cannot guarantee a fair trial. So why on earth should we send people back to China to be subjected to that legal system? But especially now, because this trend toward extraterritorial jurisdiction endangers people, particularly dissidents in other countries, there is even more reason not to have these extradition treaties. Just to give you an idea, one of the things we are pushing in the UK right now is a cybersecurity and resilience bill, and for the first time, this bill allows information to be shared with countries outside the European Union, namely China, in cases where there are suspected criminal matters. So for example, Beijing can say we think this person is a criminal, and share information with us on that basis, and this bill allows it. So we are trying to amend this bill to require that information not be shared with any place as long as that place cannot guarantee a fair trial. We very likely might win that vote in the House of Lords, defeat the government, and then it goes back to the House of Commons. But these are precisely the kinds of actions we must take in order to utilize all tools. Those parliamentarians must set the agenda for debates on China issues, because otherwise it is very hard to gain exposure in the media. And this is a good thing, because it is not only about China, it can also be applied to Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, and all those regions where people cannot get a fair trial.
Yes, I mean, look, the situation is absurd. We know what Beijing will do; they like to package their political persecution as legitimate criminal activity. They will want to say, 'Well, Stan is an economic criminal, and we are pursuing him for the economic crimes he committed; we are not pursuing him because we dislike his ideas or his philosophy.' And the British government lacks the ability to distinguish the difference, and it is very likely they would just say, 'Yes, we have intelligence regarding the economic criminal Stan.' They have been abusing Interpol's Red Notices, and they also use basically every tool in their toolbox. Yes, they are ruthless in this regard; they will abuse the international system, abusing it as much as they can, and it really falls on us to stop them from doing so. The good news is that we currently have a situation with Interpol where it seems they are not really responding to China's requests, at least in more advanced democratic countries, because people have seen through this. But they still possess vast means; there are places where you will hear that local authorities comply, and in some places, they don't even need Interpol—they can communicate directly with the host country's government, trying to handle certain things regarding extradition. Extradition is a major issue, which is why you must be vigilant. That is why I tell my Taiwanese audience: always look at countries that have extradition treaties with China, and think twice before going there. For example, there have been many cases in Thailand where Taiwanese people were extradited to China; this is just another thing to keep in mind.
Yeah, it's shocking. I want to say that for someone like me, a person holding a British passport, I am really not in the same situation as someone who might be subject to Chinese law. This includes, as you know, people who have never lived in China; they will impose Chinese nationality on people they consider Chinese. Unfortunately, this kind of thing won't happen to someone like me, so my situation is relatively fortunate. But even so, after I was first named in a national security case in Hong Kong, I was summoned by the British Foreign Office, and they warned me that I could be extradited to China from any place that has an extradition treaty with China or Hong Kong—that adds up to about 53 countries, including France and Italy. Now, don't get me wrong, Stan, it's not like these places would extradite me, and I'd really like to see them try; that wouldn't happen. That would be such an escalation that I don't think even the Chinese would be that stupid. But I am in a fortunate position; I am not the kind of dissident, and there are many low-profile people who easily become victims. They don't necessarily have high-profile people to rely on when the situation deteriorates, so it is precisely those people we need to protect, not people like me—those who are truly exposed to this kind of persecution.
So, the last question, which I think is the most important question of today's interview: I think everyone understands how important IPAC is, and you are a unique organization capable of raising awareness and truly facilitating actual government action and parliamentary action to help those who are suffering. That is why, how can Taiwanese people support IPAC? And what can Taiwanese people do to spread this message, perhaps helping you financially? This is also very important; I know your organization needs resources, just like everyone else, right? It's so kind of you to say that, Stan. Yes, look, I have to raise all the funds for IPAC, and it's not easy. We rely on support; we cannot directly accept government money, so we have to obtain funds from elsewhere. We hope to develop to a stage where we are funded by many small donations. So, if our listeners have the ability to sponsor us, even if it's just the price of a bubble tea, donating consistently every week or every month, these small amounts really add up, and that allows me to do a lot of things. I'll give you an idea right now: IPAC currently spans 46 parliaments, and I don't have staff in every parliament, but I need manpower if I am to turn this narrative around and push this matter further. So we really rely on support. If your listeners are willing or able to sponsor us, even just that amount, it would be a huge help to us. Small amounts add up, and we won't waste a single cent; we are a high-impact organization. What can they do? Do you have Patreon or GoFundMe or...?
Yes, we just have one link, and we hope you can share it on our website, or scan a QR code. It will take you to a secure page—this page is very secure—allowing everyone to donate, to donate regularly to us, in any amount. So if everyone can sponsor us in that way, through our website, it is the safest way. And we have put a lot of effort into ensuring it is secure, because we know that people who want to support us do not want to be exposed to any form of threat, so we are very cautious about this. I can assure our listeners of that, but there is another way.
And I would say, right now IPAC is very well known, within Taiwanese politics, maybe slightly beyond that circle, but not too far beyond, and I think it's important to let the people of Taiwan know that this truly is the core of your international support, this is the front line, these are the warriors truly standing on the front line, fighting with everything they have, fighting for Taiwan in parliaments, and that is why what you do on Threads is so important, you have quite a broad influence on this platform, and you often post in Chinese.
Yeah, well, this is a way, trying to reach beyond that small political audience, you know, it's about telling other people, folks, this matter is also very important to you, because my view is that, unfortunately, Taiwan cannot maintain what it currently has without international support, this is crucial, and we are truly your vanguard in this matter, you should look at us this way, so from this perspective, we sort of belong to you, use us, support us, do whatever you can, but please make sure this message is something other people know about too, not just how great IPAC is, but, you know, Taiwan is in a precarious situation, let's just be honest about it.
There is too much apathy in Taiwan, I've talked to too many people who think they can simply avoid this matter, like burying their heads in the sand, never talking about this, just ignoring the China matter, oh no, we don't talk about that, there is a lot of this in Taiwan, look, you are not in that kind of situation, you must acknowledge that, just like politics is important, it must be important to everyone in Taiwan, this will not resolve itself, it is up to the people of Taiwan to resolve it, and the international society needs to receive a very clear message from those people.
So I would say, if you encounter apathy, if you encounter people who just want to try to push the entire China-related issue aside, pretending this isn't a thing, sticking their fingers in their ears, it is truly your responsibility, it is truly your responsibility, to wake them up, you know, pull their heads out of the sand, and say, this is our responsibility, this is the responsibility of all of us, because internationally we can do what we can do, but our strength depends on the voice of you as the people of Taiwan, we rely on that, so keep your voice clear, and make sure those around you and you speak out together, that is the message I want to convey.
Yes, that is what Dovile said, the house next door is on fire, so you must be careful, you must start preparing, because once it might also come to your home, yes.
During your speech, you just mentioned that IPAC is pushing forward the One Taiwan Action One Taiwan Policy. Could you explain to the viewers what does it mean?
Well Freddie Lim put it very well earlier. We talk about Taiwan in a way which is you know as old as the Bee Gees. It's completely crazy. We talk about Taiwan policy as if we were in the early 1970s and we're not. It's an entirely different place. Martial law ended since then. You've had a completely different approach within Taiwan. Now a very flourishing democracy which is the admiration of the world in terms of the organization of democracy. So why are we still pretending that we're in the 1970s we're sort of in still in the Cold War and post-Civil War area? It makes no sense at all.
So Freddie was making this point. Why are we still talking about a One China policy? We don't make a claim, the Taiwanese don't make a claim to the whole of China. This is not even a thing. And although there are issues with the Constitution and a whole bunch of unresolved questions, those really historical hangovers you know, the historical anachronisms.
This precisely is the second question I wanted to ask you because we are, we've gathered here today to discuss very tough questions, very tough issues and they're not very happy-go-lucky kind of questions that people are supposed to talk about while discussing Taiwan like bubble tea and beautiful Taiwanese culture.
Sure.
We're talking about coercion, we're talking about lawfare we're talking about unrestricted warfare and united front actions. And this is where IPAC is doing a lot to protect Taiwan and to protect all the people that suffer in the totalitarian regimes. Talking about this year's IPAC's activities, could you just make a brief summary? What did your organization do?
Well IPAC has been working on a whole bunch of issues related to China. It's been working very hard against what people would call transnational repression, so really Beijing's tendency to reach across borders to silence and intimidate people.
Done a lot of work and much of it behind the scenes, trying to stop this from happening, trying to get law changes, trying to ensure that reports happen, trying to make sure that states are ready to face this growing threat from Beijing.
On Taiwan there's been a lot of activity. We have for example just last week managed to start up in Panama the first ever friendship group between the Panama National Assembly and the Taiwanese Legislative Yuan. The reason this is interesting is that Beijing was seeking and attempted to coerce a whole bunch of Panamanian lawmakers to leave IPAC. And all that did was make them want to join IPAC even more, and they've gone on to start this group.
Now Stan get this. Guess how many guess how many have joined this friendship group?
Bearing in mind there are about 75 members of the National Assembly in Panama. That's two-thirds of the entire. It's the supermajority. They've joined. So this shows you that there's real appetite, momentum, within IPAC in developing support for Taiwan, especially in Latin America. That's really encouraging. We're going to see more movement there, and we've been working on that. You will also have seen that only yesterday the Vice President of Taiwan was in Italy at the invitation of one of our members, Pina Picierno MEP. She's a Vice President of the European Parliament. That's great. And we're doing what we can to try to push back on Beijing's distortion of international law around Taiwan at the same time as bringing clarity to the status quo.
And for your listeners, because you may not be into the whole policy around this whole area, basically everybody is muddled about what they think about their own policy towards Taiwan, especially democracies who should be minded to be clearer. We're trying to push them into a position where they are clear, so that we know that if Beijing oversteps it's going to cost them very dearly. But there's a long way to go to get there. So our members around the world are working very hard on those things and will continue to as the year goes on.
During your speech, you just mentioned that IPAC is pushing forward the One Taiwan Action One Taiwan Policy. Could you explain to the viewers what does it mean?
Well Freddie Lim put it very well earlier. We talk about Taiwan in a way which is you know as old as the Bee Gees. It's completely crazy. We talk about Taiwan policy as if we were in the early 1970s and we're not. It's an entirely different place. Martial law ended since then. You've had a completely different approach within Taiwan. Now a very flourishing democracy, which is the admiration of the world in terms of the organization of democracy. So why are we still pretending that we're in the 1970s, we're sort of in still in the Cold War and post-Civil War area? It makes no sense at all. So Freddie was making this point. Why are we still talking about a One China policy? We don't make a claim, the Taiwanese don't make a claim to the whole of China. This is not even a thing. And although there are issues with the Constitution and a whole bunch of unresolved questions, those really historical hangovers, you know, the historical anachronisms. And yet, and yet the international community still hides behind them and in order to maintain this sort of weird One China policy. So Freddie's point was this is like a crazy thing, it doesn't even mean anything. We shouldn't talk about it anymore.
And I responded, yeah, we should be talking about a One Taiwan policy, because that's really what the status quo has to mean if it means anything. If the status quo means anything, it has to mean Taiwan's own self-governance. Otherwise what's the point in it? It has to mean that at a minimum. So if it means that, then that should surely be our policy. If we're against unilateral change in the status quo, we're against undermining Taiwan's self-determination. Well, if that's the policy it needs to be clear. So that's what I would mean when I say a One Taiwan policy. That's what our policy should be.
And from Taiwan, let's move towards China and towards Hong Kong.
Sure.
Because the situation with the human rights in both Hong Kong and China has been devastating.
Yeah.
New developments with the Jimmy Lai case, or Joshua Wong. Does IPAC plan to do anything about the current developments in Hong Kong?
Well, this is a huge question and one which is genuinely very painful. And it's painful because so many people I know are bound up in it, and I myself am bound up in it, I'm named as a co-conspirator in the trial of Jimmy Lai. Our members do what they can. There's a very well-embedded campaign to try to assist Jimmy, or to force governments to do what they can to assist Jimmy Lai around the world. And many of them are IPAC members, although not all of them. You know, there are a whole bunch of people who really care about Jimmy's case, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, the UK government has not shown itself willing to really put its money where its mouth is on Jimmy Lai. They still haven't succeeded in being able to give him any consulate assistance, which is really ridiculous. He's a British citizen. He's never held a Chinese passport. Yet the UK merely accepts China asserting a nationality over him to the detriment of his actual citizenship, which is British. So that's where we are with that. Unfortunately, we keep pushing and we have regular debates on Jimmy, especially in the UK Parliament. But it's very difficult to get the government to move. We'll continue to do what we can.
The reason I say it's difficult is that the repeated crushing of rights in Hong Kong is just so exhausting for everybody involved. It's week after week after week, to the point that it loses its newsworthiness. People don't even write about it anymore.
Yeah.
So yesterday we had three sentencings. You've got some stuff on the wires, but not really that much, and certainly not much political response within the United Kingdom. So shocking state of play really that such terrible violations can happen and pass by almost unremarked. And you know, we're fighting a battle there. So we continue to do what we can to raise awareness, we use parliamentary tools wherever possible. But the real government that should be taking action on this is the UK, and the UK has not shown itself willing to do that. So beyond repeatedly whacking them for failing to do that, it's hard to know what we can actually do beyond assisting people who want to come over, which IPAC does a lot.
And another issue is with the current legislative actions by the Chinese government, including the ethnic unity law. Including the recently amended mobilization law, including the exit entry regulations. China is asserting its sovereignty overseas. It states explicitly that non-PRC persons and legal entities can be held liable according to the ethnic unity law. Does IPAC plan to do anything about this law and about China asserting its transnational sovereignty?
So yes is the answer to that. I'm not going to reveal everything here because there is a campaign in the works. But we also did a number of years ago begin a campaign against extradition to China. On the basis that we shouldn't be extraditing anybody to China. You can't guarantee a fair trial. So why on earth would we be sending people back to China for treatment under the law anyway?
But especially now because this trend towards extraterritoriality endangers people, especially dissidents in other people's countries. So even more there's a reason not to have these extradition agreements. But just to give you an idea, one of the things that we're working on in the UK, there's a cybersecurity and resilience bill right now. And for the first time this bill allows information sharing with countries outside the EU i.e. China, where there's suspected criminal cases.
So for example Beijing would be able to say we think this guy's a criminal. Share information with us on that and the bill allows that. So we are seeking to amend the bill to say that there should be no information sharing to anywhere you can't guarantee a fair trial. We are very likely to win that in the House of Lords defeating the government and then it will go back to the House of Commons. But these are the kinds of actions that we have to take in order to use all the tools that parliamentarians have to frame the debate on China. Because otherwise you're struggling for oxygen in the media. And this is good because it's not only China related. It can also be applied to Russia, to Belarus, to Venezuela, to all those regions where people cannot face fair trial.
Yeah I mean look it's a ludicrous situation. We know what Beijing does. They like to mask their political persecution in legitimate crime. They'd like to say well, Stan is an economic criminal. We're going after him for his economic crimes. We're not going after him because we don't like his ideas. And the UK government, which lacks the ability to be able to know the difference, could conceivably just say yeah. Have information on Stan the economic criminal. And they have been abusing the Interpol red notices and they utilize basically everything they have in their toolbox.
Yeah they're relentless with it. They will abuse the international system to the full extent that they can. And it's really down to us to stop them from doing that. The good thing is that we have a situation now with Interpol where it looks like they're not really responding to the Chinese request. Certainly in let's say more advanced democracies. Because people have got wise to it. But still they have tremendous implements. There are certain places where you are hearing the local authorities listen. And they don't even need Interpol in some places. They can just communicate with the host government and try to get something sorted in terms of extradition.
Extradition is a big problem. That's why you have to monitor and that's why I tell my Taiwanese viewers always look at the countries that have extradition treaties with China. And then think twice before going there. For example, there have been many cases in Thailand where Taiwanese people were extradited to China. And this is just another thing to keep in mind.
Yeah and it's appalling. And what I would say is that for people like me who are British passport holders, I'm really not in the same situation as somebody who can be subject to Chinese law, which includes people who have never lived in China as you know. They will impose Chinese nationality on the people that they see as Chinese unfortunately. That's not going to happen to somebody like me, so I'm in a comparatively fortunate situation.
But still after I was first named in a national security law case in Hong Kong, I was brought in by the UK Foreign Office who warned me of extradition to China. From anywhere that had an extradition agreement with either China or Hong Kong. You add those up it's about 53 countries and includes France and includes Italy. Now don't get me wrong Stan like these places are not going to extradite me. And I'd like to see them try. It's not going to happen. It would be such an escalation that I think even the Chinese wouldn't be that stupid.
But I'm in a fortunate situation. I'm not somebody who's a dissident. And there are many low-profile people who are very easy for them to victimize. Who don't necessarily have high-profile people to rely upon if things went south. So it's those people that we need to be trying to protect, not people like me, the people who are really exposed to this sort of persecution.
So final question which is I think the most important question of today's interview. I think everybody understands how important IPAC is. And you are one of a kind organization that can raise awareness and can actually lead to real governmental action and parliamentary action. That can help people that suffer. That's why how can Taiwanese people support IPAC?
And what can Taiwanese do to share the message, maybe to help you financially, which is also very important? I know that your organization needs resources, like everybody else right?
That is very kind of you to say Stan. Yeah look, I have to raise all the money for IPAC. It's not that easy. And we rely on support. We can't take money direct from governments, so we have to get it from elsewhere. We want to move into a place where we are funded by many many small donations. So if your listeners are in a position to sponsor us, even the price of a bubble tea a week or a month on a repeated basis, that stuff really adds up and it enables me to do a lot.
I'll give you an idea right now. IPAC is now in 46 parliaments. I do not have a staff member in every parliament and I need one if I'm going to be able to shift this narrative. If I'm going to be able to push this further down the road. So we really do rely on support. If your listeners are willing or able to sponsor us even to that amount, it'll make a huge difference to us. It all adds up and we don't waste any of it and we're a very high-impact organization.
How can they do that? Do they have Patreon or GoFundMe or?
Yeah so we just have a link which I hope you can share on our site or a QR code which will take you to a secure page. Which is secure for people to be able to give to us on a regular basis in whatever amount. So if people can sponsor in that way, doing it through our website is the most secure way. And we've done a lot of work to ensure that it is secure, because we know people who want to support us do not want to be exposed to any kind of threats. So we're careful about that. I can reassure your listeners.
But there is another way. And I would say that right now IPAC is very well-known in Taiwan in political circles. Maybe a little bit beyond that, but not far beyond that. It needs to be known I think among Taiwanese people that this is really the core of your international support. This is the frontline. These are the soldiers who are really out there doing what they can to fight for Taiwan in parliament. This is why what you do on Threads is very important. You have a quite extensive presence on this platform and you post a lot in Chinese.
Yeah well, it's a way of trying to get beyond that small political audience. You know to say to everybody else guys like this matters for you. Because my view is that unfortunately Taiwan cannot maintain what it currently has without international support. It's totally crucial and we really are your foot soldiers in that. You should see us in that way. So we kind of belong to you in that way. Use us support us however you can. But make sure that this message is one that other people know about. Not just how great IPAC is but the fact that you know Taiwan is in a precarious situation, let's be honest about it.
There's too much apathy in Taiwan. I have too many conversations with people who think that they can simply avoid it. Stick their head in the sand like not talk about it ever, just ignore the China thing. Oh no we don't talk about that. There's a lot of that in Taiwan. Look you're not in that kind of situation. You've simply got to acknowledge that like politics matters, has to matter to everybody in Taiwan. It's not going to solve itself, it's going to be solved by the people of Taiwan. And the international community needs a very clear message from those people.
So I would say if you encounter apathy, if you encounter people who just want to try to sideline the whole issue around China. Pretend it's not a thing, stick their fingers in the ears. It's really your job it's really your job to make the scales fall from their eyes. You know, to pull their head out of the sand and say this is our duty it's all of our duty. Because we can do what we can do internationally, but we are only as strong as the voice of the Taiwanese people. We rely on that. So keep your voice clear and make sure that those around you are joining their voices with yours. That would be my message.
Yeah this is what Dovile said, there is a fire in the room next door. So you have to be careful. You have to start preparing that once it might come to your house as well. Yeah. Thank you Luke.