Photo: Olimpia Kot
On November 25, 2025, the EVC Taiwan Office team organized a roundtable discussion on human rights and cross-Strait relations titled “Human Rights Across the Treacherous Strait: China, Taiwan, and the Evolution of the Regional Rights Landscape.” The event was hosted in collaboration with Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Taiwan Chapter.
Featuring the participation of Benedict Rogers, Senior Director at Fortify Rights, and Aleksandra K. Bielakowska, Advocacy Manager of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Asia-Pacific Bureau, this roundtable brought together leading European human rights experts to examine how a widening “human rights gap” between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan is reshaping cross-Strait relations. Speakers explored how Beijing’s legal warfare strategy against Taiwan—including efforts to deepen legal and regulatory linkages under the banner of “integration”—risks exporting PRC norms and undermining rights protections. The discussion addressed intensifying challenges in the information space, including foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), assaults on journalists and media freedom in the PRC, including Hong Kong and Macau, and the precarious situation of Hong Kongers seeking safety and dignity abroad. Finally, the roundtable assessed Taiwan’s legal and institutional constraints as it aspires to serve as an emerging regional human rights hub, highlighting opportunities for leadership alongside the practical and political obstacles that remain to be overcome.
“In the past 10 years, under Xi Jinping’s rule, China has become an almost totalitarian state. Today, there is no space for criticism. Journalists who dare to report independently on Chinese Communist Party atrocities or corruption are detained, disappeared, or harassed. The regime currently detains 120 journalists, making China the world’s largest jailer of journalists according to RSF statistics. At the same time, the country ranks 178th out of 180 in RSF’s Press Freedom Index—just ahead of North Korea. The great leap backwards for journalism in China is all the more alarming given that the regime’s ambitions do not stop at its own borders. Xi’s regime wields immense financial and technological resources to export its authoritarian information model far beyond China,” Bielakowska commented.