Addressing China’s Legal Warfare: IPAC’s Initiative 2758

In China campaigning circles, there is a slogan: “When it’s about territory, we’re losing.”

Like much in politics, it is superficial but communicates something true. Generally speaking, matters relating to self-determination, sovereignty, or territory are a “no-go” for foreign politicians, regardless of the country under discussion. The risks are too great, and the barriers to entry are too high.

Consider the disdain with which UK politicians treat those from third countries who express opinions about the Falkland Islands. Why should we expect China’s politicians to be any different when foreigners interfere? Doubtless, this is why the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) goes to great lengths to conflate all human rights-related questions with sovereignty issues. They know it will diminish international enthusiasm for the cause in question.

Tibet is a good example. In the minds of many democratic lawmakers, the Tibet campaign is about territory, engaging long-standing, intractably complicated claims to sovereignty. The blunt truth is that only some people outside of China know enough about the region’s history to have an opinion.

And so Tibet has languished in the “too difficult” pile – a niche issue owned by eccentric backbenchers, although its people are enduring mass-atrocity scale human rights abuses. Why? As we have touched upon, Tibet, in the minds of too many, is a complicated territorial dispute.

Another example is the Uyghur Region. Until Xinjiang became about human rights, Uyghurs, like Tibetans, found themselves talking about East Turkestan’s self-determination to a confused and largely uninterested foreign audience. Genocide? That we can understand. The contested history of Xinjiang? Not so much. For these reasons and others, any campaigner seeking to encourage their government to adopt a realistic posture towards Beijing would be foolish to predicate their work on a land dispute.

So, how have we ended up with parliaments around the world passing resolutions confronting China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758?

For the uninitiated, this follows the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) Summit in Taipei in July 2024, where the largest-ever delegation of lawmakers visited Taipei to discuss regional stability. At the Summit, IPAC members voted to approve a model resolution on UN Resolution 2758, resolving to push forward “Initiative 2758” in their own parliaments.

The idea was landed upon following the ground-breaking work of Bonnie Glaser, Jacques DeLisle, Jessica Drun, and others, exposing the scale of Beijing’s distortion of 2758. For years, representatives of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have sought to argue that Resolution 2758 provides a basis in international law for Beijing’s “one China” principle, the notion that Taiwan is an indivisible part of China and that the PRC government is the sole legitimate government for China and Taiwan. 

This is false, of course. The resolution is silent on Taiwan’s status and certainly does not confer the right for Beijing to govern Taiwan. Beijing also instrumentalizes Resolution 2758 as it seeks to maliciously conflate its own “one China” principle with various countries’ “One China” policies, which generally favor the ambiguous status quo around Taiwan.

Such was the concern and consensus among delegates at the IPAC Summit in Taipei that everyone departed determined to do something about it. Since then, the Australian, Dutch, and European Parliaments have all passed similar motions confronting Beijing’s distortion of the UN document, each time with massive—nearly unanimous—majorities.

Does IPAC’s “Initiative 2758” fall foul of the “no territory” maxim, so neatly articulated in the fatuous phrase at the top of this piece? Not only does this campaign touch upon complex issues of sovereignty, it is also shrouded in impenetrable jargon that would make most campaigners throw their hands up in despair.

Yes and no. First, and most fundamentally, things have moved on. It would be accurate to posit that, five years ago, the chances of Initiative 2758 succeeding would have been practically zero. In the nearly five-year lifecycle of IPAC, we have seen a subtle but comprehensive sea-change in parliamentarians’ posture towards Beijing. While governments may be muted, cowed into silence by dependency or fear of diplomatic blowback, non-governmental lawmakers now understand the scale of the challenge. They are increasingly willing to use their platforms.

However, it is also true that Initiative 2758 is only indirectly concerned with the underlying questions regarding Taiwan’s status. In fact, it underlines what is at stake for the rules-based system if we allow a single country to co-opt international law into its agenda in this way. Nevertheless, the success of this campaign clearly shows that the skeptical consensus among democratic lawmakers regarding China is sufficiently consolidated to address complicated and inaccessible matters of international law and win with huge majorities.

Therefore, while parliamentary motions may not bind governments, their importance shouldn’t be understated – they reflect the political consensus. Initiative 2758 shows that the debate around China has moved a very long way and is not likely to revert any time soon. It also shows that Beijing’s attempt to co-opt international law without anyone noticing has failed. Instead, they succeeded in increasing democratic vigilance and solidarity with Taiwan. Long may it continue.