Beijing tries to stop foreign politicians from attending key Taiwan conference [Video]

Beijing is pressuring lawmakers from at least six countries not to attend a summit focused on China in Taiwan, participants told the Associated Press.

Politicians in Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and an Asian country that declined to be named, say they are getting texts, telephone calls and urgent requests for meetings that would conflict with their plans to travel to Taiwan, in what they describe as efforts to isolate the self-governed island.

The summit, which starts on Monday, is being organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of current and former lawmakers from 35 countries that describes itself as a platform for “addressing threats to the rules-based and human rights systems posed by the rise of China”.

AP spoke to the organisers and three politicians …