Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu has been invited to attend an Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) conference in Rome this month. He has also been invited to attend a Czech Senate forum about Taiwan in Prague on October 27-28.
The foreign ministry confirmed Wu’s plans to visit Europe but did not make any details public yet. The forum in Prague is focused on Taiwan and how bilateral ties can progress in the areas of innovation, trade and investment.
The IPAC event is to strengthen alliances between like-minded countries as the world faces a greater threat to democracy, human rights and the rule of law from Beijing. IPAC is a body of some 200 global parliamentarians. Their press release said the conference is to stage “a counter-meeting ahead of the G20 Leaders Summit to demand a tougher stance towards the Chinese government.”
Beijing has put diplomatic and economic sanctions on Lithuania for welcoming a Taiwanese Representative Office in its capital. It will be the first represenatative office that uses "Taiwanese" rather than "Taipei". Despite the pressure from Beijing, the foreign ministry said that plans for representative offices in Taipei and Vilnius are going as planned.