Taiwan, Japan Call for Unity to Counter Beijing’s Transnational Repression

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te and senior officials from both Taiwan and Japan are sounding the alarm over what they described as the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) growing campaign of transnational repression that’s expanding beyond China’s borders. The leaders called on democratic allies to bolster cooperation to counter “increasingly sophisticated” security threats by Beijing.

Speaking at the Ketagalan Forum: 2026 Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue in Taipei on Aug. 4, Lai said Beijing’s efforts now extend beyond military and geopolitical competition to include intimidation, censorship, and influence operations targeting overseas communities.

Though Taiwan operates as an independent nation since its establishment in 1949, Beijing views the self-ruling island as a “breakaway province,” and has vowed to reclaim it by any means necessary, even if that means resorting to military force to achieve unification, which the CCP claims as “inevitable.”

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Lai: Taiwan rejects oppression

In his keynote address, Lai condemned Beijing’s newly-enacted “Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law,” arguing that it not only threatens Taiwan’s sovereignty and suppresses the rights of its own citizens, but also provided a legal basis for how the law is expanding transnational repression abroad.

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“The law not only infringes upon Taiwan’s sovereignty and persecutes religious groups and ethnic minorities, but also uses transnational repression to impose political censorship on people around the world and create a chilling effect,” Lai said. He described it as “an evil law that the international community should unite to oppose.”

Lai said Taiwan would “not accept united front infiltration or red terror” and vowed that the government would not allow Beijing to extend “the hand of oppression” into Taiwan or other free societies. He also pledged to establish stronger prevention, countermeasure, and protection mechanisms while expanding cooperation with democratic partners to defend freedom of speech and uphold the rules-based international order.

United front is needed

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said the CCP’s challenge has evolved beyond conventional military threats into what he described as a form of hybrid coercion by combining ideological control, influence operations, and transnational repression.

He pointed to Beijing’s implementation of the “Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law” officially passed on July 1, arguing that its broad language grants Chinese authorities sweeping discretion while creating a dangerous precedent for exporting authoritarian practices overseas.

Lin further warned that the law seeks to elevate China’s domestic legislation above international law while undermining the sovereignty and human rights protections of other countries. He called on democratic nations to build “a stronger line of defense” and coordinate efforts to counter Beijing’s growing overseas influence.

Calls for intelligence sharing

Former Japanese defense minister Gen Nakatani, co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) in Japan, said the CCP’s transnational repression has become so serious that IPAC now considers it a core national security issue, rather than solely a human rights concern.

He warned that Article 63 of Beijing’s new law asserts broad extraterritorial jurisdiction, which he said could allow Chinese authorities to claim criminal jurisdiction over speech and activities taking place in countries such as Japan and Taiwan.

Referring to the recent assault on Indo-Pacific Strategic Think Tank Executive Director Akio Yaita, Nakatani said the incident remains under investigation but cautioned against viewing such cases as isolated criminal acts. “There is no structural distinction between the CCP’s domestic control and its overseas influence operations,” he said, arguing that foreign interference, economic coercion, and cyberattacks should be viewed as components of a coordinated national security strategy.