More than 40 lawmakers from 28 countries, across five continents came together on Friday at the European Parliament, for the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China’s Annual Summit. IPAC brings together parliamentarians from every corner of the democratic world — people of different parties, different nations, but one shared conviction: that they must stand together to confront the challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China. The goal: shaping common strategies, coordinating real legislative action, and building a united democratic front against oppression, injustice, and intimidation.

Below is the speech given at the opening of the event by Bernard Guetta, co-chair of IPAC at the European Parliament.

Thank you for being here, determined to fight this dictatorship, so harsh for the Chinese people and so dangerous for Asia and the entire world. 

We have to keep denouncing all the atrocities, all the unfairness – social, political and national – of this regime. Nobody and nothing will stop us from fulfilling this duty. I have no doubt we will do it together but, in this battle, all the democracies need to be united, toe to toe, and let’s speak the truth, they are not.

For his own reasons, good or bad, that’s not the question, the president of the United States decided to mistreat the US allies. The vast majority of our countries, not to say all of them, were submitted to new tariffs which impede our economies and will slow down the trade exchanges all around the world.

I am European, French, and for more than a century the United States has been not only a forceful ally, but also our friend, a very close one, a real one, always present.

During the two wars and during the Cold War, America was with us, defending freedom and democracy. America was the country we admired and loved. Every young European dreamed to hit the American road and for us it would have been simply impossible to imagine that one day an American president could dislike Europe, could say that the European Union was created to “screw” the United States, and could regard us as a rival he has to weaken.

It’s certainly hard to understand, and disappointing, but we don’t have to discuss this choice. This is the choice of a sovereign state, but today, Mr Trump, we have to ask you a question: Do you really think that you could win the battle with China without your allies, and even fighting them at the same time?

The American economy is the first one in the world, but the Chinese one is the second. The American armed forces are the strongest, but the Chinese ones are more and more threatening, and not only for Taiwan. America is a democracy, and a democracy is stronger than a dictatorship. You have, Mr President, many more cards than Xi Jinping, but those cards, Mr President, are not enough.

America also needs the empathy, support and strength of its allies. America needs us, Asians, Europeans, Africans and Latin Americans.

Freedom needs an international front of democracies against the alliance of Moscow and Beijing. So, Mr President, don’t forget your friends. Don’t antagonise them, don’t try to weaken them, and come back, urgently, now, to the necessary alliance of the democracies against dictators and mostly, specifically, against the most potent enemy of liberty: the Chinese regime.

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