Chapter 4: China And V4
4.3. Slovakia
After Czechoslovakia dissolved, Czech and Slovak Republics were established in 1993, since then, both countries continue maintaining the official relationship with the People’s Republic of China. Based on the recent research, Slovakia appears as the weakest trading partner from all four V4 countries for China;
however, their relationship is positive and stable. In 2013 Both countries, Slovakia and China established a new goal to strengthen their mutual relationship in the future.
Meeting of both countries’ representatives – Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and Slovak President Ivan Gashparovic – is about to bring a boost for their cooperation, which will be ensured by bilateral agreements that were signed during this meeting (Global Times, 2013). Zhang said that “Slovakia has become an important economic and trade partner for China in Central and Eastern Europe” (Global Times, 2013). Zhang’s comment shows us that China sees in the relationship an opportunity to establish a stronger connection with the whole region of CEE. In that case, Czech and Slovakia could be competing for an identical post. In my opinion, no competition will be needed, because those two countries have a lot to offer and each of them concentrates on different things. For Slovakia, car industry became crucial for their economy. Slovakia is the country with the largest car production per capita (Liptáková, 2015). Slovakia’s current policy is to support Small & Medium Enterprises (SME), as well as to support FDI. When it comes to China’s acting in international economic, suitable conditions for their investment could be the right way to for Slovakia.
Slovakia is one of the main EU exporters to China, and Slovakia as the only V4 country has a positive trade balance with China (Heiduk & McCaleb, 2014). And also the only V4 country using Euro currency, other three countries still keep their original currency, despite being part of the EU.
If we rely on Slovak statistical data that are compatible with Eurostat or other international statistical data, stock amount of Chinese investment shows positive numbers until 2011, then in 2012 there have been observed a stagnation and decrease in 2013 (Turcsányi, 2014b). According to Turcsányi (2014b), China does not
cooperate with IMF or with any other statistical data gathering organizations,
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therefore, only data available about China’s investment would be data released by China, Turcsányi says that there are Chinese acquired companies’ shares in Slovakia and 99% are in the steel products and machineries. To conclude, overall Slovakia is in the worst position in V4 with a negative growth of Chinese investment (Turcsányi, 2014b).
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CHAPTER 5:
CONCLUSION
The aim of the research was to provide true and relevant information about current Czech-China foreign relations. With provided understanding of the history of Czech-China relations, a reader should be able to gain a knowledge from the result of examination of the contemporary evolution of Czech-China with a focus on
Economic and Political cooperation. Results show the connection between political cooperation explained through examination of agreements, statements of government officials, their visits mostly to China, or the relationship between the Czech Republic and Taiwan, and changes during past few years related to an economic exchange.
5.1. STATEMENT OF LIMITATIONS
As it is known, there is not a great interest in the international affairs among the Czech society. That causes a lack of scholarly work on this topic, especially on relations with countries outside of Europe. The other reason for a lack of scholarly work on this topic is the age of the Czech Republic. As scholars argue, most of the research done before 1989 was influenced by propaganda, hence it is difficult to find valid data, especially when it comes to international affairs of those countries that shared the same communist regime. This fact does not directly influence my research, as it concentrates on contemporary relationship between Czech and China, but there is a significant indirect influence – because there was not a great interest in Chinese studies before 1989, it probably influenced scholars interest choices afterwards and it led to producing a small number of scholarly work on this topic during the period until 2000, even afterwards, I would say.
The Czech Republic established relations with China after 1993, but the lack of interest in this topic remained. There are few Czech scholars with the
specialization in politics and Chinese studies. For this reason, while providing arguments to explain data, the research might be to some extent bias. To eliminate
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that, I use as primary sources data published by government and other official websites, those data are further analyzed based not only on the work of Czech scholars but also some foreign scholars, whose specialization is relevant to the discussed issue.
Because of unawareness of the Czech society of the Czech-China issues, there will be no questionnaire distributed among people to complement this study. The reason for that is that if the questionnaire is distributed among people not familiar with Chinese studies, their answers would not be too valuable for the research, because of the lack of expertise. If the questionnaire is distributed among people familiar with the topic, the number of those people would be too small to provide a data that would truly complement this research. I believe that because of the lack of research in Czech-China relations, any research added to this field is a valuable contribution. This research focuses on the most recent years and changes that those years have brought and that have not been discussed yet. Furthermore, this research is to provide an examination of changes in Czech-China foreign relations in the light of the contemporary and recent situation, taking that in consideration, this research will be completing already existing research of earlier years in regard to helping to better understand the current situation.
It is also difficult to receive a data from China, because the government does not follow international standards and transparency as for instance the Czech
Republic. While evaluating data, I was able to use data released by the Czech Republic, the EU, or other European countries, but not data released by China, as many scholars mention in their work that data released by China often does not match to other data released by the European Union, for instance.
Neoliberalism suggests that prosperous economic cooperation is the base for good foreign relations, the whole research is based on this assumption while
examining Czech-China relations. Some could argue that this limits the research as other approaches are not taken into consideration; however, in this case, I believe that neoliberalism is the best possible approach for the examination of current Czech-China relations, especially because it really is a trade and economic cooperation what
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is currently being discussed and improved, other political aspects come as the secondary goal that goes along with the economic goals.
5.2. IMPLICATIONS OF THE RESEARCH
Based on my research, I believe that the chosen methodology is suitable for this thesis. The neoliberal approach suggests the importance of mutual trade and economic cooperation that is not managed by the state. Currently, we can see that newest political approach of Czech government is very supportive of liberal
economy, Czech president has shown a good evidence of his liberal approach, and the importance of the economy to a future state’s development.
There is a common consensus among the EU that all member countries should follow the same path when it comes to cooperation with countries outside of the EU.
The Czech Republic also adapted “the EU approach” when it comes to new or
adjusted treaties with non-European countries. There has been a significant change in Czech-China relations, because now the Czech Republic, as the EU member, can serve as a bridge to Europe for China’s investments. Since joining the EU, Czech signed bilateral agreements with China involving economic, academic and other forms of cooperation, for instance, in the year 2005, the Czech Prime Minister signed 14 bilateral agreements with China. The research proved that there have been recent positive changes in Czech-China relations, especially on the economic field. Those changes lead to more tight and equal economic cooperation between Czech and China.
As the matter of the level of analysis, if I divide it into three groups:
individual level, system level, and social level; in my opinion, the most important level is the individual, which is a President in this case. In Czech-China relations analysis from the Czech perspective a President plays a crucial role, therefore this research emphasized mainly on Presidents.
There is an obvious interest of the Czech Republic in greater cooperation with China, especially from the economic perspective. The current Czech President
conducted several visits to China to strengthen mutual relationship. Some evidence
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from 2004 shows that Czech side of this relationship still seems unsatisfied with this state of the relationship, because there are obvious advantages for Chinese side, especially when it comes to trade. Import to Czech from China has been steadily growing since 2000, after 2004 a growth was rapid, then there was a slight decrease;
however, it went up again after 2013. Export from Czech to China experienced similar, but a slower path. It took longer to Czech side to speed up export growth rate than to China; however, after 2009 data show an obvious increase in Czech export to China.
From the non-economic perspective, the biggest changes have been
discovered in the question of Taiwan. Recently, the situation was stable, until the year 2014 when the Czech President Zeman visited Beijing where he stated that Taiwan is a part of China. Changes that Czech-China and Czech-Taiwan political relations have undergone are significant. It went from active criticism of China, and support of democratic Taiwan to stating that Taiwan is a part of China while having the Czech President visiting Beijing. China is becoming more and more important for the Czech Republic, as most importantly an economic cooperation is increasing. The current Czech President recently visited China and Chinese officials went for an official visit to the Czech Republic – that is a good proof of an active cooperation and positive foreign relations between China and Czech. Most recently China’s President Xi Jinping visited Czech as the first Chinese president in the history of Czech-China relations. We can definitely see that as a starting point for improvement the mutual relationship; this visit was not only exceptional from Czech standpoint, it was also unique because, during President Xi’s visit to Czech, the Czech Republic was the only European country he visited during this trip. This is a very interesting step forward in the Czech diplomacy, as the Czech Republic, the country often considered less significant in Europe due to her historical connection with the Soviet Union, was chosen to be President Xi’s the only European destination. Besides that, the Czech capital Prague is about to sign a sister city agreement with Beijing as the first V4 country to do so. There have not been noticed a lot of public complaints during past years related to Czech-China relations. First, complaints were heard regarding aforementioned sister city agreement between Prague and Beijing, because this agreement will contain a clause about Prague’s support of One-China Policy. Even
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bigger criticism occurred during President Xi’s visit when numerous voices raised a question concerning human rights. However, official government’s statement towards China remains positive. Even though an attitude of the Czech society is negative towards China, which was observed especially during the visit of Xi Jinping to Prague, I do not see it as a big turnover. Findings show that there was lack of interest in China in past, nowadays there is a trend of negativity towards China to some extent, this negativity is a change from neutrality rather than from positivity. China was always something unknown, sometimes even mysterious for Czech public, current negativity carried out might be influenced by Czechs’ dislike for local
government or because of an impression that have been spread by a Czech media that the country present herself as inferior in relation with China.
I believe tourism should be mentioned as one of the factors that influence Czech-China relations. For the Czech Republic, tourism is an important source of money income. A new opened direct flight between Prague and Beijing will also increase the number of incoming tourists. Chinese tourists are not only coming to Czech in very high number, but they are also willing to spend more money than many other tourists. It is obvious that Czech is becoming more attractive for Chinese, which is very desirable in the current situation, especially considering a lowering number of Russian tourists coming to Czech. Another factor that shows us the level of
understanding and prosperity of mutual relations is the number of foreign people living in the country. A number of Chinese people living in Czech increases since 2004, by 2007 increase became more stable and slowed down, on the other hand, the number of applicants for over 90 days’ visa decreased. An increase in Chinese living in Czech proves a raising interest of Chinese and China in general in Czech.
Lastly, I consider China’s soft power as one of the factors influencing relations between China and other countries. In the Czech case, Confucius institute can influence Czech-China relations, especially because of the capital they can afford to use. To support Confucius institute in Olomouc, China provided $100,000 USD, 3,000 books, and teaching materials. Confucius institute serves as an educational platform and they also offer consulting services; however, I did not discover that Czech businesses are using a service of the Confucius institute. They prefer already existing platforms and services provided or recommended by the Czech Ministry of
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Foreign Affairs, for instance, CzechTrade, Czech Invest, or Embassy of the Czech Republic in Shanghai and in Beijing.
The Czech Republic during past three presidencies experienced various stages of the relationship with China. The more recent time we examine, the more
involvement of the importance of economic cooperation we can discover. Economic and academic cooperation are ongoing between Czech and China. Based on my findings, I conclude that current political relations between the Czech Republic and the People’s Republic of China are on a very positive path; Czech government officials are personally trying to improve those relations by making official visits to China. After comparing the periods before and after Czech joined the EU, changes in Czech-China relations have been very significant, especially from the President’s stance that is important for foreign relations. If we look at the most recent situation, the biggest improvement seems to occur during past few years especially since 2013 when Miloš Zeman became the Czech President. President Zeman is very open to the cooperation with China and he is actively participating in its improvement. The first Czech President Havel was more of an opposite to this stance – he, in my opinion, valued human rights and democracy over good foreign relations economic
cooperation with China. Second Czech President Klaus’s support leaned rather towards the United States of America, but he also started the reevaluation of Czech-China relations, and he supported and idea of mutual closer cooperation, especially in the economic field.
As an example, in Czech-China relations the Czech Presidents promotes Czech trade, businessmen and companies during his talks with China’s high government officials, which has become a pattern during past decade. Therefore, I argue that the current situation of Czech-China relations requires the involvement of politicians, and improvement of foreign relations, in order to strengthen the economic cooperation. Then, it will be possible for a trade to become more independent from the government bodies, as it is according to the neoliberal society; however, that is still yet to come, in my opinion, the Czech Republic is not in this stage yet.
China does not only want to have a good relationship with the EU, she also wants to have an influence over countries that have a power within the EU, which, in
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my opinion, will further determine which of V4 will become the most important for China.
Based on historical facts and discovered data, there is no particular bond between the Czech Republic and the PRC that would not be observed in cases of other Visegrád group countries. Moreover, Czech could be seen as an even less important V4 country from China’s perspective, since China’s biggest share V4 of investment, over 6 billion USD, goes to Hungary. Czech, on the other hand, receives only 100 million USD of Chinese investment. The Czech Republic agreed to be a part of OBOR, which will make the country more important to China. Based on my findings, if I were to evaluate how important each V4 country is for China from the economic perspective, I would say: Hungary > Poland > the Czech Republic >
Slovakia. Hungary has the highest number of China’s investment, as well as the biggest Chinese population among V4. Slovakia, on the other hand, has no or very little investment, based on different sources.
Czech Republic might not be the biggest V4 China’s investment partner;
however, it was the Czech Republic who the PRC president Xi visited this Spring as the only European country. Czech is still a strategic partner for China, a tighter relationship with Czech China has, the greater influence in EU can China perform.
There may not have been any particular interests in Czech at the beginning, but because of efforts made mostly by the Czech President, I believe that this situation is changing.
Looking to the past, as I mentioned before, Czech-China relations have changed rapidly, not only considering growing economic exchange but also on political matters. I believe that the Czech President of the Czech history has a very significant influence on the development of those mutual relations. Based on the Czech Constitution, the President a) represents the country externally, b) negotiates and ratifies international treaties, c) receives heads of diplomatic missions. It is not crucial for this research to evaluate the first Czech President because his period ended before Czech joined the EU. However, I decided to examine the first President Havel in the overview of this research, because if we understand his idealistic way of practicing foreign politics, then we can better evaluate how realistic was his
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successor, and then later understand the big turnover of Czech-China relations with current President’s liberalistic approach that is thoroughly examined in my research. I consider the current Czech President as the one who has made the biggest efforts, compared to his two predecessors, to strengthen ties with China. As I mentioned above, Zeman has been very active during his talks with the President Xi Jinping in order to make his home country more attractive to China.
I believe that a reason why the Czech Republic wants to improve the
relationship with China is an economic interest. When we look back to the past, when
relationship with China is an economic interest. When we look back to the past, when