Chapter 2: Political Cooperation
2.3. The Taiwan Issue
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If Czech businessmen want to succeed in the Chinese market, one of the important much-needed skills is a knowledge of the Chinese language and Chinese culture and environment. However, it did not seem that Czech businesses are using a service of the Confucius institute very much, I have not discovered any record of it. I suggest that they prefer already existing platforms and services provided or
recommended by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for instance, CzechTrade, Embassy of the Czech Republic in Shanghai and Beijing, or the EU project with an aim to help small and medium businesses entering China’s market. These institutions supported by Czech government or the European Union probably seem more reliable to businessmen. Also, besides the Confucius institute, other Czech Universities offer various programs that include Chinese language classes and other related courses.
2.3. THE TAIWAN ISSUE
The Formosa island or Taiwan, further in the research referred as Taiwan, has been an issue for China and her relationship with other countries for a long time.
The Republic of China, originally based in the Mainland China, officially recognized Czechoslovakia in 1919. In 1930 Czechoslovakia and the Republic of China signed an agreement about a mutual cooperation. In 1939 official relations between the Republic of China and Czechoslovakia were suspended, the World War II started. Relations were re-established in 1941, the embassy was re-opened in 1944.
On October 4th, 1949 Czechoslovakia officially recognized the People’s Republic of China, based in the Mainland China, as the only Chinese government and suspended relations with Kuomintang, which was based in Taiwan, in the same time. As the ministry of the Czech Republic states: Relationship between the Czech Republic and Republic of China in Taiwan was re-established after democratic changes in the end of the 20th century. However, newly re-established relations are unofficial and non-governmental. For the cooperation between Taiwan and Czech, there is the Taipei Economic and Cultural office in Prague, which was established in 1992 and the Czech Economic and Cultural office in Taipei established in 1993. So far, the Czech Republic and Taiwan have signed 19 bilateral agreements. The Czech Republic
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established economic ties with Taiwan, and as we can see so far, it does not harm economic cooperation between the Czech Republic and the People’s Republic of China, in fact, both, Czech-China and Czech-Taiwan economic cooperation have been recently improving. China could put some obstacles for Czech to cooperate with her and force Czech businessmen not to interact with Taiwan, but as we can see so far, this is not the case. Taipei Representative Office in EU and Belgium (2013) reported that the trade between the Czech Republic and Taiwan increased from 2004 to 2012; the growth rate in 2012 in comparison with 2004 was 180.8%. “From the period starting from its accession to the EU in 2004 – 2012, the Czech Republic alone attracted nearly as many investors as Germany (about 3.4% of total investment from Taiwan into the EU)” (Taipei Representative Office in EU and Belgium, 2013, p. 6).
This is the evidence of continuously strengthening cooperation between Czech and Taiwan. On the other hand, Czech and China relations are also more and more positive.
The Czech Republic does not recognize Taiwan as a country; however, there are many other ways how Czech and Taiwan boost their mutual relations. For example, Taiwan passport holders can enjoy 90-days visa-free entry to the Czech Republic. In 2011 it was a big step forward when a visa-free entry was introduced.
From January 11th, 2011 Taiwanese people are encouraged to visit the Czech
Republic, as well as other countries within the Schengen area with no need for a visa and complicated paperwork. Taiwanese passport holders are still required to register at the Czech Immigration Police Station after their arrival to Czech (Czech Foreign Ministry, 2015).
The current Czech President certainly favors Chinese part of the Taiwan Strait4, unlike the former President Václav Havel, who was considered as a big supporter of democracy and a friend of Taiwan. After his death on December 18th, 2011, Taiwanese scholars expressed their condolences and also provided some remarks about Havel expressed by Cheng Chin-mo, director of the Department of Global Political Economy at Tamkang University:
4 Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait is a strait that separates the island of Taiwan and the Mainland China.
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“Havel, who insisted on the value of democracy, was very friendly toward Taiwan, […] he was always able to use flexible methods to protect Taiwan’s status and rights in the Czech Republic in the face of the diplomatic competition between Taipei and Beijing, […] the democratic values Havel created have become deeply rooted into the minds of Czechs, allowing the country to avoid political interference when dealing with cross-strait relations” (KML-THN, 2011).
From this remark, we can certainly see that by Taiwanese Havel’s period of presidency was received very positively with a great appreciation of his democratic goals
In 1995 Taiwan’s Premier Lien Chan visited the Czech Republic and met with the Czech President Václav Havel and the Premier and the future President Václav Klaus. It does not happen often that Beijing would let Taiwanese officials meet with other countries’ politicians, this time, it was not otherwise. “The meeting between Lien and Havel encountered strong protests from Peking, but the Czech government shrugged off the complaints and proceeded with the scheduled meeting” (Taiwan Today, 1995). Lien came to Prague after he was invited to make a speech in the Prague’s Charles University, which is the biggest, the oldest, and the most prestigious university in Czech. The discussion between the Czech President Havel and Lien Chan focused mainly on education and academic exchange. The response from Chinese side was not positive. “The mainland's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Chen Jian, said the signing of an educational exchange agreement between Peking and Prague would be postponed” (Taiwan Today, 1995). This decision was obviously made as an answer to the Lien’s visit in Prague.
Pick and Handl (2004) mention that in 1993 China led some domestic campaigns criticizing the Soviet Bloc for its collapse; officially there was no
statement made but it is evident that from the China’s perspective it was an obvious failure of the Soviet Block, which was not able to maintain a stability of the
communist regime. Other official protests from Beijing were heard in 1995 after the President Václav Havel during the United Nations (UN) press conference suggested the possibility of accepting Taiwan to the UN (Pick & Handl, 2004).
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Not a lot of research has been done about Czech-Taiwan relations. The reasons might be various, but it would be wrong to think that if there is no research, there is no interaction between these two. During past ten years, Taiwan and the Czech Republic were working hard on improving their mutual cooperation, especially on an educational and cultural exchange. A good number of Taiwanese students come to Czech every year; a lot of them are interested in studying the Czech language.
Taiwan also hosts various Czech cultural activities and Taiwanese performers and artists go to Czech to spread knowledge about Taiwanese culture. On the political level, it is not as lively as in the past.
After Václav Klaus became a new President in 2003, Tubilewicz (2007) points out that one year later he conducted a visit to Beijing. That shows the evident interest of President Klaus in the Mainland’s side of the Taiwan Strait. During his visit to Beijing, he brought with him several business leaders. Despite the fact that Klaus visited Beijing, Tubilewicz (2007) argues that in the same year vice foreign ministers from Czech met with his Taiwanese counterpart, as they do every year since 2000. Unofficial political cooperation between Taiwan and Czech remained relatively unchanged. On the economic matters, Tubilewicz (2007) does not see any changes as well. This is very important for Czech-Taiwan relations because the economy is one of the main reasons why Czech officials tend to keep good relations with China. It is good to see that at the same time when a President is actively participating on improving Czech-China relations, especially focusing on trade and economic cooperation, Czech-Taiwan economic ties seem to remain unchanged. The current President Zeman can only confirm this theory, so far. Miloš Zeman according to his acting and opinions is a liberal politician. I would even consider Zeman as
neoliberalist when it comes to Czech-China relations. Zeman pursues to get the Czech Republic more involved with China and other political matters put aside, he is also willing to publicly admit that Taiwan is not a country, only the part of China and the reason why he did so is probably directly connected in the improvement of Czech-China relations, specifically economic ties – because from a neoliberal perspective, economy is what matters in current global order. And because economic cooperation is important, there is no reason for Czech why to actually suspend cooperation with Taiwan. Taiwan boosts Czech domestic economy, having the Foxconn on the Czech
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soil, who plans to invest $103 million USD to Czech in next 3 years (Willoughby, 2015).