Chapter 5 Empirical Evidence
5.1 Politics and economics
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Chapter 5 Empirical Evidence
The next section of this thesis is the analysis which is based upon the data gathered in the previous section and information gained from the interviews. Data making the previous section is mainly from the news articles which helped to create the overall timeline of the restarted Czech Chinese relations from 2013 until 2020. The interviews were conducted with four individuals who have a connection to the PRC and background in various spheres. The first one was Mr. Filip Jirous who works for the Prague-based Sinopsis, focusing on China’s United Front work in the Czech Republic, Xinjiang, and Digital Leninism. The next one was Mr. Jiri Etzler who is a television journalist with 27 years of experience. He worked as a correspondent for CNN from 2000 to 2007.
From 2007 he moved to PRC as a correspondent for the Czech Television until 2014. The third was Hana Do. Since her studies at Charles University, she works as a translator for China Center z. s. and Skoda Auto. Since 2017 she started to translate Chinese literature to the Czech language.
Her last translation was Ball Lighting (球状闪电, Kulovy blesk) by Lui Cixin. And the last one was Bao Do. He regularly visits China since 2011 and lived there for two years as part of his studies. Currently, he works as a program manager for China Tours and sometimes attends the tours to PRC himself as a tour guide. His other occupation is as a translator working with major Czech companies like Skoda Auto.
5.1 Politics and economics
The relations between the Czech Republic and the People's Republic of China underwent a restart in 2013 mainly because of the persona of the Czech president Milos Zeman who sold the whole idea of the economic benefit for the Czech businesses and the Czech people. To have good
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economic relations with the PRC, the Czech Republic had to abandon certain aspects of its foreign policy. A good example of this is the case of “dalailamism” as it was called by former PM Necas when the focus on the Tibet and human rights issues in the PRC had to leave the Czech foreign policy. Part of this is also stopping the tradition of hoisting the Tibetan flag at the Prague City hall from 2016 until 2019 because of corresponding with the former political representation of Prague and its sister city cooperation with Beijing. Therefore, to cooperate with PRC on the deep level there is a need for prior or immediately following action of altering one's behavior suiting the needs of the PRC. In other words, PRC is using its economy to reach its sharp power goals. Mr.
Jirous and project Sinopsis speaks about this as a “corrosive capital.” I believe that if the case for potential cooperation is conditioned by tolerating the authoritarian practices by the government officials that were elected by the people the democracy is being distorted. Because from my perspective it means that those elected officials are no longer representing the people and the values upon which they were elected by instead they are representing the values of the authoritarian society by which they are undermining their own.
It is apparent that the persona of the Czech president Milos Zeman is important in the Czech Chinese relations. On the political level, he has sold the whole idea of the restart of the Czech Chinese relations to the Czech public as a great opportunity that will bring the Chinese capital to the country and will create thousands of jobs. In his attempt to achieve these goals he embarked on the road of the useful tool for the Chinese regime as demonstrated bellow. But as it might seem president Milos Zeman does not “serve” to the CCP because he would believe in their regime but as Mr. Etzler points out Milos Zeman “serves” to the Czech company PPF which through its subsidiary company Home Credit have important business interests in the PRC. He adds that for Home Credit to operate in the PRC the relations of the two countries are paramount and that is where Zeman comes into the play. Through his actions, he helps to maintain the kind of relationship between the Czech Republic and the PRC as the PRC's officials like it, de facto playing into the sharp power goals in exchange for some economic benefits for some Czech companies and very few people, definitely not in the scope which Zeman promised. But subsequently, PRC can exercise sharp power through him which leads to the distortion of democracy in the Czech Republic.
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This was very apparent during the first visit by the Czech president Milos Zeman to the PRC.
During which among other business-related activities he gave an interview to the Chinese state television. During the interview, he stated: “I did not come to teach market economy or human rights but we try to learn how to increase economic growth and how to stabilize the society.”
Abandoning the core values of the democratic system that got him elected ignoring the humanitarian values and giving in to the CCP's narrative as repeating the standardized phrases representing the building stones of the Chinese regime. Especially the term “stabilizing the society” is typical for the CCP's narrative and governing style and cannot be found in the traditional dictionary of the Czech politicians. Therefore, again this example demonstrates that PRC is using its economic influence to project sharp power in this case through the Czech president Milos Zeman who normalizes the Chinese authoritarian system and abandons the democratic values of the Czech Republic in the public space which in other words undermines the democracy in the Czech Republic because if its public official abandons the democratic values for the business that creates new precedence to forsake other democratic values and norms in the country as well.
The big role in the Czech Chinese relations played the Chinese company CEFC whose CEO Ye Jianming was named by president Milos Zeman as his advisor. I believe that appointing the CEO of the Chinese company with the ties to the Chinese military, with unclear ownership of the company is problematic in itself as the role of the advisor is to advise to president onto what is the best for the Czech Republic as the president swears during his inauguration. But when the advisor is Chinese national with ties to the Chinese military his intentions for advice would not always be aligned with the Czech interests therefore the appointing itself is undermining the Czech democracy. When Ye Jianming disappeared in the PRC's state secret prison president Zeman did not recall him as an advisor, stating that unless proven guilty he is innocent. I believe that in this case president Zeman again helped to exercise Chinese sharp power and helped to distort Czech democracy. Firstly, Zeman applies the rules of the democratic system to the authoritarian country by using the presumption of innocence. By presenting this he helps the PRC to create an illusion that the PRC is working at the same principles as any western democracy. Playing into the sharp power goals and normalizing the authoritarian regime. Secondly, Zeman dispatched his chancellor Mynar and advisor Nejedly to go to PRC and try to find out where is the Ye Jianming. By doing this he undermined the Czech diplomacy as a whole because of his political interests regarding the PRC thus undermining the democratic norms and Czech democracy as well.
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When in 2016 came to the Czech Republic his Holiness Dalai Lama who has met with the Culture minister he initiated the Letter of Four after the complaints from the Chinese embassy in Prague.
I believe that writing a letter to the PRC's government signed by the four top Czech governmental officials pleading their loyalty to the CCP has a severe impact on the Czech democratic system.
Of course, this kind of behavior is driven by the promised economic benefits as good political relations are needed for the favorable economic interaction with the PRC but again I believe that the PRC is successfully exercising the sharp power through the Czech president Zeman by making him and other Czech politicians vigorously please the PRC and spread its narrative on the topic of Dalai Lama issue. I think that in this case the Czech democracy was undermined because its top officials were not behaving like elected representatives of the sovereign country standing their ground upholding the principles and values of their own country but all they did was pleasing the CCP in exchange for the promised economic benefits.
As stated before president Milos Zeman invested a lot of his political capital into the relations with the PRC and to keep the good political relations between the two countries he has publicly taken sides of the PRC on many occasions as demonstrated before. When in 2018 BIS published its report warning against the Chinese influence operations in the Czech Republic Zeman yet again took the side of the PRC by scolding the BIS and publicly stating they should not hunt some imaginary Chinese spies. Stating that BIS is only helping the rising anti-Chinese hysteria in the country. Like everyone I have interviewed with stated they do not agree with the perception of president Zeman mainly because other allied secret services in EU or USA came to the same findings that indeed the PRC is conducting influence operations all over Europe. That is why I believe in this case Zeman again plays into the Chinese sharp power-driven by promised economic benefit and by publicly distrusting the Czech secret services he helps to undermine the institution which is tasked to defend the Czech Republic against the foreign interventions thus undermines the democratic system.
Another important event in the Czech Chinese interaction was the issue of the President of the Senate of the Czech Republic Jaroslav Kubera who was planning an official visit to the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan). He made his intention to go public in fall 2019 at that time Foreign minister Petricek and others made it clear that it is not a good idea as it could have an impact on the relations with the PRC. It was made public only after Mr. Kubera's sudden death in February
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that the Chinese embassy issued a letter that was delivered to Mr. Kubera through the presidential office on 14th of January when he attended the lunch at the Prague castle with the president Zeman, his chancellor Mynar and president of the Parliament Vondracek. In my opinion, this is a clear sharp power tactic by the PRC as Hana Do with who I conducted written interview thinks as well.
I believe that firstly the fact itself that the PRC issued the letter in which it threatens to the Czech people and Czech companies fall into the category of the sharp power as it tries to make Czech officials uphold the CCP's narrative at the highest level. Secondly is how the whole situation is undermining Czech democracy. Again the most important factor here is the Czech president Zeman and people around him, especially his chancellor Mynar. The fact that the letter was given to Mr. Kubera by president Zeman at the lunch makes the president a “messenger” for the PRC delivering threatening messages to other Czech officials who do not follow the CCP's line. Such a behavior of the highest Czech official undermines the sovereignty of the office of the president in the first place but also the sovereignty of the Czech Republic. Even though it might not be illegal to deliver messages from the Chinese embassy to other Czech politicians, it is not normal as such official correspondence should have been sent directly to Mr. Kubera's office. More importantly, by delivering this threatening message president Zeman de facto took the side of the PRC in the issue. As much as the president can argue that he was trying to protect the Czech interest I believe that the main fact is that he has given to the Chinese pressure and served as a tool for Chinese sharp power again and therefore undermined Czech democracy.
Except for Mr. Kubera, there is another big event in the Czech Chinese relations and that is Covid-19. When it became apparent that the Czech Republic would not be spared and that the country was poorly prepared, the Czech government turned to PRC to buy the much needed medical supplies. It is important to stress that the majority of the European countries as well as many others were buying much needed medical supplies from the PRC in the initial stage of the crisis, as at that point the worst wave already went through the PRC, and later on switched to domestic production. But the Czech Republic and its officials were a somewhat special case. First of all, it was previously mentioned so many times that Jaroslav Tvrdik who became a member of the Pandemic Task Force and his nomination to the response team was presented as logical as his contacts in the PRC will help the Czech Republic secure much-needed supplies. Indeed, the supplies were bought in the PRC and were properly paid for, therefore the question is why the Czech Republic needed a president of the Czech Chinese mixed chamber and employee of the
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Chinese SOE CITIC group to help with such standard business. In this case, I believe it is apparent the unclear interconnectedness of the Chinese state, its SOE, Czech private sector, and Czech political sphere doing the bidding of the CCP.
Just one day before the first airplane coming from PRC with the medical supplies landed in Prague, president Zeman had a TV speech towards the Czech nation addressing the crisis. The Czech president thanked the PRC stating that it was the only country that helped the Czech state. The statement was not true and whether we can talk about help is in itself questionable as all the supplies were paid for. I believe that the statement like this from the mouth of the president was undermining the Czech democracy because again he acted in line with the Chinese sharp power improving its public picture in the Czech Republic and intentionally misleading the Czech public at the same time.
When then the first Chinese airplane landed at the Prague airport the highest Czech officials were there together with the Chinese ambassador to welcome the plane and thank the PRC. As Mr.
Etzler stated in the interview it was only the Czech representation in the whole EU who thanked for the supplies that were paid for. From his perspective, this kind of behavior is unacceptable for sovereign officials and only serves Chinese propaganda. I agree with Mr. Etzler and I believe like him that this in fact is a very servitude type of behavior and consequentially undermines the Czech democracy. It is known that PRC asked the Czech officials to be at the airport and thank them as the similar reports were coming from other European countries therefore again PRC was using its economic power to exercise sharp power to promote its own image and silence the criticism concerning how the PRC dealt with the virus crisis. I think that agreeing to this from the side of the Czech officials leads to the distortion of democracy because again they are playing into the Chinese narrative and serving them as a tool by praising the country responsible for the crisis which creates information fog and distorts the truth and rational debate without the democratic system cannot work.
Another instance of sharp power distorting the Czech democracy was the example of Prague. As was mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, that the deeper cooperation with the PRC is conditioned with good political relations and one has to alter his behavior prior to or immediately after establishing cooperation with the PRC. The same was done in the case of Prague. As was mentioned Prague stopped the tradition of hoisting the Tibetan flag as a gesture of better relations
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with the PRC. The same year when Prague stopped, in 2016, General Party Secretary Xi Jinping came to Prague for an official visit, during which was the sister city agreement signed between Prague and Beijing. As was described in the previous chapter in detail, this agreement had a One China Policy clause even though sister city agreements are signed mainly for cultural or tourism cooperation, not the political one. Because of that, the new Prague leadership decided to renegotiate the agreement by leaving out the One China Policy article. Beijing did not react therefore Prague decided to scrap the whole agreement and only then Beijing reacted by canceling the whole deal just a day before Prague's leadership should have taken the vote. Since then Prague started to hoist the Tibetan flag again as well. As a direct consequence, the city of Shanghai decided to cancel its sister city agreement with Prague too as from their perspective Prague took the wrong steps in the past in its attitude towards the PRC.
I believe that again in this case the PRC tried and succeeded at first to exercise sharp power which led to the distortion of democracy in the Czech Republic as the tradition of hoisting the flag or agreeing to political articles in cultural deals were implemented. In other words, in the case of the flag, the democratic expression of support to the human rights in Tibet was hindered by the cooperation with the PRC. In the case of the One China Policy clause in the sister city agreement I believe that again by the former leadership of Prague it was agreed to as the vision of economic was bigger than the possible impact of the clause in the deal and its meaning. A big aspect could have been also a lack of knowledge of the topic among Prague's leadership which Mr. Jirous calls knowledge asymmetry and it is something that PRC constantly relies on upon their dealing with foreign partners.
From Prague's case, I believe there might be ways which can the Czech Republic take in order to combat the Chinese influence while maintaining its openness in terms of the values of the open society. From the previous paragraph, it is apparent that the two most important things are
From Prague's case, I believe there might be ways which can the Czech Republic take in order to combat the Chinese influence while maintaining its openness in terms of the values of the open society. From the previous paragraph, it is apparent that the two most important things are