An unnecessary and harmful visit to Taiwan

August 30th Milos Vystrcil, President of the Czech senate traveled to Taiwan for a six-day trip as part of a delegation of business and institutional representatives. The crucial point here is, was it so necessary to travel to the other side of the world in the middle of a pandemic? Not good news for the Czech taxpayer hoping for support during this hard-hit economic crisis. Even if it was meant to be a trade mission, the Czech Republic should try first to develop trade ties with the EU, South-East, or Mediterranean countries. But as we know, unfortunately, we goal of the visit was also political as Mr.Vystrcil gave a very provocative speech in favor of Taiwan, during a meeting with Taiwanese officials he said “I'm Taiwanese”. It is important to stress that the visit was not only discouraged by the government authorities like Prime Minister Andrej Babis and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Tomas Petricek but after the controversial speech, Czech Republic President Milos Zeman slammed Vystrcil's visit to the island, calling it a "boyish provocation" and saying that he will now be excluded from meetings of the state's top foreign policy officials. The Czech President worked extensively to build solid ties with China and to include his country in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Unfortunately, the result of this unnecessary visit, because of the provocation had the result to harm the bilateral Chinese-Czech relations then the open question remains, what Mr. Vystrcil got from this visit and why the Taiwanese authorities were so desperate to get his support. In fact, his real purpose may be to prepare for the presidential campaign in 2023, and the contradiction between him and the Czech President and Prime Minister has become increasingly fierce. According to some well-informed sources from Twitter, Milo Vystrcil, who claims to be pro-Western, secretly reached an agreement with the Taiwan authorities and will receive a funding commitment of 4 million US dollars in the next four years, that is, 1 million US dollars per year. This fund has been included in the secret budget of Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is said that the middle agent is Pavel Divis, a senior official of the Czech Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan.

In fact, Vystrcil's visit to Taiwan may also involve the more sensitive issue of selling arms to Taiwan. Although this news has not been confirmed, the Czech Republic is a traditional military-industrial power, and its weapons are exported to more than 100 countries and regions. According to a report in Taiwan's "Free Times" on October 24th, the Czech weapons company, Excalibur Army (EA) has quickly launched a sales business in Taiwan after Vystrcil's visit. This may also prove that the rumor of $4 million is true. This may involve the Czech Republic in the vortex of interfering in China's internal affairs. In the context of the global response to the pandemic, this move does not start from the national interests, but only considers his interests.

We know that the attitude of the European authorities has always been very careful concerning Taiwan. Mr. Vystrcil should have known that Brussels always pushed for a coordinated action among EU member states when dealing with Taiwan in line with diplomatic etiquette. On the other side also Taiwan should have been more careful handling the visit as well explain by Taiwan diplomat Hsu Mien-Sheng in a recent news article, he said “Many politicians from countries with no diplomatic relations have visited Taiwan over the years, but they have observed diplomatic practices and not announced it beforehand. There has been no incident and no trouble to any party. Diplomacy should be about doing more and talking less. It is necessary to respect the professional judgment of diplomats and act in the proper way to prevent incidents. In this case, Taiwan’s representative in the Czech Republic behaved inappropriately by not consulting other parties on the handling of this announcement”. When the Senate President went back to Prague, after having created a real diplomatic case, he even tried to take back what he said during his mission but international diplomacy, unfortunately for him, follows precise rules.