China is losing Europe’s east to Taiwan

A 15-minute phone call between politicians from different countries shouldn’t be news. Yet as with most things involving Taiwan’s interaction with the rest of the world, even the most mundane acts are highly political.

In an echo of her congratulatory call to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump in late 2016, this Monday, Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文 Cài Yīngwén), had a short, cordial phone call with Petr Pavel, a four-star general who won the Czech Republic presidential election on Saturday.

During their chat, Tsai congratulated Pavel on his victory. The general praised Taiwan as a trustworthy partner for the Czech Republic, while also expressing his hope to one day meet Tsai in person. This would be a first: No head of state from a country that doesn’t recognize Taiwan’s government has done this since she took office in 2016.

Like her call to Trump, this was a big diplomatic win for Tsai, highlighting just how much Taiwan’s international profile has risen in the past six years — Tsai was the second head of state Pavel called post-election, the first being Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

More importantly, Monday’s call also marks an inflection point in the regional shift among major Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries away from China and toward Taiwan. China’s ongoing tacit support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s parroting of Moscow’s talking points are likely to accelerate this trend. While unofficial in nature, these new friendships in the former Soviet bloc are the biggest diplomatic gains Taiwan has seen since democratizing.

The first domino: Lithuania

Like much of the rest of the world, CEE countries, or at least their governments, were once spellbound by China’s economic rise. In 2012, China and 16 countries in the region formed what would eventually become known as the “17+1” grouping, aimed at deepening economic integration with China.

Yet in terms of size, political systems, and other important factors, CEE countries have much more in common with Taiwan than they do with China. Like Taiwan, CEE countries are democracies born in the 1990s that previously lived under the authoritarian government of a giant expansionist neighbor that once again threatens them today.

“As Taiwan and CEE countries began their respective transitions to democracy around the same time, people in both regions do not take democratic institutions values for granted,” said Kuan-Ting Chen ( 陳冠廷 Chén Guāntíng), the CEO of the Taipei-based think tank Taiwan NextGen Foundation. “Additionally, Russian interference in CEE and Chinese meddling in Taiwan are constant reminders that hard-won democracy remains vulnerable amid rising authoritarian tendencies globally.”

By 2021, visions of win-win cooperation with China had already evaporated in Lithuania – which in 1991 was the first country to declare its independence from the Soviet Union. Its parliament voted to leave the grouping with China, and encouraged other members to follow suit. Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the arrangement with China had brought his country “almost no benefits” while helping Beijing play divide-and-conquer with the European Union’s 27 member states.

As it withdrew from 17+1, Lithuania announced it would allow Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius under the name Taiwan, rather than Taipei. China went on the attack, with former Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhào Lìjiān 赵立坚, the face of Beijing’s more strident foreign policy, warning Lithuania that if it did not change its behavior, it “will only bring disgrace upon itself and may even be digging its own grave.”

Beijing attempted to use economic means to pressure Lithuania, and it even withdrew its ambassador to Vilnius, maintaining only a charge d’affaires. Lithuania didn’t budge, and Beijing’s moves drove Brussels to devise an anti-coercion mechanism aimed squarely at China (it has yet to be ratified by the EU Parliament). Meanwhile, the former 17+1 has shrunk to 14+1, with Estonia and Latvia joining their Baltic neighbor in withdrawing from the grouping.

COVID-19 also boosted Taiwan’s ties with the CEE countries. During the initial year of the global pandemic that originated in China, Taiwan mobilized its government, military, and private sector to ramp up surgical mask production due to insufficient domestic supply. Once it had a surplus, Taipei donated to friendly countries around the world, including Lithuania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland — all of whom returned the favor the following year by donating vaccines to Taiwan when it was caught short.

COVID diplomacy begat increasingly frequent visits by CEE parliamentarians to Taiwan, and a rare visit to Europe by Taiwan foreign minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮 Wú Zhāoxiè), who addressed the Czech senate and drank beer at a pub with senate president Miloš Vystrčil.

It was not their first time meeting. In 2020, Vystrčil led a 90-person delegation from CEE countries to Taipei. Speaking before Taiwan’s legislature, he echoed John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” statement in 1960s West Berlin, stating in Mandarin, “I am Taiwanese.” Beijing described his speech as “a despicable act.”

China loses a friend in Prague

When Pavel is inaugurated as Czech president on March 9, he will replace the pro-Beijing Miloš Zeman, who has spent the past decade bringing his country closer to China, including forming a strategic partnership in 2016.

Pavel appears poised to upend Zeman’s efforts right out of the gate. Speaking to Czech radio, he said his country’s “One China” policy should be supplemented with a “two-system” caveat.

“There is nothing wrong if we have specific relations with Taiwan, which is the other system,” he said. “It is definitely in our interest to retain active business and maybe also scientific relations with Taiwan.”

Behind Pavel’s language gymnastics, some see a leader who is going to do as he sees fit, regardless of how Beijing may react. Stepping back, it is beginning to feel like many CEE countries, with the notable exceptions of Hungary and Serbia, no longer care how angry China gets.

“The call between the Czech president-elect and Tsai Ing-wen can be viewed as an effort to institutionalize a ‘new normal’ in Taiwan-CEE relations,” said Chen of the Taiwan NextGen Foundation. “Under CEE countries’ respective interpretations of their One-China policies, all forms of interaction with Taiwan in political, economic, social, and cultural domains are fair game, as long as they do not include formal recognition of Taiwanese independence or establishment of formal diplomatic relations.”

Markéta Gregorová, a Member of the EU Parliament representing the Czech Pirate Party, said she fully supports a face-to-face meeting between Pavel and Tsai.

Given that it would be Tsai’s first meeting with a European head of state while in office, “on a symbolic level, it would be immense,” Gregorová told The China Project. “Taiwan has had a good partner in the Czech Republic for many years now, but without all the branches of political power standing behind this partnership — now that has changed.”

China’s reaction so far to Pavel’s call with Tsai and a possible meeting has been fairly muted. One day after the call, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Máo Níng 毛宁 said that “despite China’s repeated dissuasion and démarches, the Czech Republic’s president-elect Petr Pavel went ahead with the call with Tsai Ing-wen, a move that constituted official contact with the Taiwan authorities and a serious interference in China’s internal affairs…China deplores and strongly opposes this and we have made solemn démarche to the Czech side.”

Is China’s government displeased with Pavel? Sure. But with remarkably less vitriol than when her predecessor Zhao was behind the podium. Regardless, Pavel doesn’t seem concerned. On Wednesday he tweeted in Czech: “I understand that China has reservations about my talk with Taiwan. But we are a sovereign country and we do what we think is right. Taiwan is a democratic country and we share values with it, as well as important trade relations, which is completely in line with the approved concept of foreign policy.”

Gregorová also was sanguine about angering Beijing.

“The Czech Republic has received many threats of consequences for our support to Taiwan over the past couple of years, and none of them were fulfilled,” she said. “That of course does not mean we can or should act without reason.” Gregorová said she was reassured by the pending EU anti-coercion mechanism and the solidarity shown by EU states for Lithuania when it was in China’s crosshairs. “I am certain the Czech Republic can survive any retaliation of an economic nature,” she said.

Taiwan’s presidential office published a photo of Tsai wearing a big smile during her call with Pavel, but at present, there are no concrete plans for a meeting, or at least no publicly acknowledged plans.

“We welcome all kinds of possibilities and are working hard to be friends with CEE countries, said Taiwan presidential spokesperson Kolas Yotaka, who declined to comment on a possible Tsai-Pavel meeting.

Kolas did say, however, that there was substantial room for increased economic cooperation between Taiwan and the region, especially in the tech sector – Foxconn already has manufacturing operations in the Czech Republic. Through increased cooperation, she said, “we can strengthen the ties of trust and reciprocity.”

Cooperation is on the rise, although starting from a low bar. In November, the unofficial Taiwanese embassy in Vilnius announced that Taiwan’s National Development Fund would invest $3.5 million in Lithuanian tech company Litilit.

More Taiwanese investments in the region are on the way. In the aftermath of China’s punitive economic moves against Lithuania, Taiwan announced the creation of a Central and Eastern Europe Investment Fund targeting Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

Is Ukraine next? 

Taiwan’s regional diplomatic push has also included Ukraine, which in 2011 established a strategic partnership with China under the deposed pro-Russia former president, Viktor Yanukovych. Both Kyiv and Taipei have been careful to keep interactions low-key and in the humanitarian space, but that has not prevented Beijing from complaining.

Kira Rudik, the leader of the Ukrainian opposition party Holos, recently told Taiwanese media that she had received a letter from China’s embassy in Kyiv telling her it was “wrong” to accept donations from Taipei that were used to buy generators to keep Ukrainians warm during the winter.

“My first impulse was to say, ‘Oh, I haven’t seen any of your help coming in!’” Rudik told Taiwan’s Formosa Television last week. After thanking Taiwan for its humanitarian aid and praising Taiwanese bubble tea, Rudik expressed her hope for the eventual opening of a Taiwan Representative Office in Ukraine – exactly what triggered China’s attempts to coerce Lithuania two years ago.

“We know that it will take a long time and a lot of work, but I think we need to keep it as a goal, as a point in our planning,” adding that she hoped to visit Taiwan again soon. Rudik visited Taipei last October, as a delegate of the pro-Taiwan caucus formed in Ukraine’s parliament earlier in the year (a pro-Ukraine counterpart was also formed by Taiwanese legislators). During her visit, she spoke directly to the Taiwanese people at a press conference of the horrors her country was experiencing and how now is the time for Taiwan to prepare for the unthinkable.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not directly criticized China in public, yet he has voiced a degree of support for Taiwan. Last June at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Zelenskyy answered a question about Taiwan by encouraging “preemptive measures” to deter a Chinese invasion.

 Following China’s belligerent response to former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August visit to Taiwan — during which she met with President Tsai — Ukrainian politicians began to take greater notice of Taiwan. They also started openly questioning their country’s strategic partnership with China, said Yurii Poita, an expert on Ukraine-China relations, and head of the Asia Section at the Kyiv-based New Geopolitics Research Network.

“China’s ambiguous position on the Russo-Ukrainian war and Beijing’s unlimited partnership with Russia sparked discussion and criticism of China from the Ukrainian expert community, which then spread to the parliament and government,” Poita said. He added that going forward, “it is most likely that Ukraine’s strategic partnership with China will be abolished, and relations will be very limited.”

While emphasizing that Kyiv has no plans to end diplomatic ties with China in order to officially recognize Taiwan’s government, Poita sees Kyiv and Taipei moving closer in the near term. Should Ukraine succeed in defeating Russia, Taiwan would stand to benefit both economically and diplomatically.

“The idea of developing economic, technological, and humanitarian relations with Taiwan is getting stronger,” he said. “Ukraine is preparing to become a European economic and military tiger, and it needs the help of Asian countries in integrating into global production chains. And in this regard, Taiwan can help Kyiv in exchange for the opportunity to take part in the global international project to rebuild Ukraine.”