The president of the Czech Senate, Milos Vystrcil, met with Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen on Thursday morning during his visit to the self-governing democratic island, challenging China which has called the trip “an act of international treason” and his statements, a violation of the ‘One-China Policy’.
China’s harshest reaction to the trip came from Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is on an outreach visit to five countries in Europe and told Vystrcil that he had “crossed a red line.” China treats Taiwan as its territory and opposes official contact between other countries and the autonomous island.
“The Chinese government and the Chinese people will not adopt a laissez-faire attitude or sit idly by, and they will make him (Vystrcil) pay a high price for his shortsighted behavior and political opportunism.” said the Chinese foreign minister over the weekend.
Wang was quickly reprimanded by Germany, Slovakia, and France.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, confronted Wang on Wednesday about his threat, telling him that Europeans offered respect to their international partners and expected “exactly the same” from him. they. “The threats don’t fit here,” Maas said Tuesday according to a Bloomberg report, standing with Wang at a news conference in Berlin.
The French Foreign Ministry has called Wang’s comments “unacceptable,” a message echoed by Slovak President Zuzana Caputova. “Threats directed at one of the EU members and their representatives contradict the very essence of our association and as such are unacceptable,” said President Caputova.
Milos Vystrcil, whose visit to Taipei triggered the diplomatic storm, landed in Taiwan on August 30 with a 90-member delegation, declaring that the Czech Republic would not yield to objections from Beijing that it regards the democratically ruled island as a separatist province.
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On Thursday morning, he stuck to his schedule and met with Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen and other senior government officials on Thursday. Tsai presented a medal to Jaroslav Kubera, the late predecessor of the President of the Czech Senate, Milos Vystrcil, who died in January before he could travel to Taiwan to receive the medal.
“I don’t feel like I have crossed any red lines,” Vystrcil told reporters after the meeting, according to the Associated Press news agency.
Vystrcil said it had not done anything that could be a violation of the one-China policy, but stressed that “all countries have the right to interpret the one-China principle in their own way.”
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said that Taiwan is trying to maintain the status quo “and the status quo is that Taiwan does not belong to China. Taiwan is ruled by its own people. ”The two sides also discussed plans to deepen cooperation in business, scientific research and democratic exchange.
Vystrcil had enraged Beijing on Tuesday when, in his speech to Taiwanese lawmakers, he invoked a 1963 speech by US President John F Kennedy during a Cold War trip to West Berlin and emphasized the democratic freedoms adopted by the Czech Republic after the Communist regime at the end of the Cold War.
“In 1963, US President JFK, in his famous ‘I am a Berliner’ speech, clearly opposed communism and political oppression and supported the people of West Berlin,” Vystrcil said. “He said ‘Freedom is indivisible, and when a man is enslaved, not all are free.’
“Let me use the same way to express my support for the people of Taiwan: I am Taiwanese,” he said according to the AP report.
On Thursday, Taiwan Speaker of the Parliament You Si-kun praised Vystrcil for his “moving” speech to lawmakers and described him as a model of a cultured country. “However, the vulgar threats from China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi were like an unwelcome cold winter wind causing discomfort,” the speaker said, according to a Reuters report.
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