China vows to make Czech lawmaker ‘pay’ for Taiwan trip

Bloomberg

China’s foreign minister warned that a top Czech lawmaker would “pay a heavy price” for visiting Taiwan, exposing continued tensions with Europe even as Beijing sought to push back against US overtures on the continent.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Germany that Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil’s trip was a “betrayal” that made him “an enemy of 1.4 billion Chinese people.” Vystrcil is leading a 90-member delegation to democratically run Taiwan, including Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib, a Beijing critic who in January made Taipei a sister city to the Czech capital.
“China will not sit idle and tolerate the Czech Senate leader’s provocation and the anti-China forces behind him,” Wang said. “We will make them pay a heavy price for such short-sighted behaviour and political speculation.”
Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek told reporters Monday that his ministry planned to summon the Chinese ambassador. While Petricek said the government anticipated that Vystrcil’s trip would draw criticism and was carried out without its support, he said Wang’s remarks had crossed the line.
The Czech delegation represents Taipei’s second high-
profile foreign visit in recent weeks, bolstering President Tsai Ing-wen’s effort to fight an isolation campaign by Beijing. Earlier this month, US Health Secretary Alex Azar became the most senior American official to visit Taiwan since Washington switched diplomatic ties to Beijing from Taipei in 1979.
Both Taiwan and the Czech Republic — a former Soviet satellite state — “had to struggle to find a path to democracy,” Vystrcil said in a speech at National Chengchi University in Taipei. “I believe that other representatives of Europe will soon realise their delays, too — for example, representatives of other European democratic countries or the European Union — and that they will also visit Taiwan,” he said.
Vystrcil told an investment forum that he aimed to deepen trade ties between the
two sides, and that Czech entrepreneurs wanted to make connections with Taiwanese businesses. “Taiwan and the Czech Republic are democratic countries with common values,” Taiwanese Economic Minister Wang Mei-hua said.