As he usually does, Andrej Babiš, who was wearing a T-shirt depicting a large Bohemian lion, a historical symbol of power and sovereignty, addressed his followers on social media. In a video lasting just over seventeen minutes, he covered the main current affairs topics of the past week, from capping fuel prices to the upcoming NATO summit and the desire to abolish TV license fees. The Prime Minister explained to his supporters that he was “extremely motivated” and had “a clear vision of the direction in which [he] wants to take the Czech Republic to make things better.” This includes matters of international relations as well:
“Our foreign policy is absolutely clear. We will pursue a pragmatic policy, which is why I will be visiting Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan so that our companies can do business there, rather than continuing this policy based on supposed values that has practically brought nothing, except harm to our companies.”
This statement from Andrej Babiš followed his cabinet’s refusal to provide a plane for the Senate President, Miloš Vystrčil, who intends to accompany a delegation of representatives from various Czech companies to Taiwan at the end of May. As a member of ODS, the conservative party that was the main coalition party led by Petr Fiala until December, the President of the Senate openly supports a policy of Taiwan since several years.
“I am Taiwanese,” declared Miloš Vystrčil during a visit to Taipei in 2020 when he became the first president of a foreign parliament to attend a session of the Legislative Yuan in forty-five years. A visit to which Andrej Babiš, who was then Prime Minister, had nothing to object, unlike just under six years later.
Concerned about this upcoming trip to Taiwan, Andrej Babiš responded to opposition parties’ criticisms by advising the Senate President to travel on a commercial flight. Miloš Vystrčil, for now, has only indicated that he will speak more on the subject in the coming days.
In his distinctive communication style on the national stage, where he pays little heed to usual formalities, the Prime Minister formally disapproved the opposition’s bias towards Taiwan and expressed his desire for the Czech Republic to “adopt a similar approach towards China as the United States, Germany, France, or Italy.”
“We will not pursue the same policy as (the former lower house president Markéta) Pekarová (Adamová, of the conservative TOP 09 party) and Vystrčil, who have ruined our businesses in China. Škoda no longer sells its cars there. Chinese tourists no longer come (to the Czech Republic), there are no more investments, the Chinese prefer going to Hungary and Slovakia. As for Mr. Vystrčil, who has been in politics since 1990, his costly leisure trips have only served to destroy our business. It has been thirty-six years of politics for him and he still hasn’t learned English, so I don’t see what he would do there. The result of these costly excursions by Pekarová and Vystrčil is that Taiwan is building a semiconductor factory in Dresden for tens of billions.”
According to data from the national agency CzechInvest, Taiwan was the thirteenth most significant foreign investor in the Czech Republic for the period 1993-2025, just ahead of Belgium, while China ranks sixteenth.
