Chinese diplomats are being besieged by foes. With the intensifying tension in the relationship with the Five Eyes alliance, the threat of “heavy price” made against Czech due to its President of the Senate visiting Taiwan has also stirred up EU members’ resentment. The original game plan of the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) to fight the U.S. by banding with European countries has now ended in churning out more enemies, which reveals the EU gives more weight to the threat from China than commercial benefits.

Sino-Hungary and Sino-Greece relations are the best among all bilateral relations between the CCP and the 27 EU members. While Hungary was granted a huge loan in May this year to erect a 150 kilometer long railroad from its capital Budapest to Serbia, Greece signed a Belt and Road agreement with the CCP in 2018, invited Xi Jinping for a visit and signed the Joint Statement Between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Hellenic Republic(Greece) on Further Deepening China-Greece Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. In 2017, the EU intended to comment on the human rights issue of China at the United Nations Human Rights Council, but Greece used its veto to put aside the motion. At the foreign ministers meeting of the EU in July this year, it was said that France intended to table for deliberation a series of measures to impose sanctions on China for its passing the Hong Kong version of National Security Law, yet the proceeding was stopped by both Hungary and Greece.

Nonetheless, though in the short term the CCP is able to achieve what it craves through buying allies off with money, the maneuver has alerted EU members like Germany and France to its direct intervention in EU affairs. Coincidentally, those in collaboration with the CCP are countries with extreme political forces in power for various economic and political reasons, thereby “cooperating happily” with the CCP. Only these political parties are willing to be CCP’s “good friends”. For example, the Hungarian government is also sanctioned by other EU members for its suppression of human rights. As such, for the mainstream political parties among EU members,  what the CCP has ushered in are not only economic issues but also the issues of “colluding with foreign forces”, of which China is always accusing others.

The Italian government fell from power as soon as it joined the Belt and Road scheme last year. Though its Foreign Minister Di Maio met Chinese Foreign Minister Wan Yi the other day when the latter was visiting the country, Prime Minister Conte, independent from any parties, refused to meet him. In November 2019, the Chinese Consulate-General in Italy lashed out at the Italian Parliament on Twitter for the latter inviting Joshua Wong Chi-fung to make a speech at the institution, which induced widespread resentment in Italy, regardless of political parties. At that time, Conte stated clearly what China did was unacceptable. Even Di Maio, an old friend of the CCP’s, had to try to be mitigating, saying: “That the two countries had signed a commercial agreement didn’t mean China could make irresponsible remarks on Italy’s established system, parliament and government”.  The Northern League, the biggest opposition party led by former Deputy Prime Minister Salvini, overtly pointed out “Italy is not a province of China”, and said a few months ago that China had to be put on trial like the one in Nuremberg. All this is a backlash against Chinese wolf warrior diplomacy, and the Sino-Italy relations are yet to be healed.

As to Czech, threatened by the CCP with “heavy price”, it has palpably turned “anti-CCP” from “pro-China” in recent years. The CCP had high hopes for Zeman, an old friend who is pro-China and pro-Russia and was re-elected President of Czech in 2018. However, in January this year, Zeman openly asserted in an interview that he was disappointed at China reneging on its promise of investment, hence refusing to show up at the “China-Central and Eastern Europe Summit” held in April. The pro-China faction has been “stood up”.  Kubera, former President of the Senate of the Czech, died of myocardial infarction all of a sudden.  His bereaved wife and daughter said in an interview on TV his husband was inundated, and then killed by the pressure exerted by the CCP.

For this reason, Vystrčil, Kubera’s successor, does not only have to finish the work bequeathed by the deceased, but also refuse to bow down to the CCP, which is about the dignity of the country as a whole. Unfortunately it happened that the CCP did not give it a cooling-off period before dealing with it, but despatching Wang Yi to make threats: “Challenging the one-China principle on the Taiwan issue is in effect making enemies of 1.4 billion Chinese people; the President of the Senate of Czech and the anti-China forces behind him have to pay a heavy price for their short-sightedness and political speculations” – this threat is fuel added to flames. Czech is a landlocked country CCP’s army is incapable of invading. The latter can only sever the economic and trade ties with the former. But after all, is such a threat effective in achieving anything?

According to the statistics between January and March of 2020 from the Ministry of Commerce of China and Czech Statistical Office, export from Czech to China was worth USD540 million, only accounting for 1.2% of Czech’s total export. But export from China to Czech was worth USD6.26 billion, accounting for 14.8% of Czech’s total import. The trade deficit was up to USD57.2 billion. In fact, Czech is buying insanely from China but not vice versa. Czech doing business with China is the same as the U.S. doing business with the latter. The former is always losing money. Then why can China be so tough? In the past, the CCP always accused people of doing harm to China while making money there, viz saying people have to be obedient to China while gaining profit in the country. Now that it is making a profit from the trade with Czech, how come Czech has to submit to the CCP?

No wonder other Eastern European countries like Slovakia and Slovenia, which buy from China as many as Czech does, find the country unacceptable, and are more and more alert to China. Foreign Ministers of both Germany and France have declared their stand, pointing out threats from China are unacceptable. What the CCP is doing actually promotes what even the U.S. cannot achieve – fighting China in collaboration with Europe.

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