When the Czech Republic unveiled an avowedly satirical artwork to mark the beginning of its EU presidency last January, neighboring Slovakia was depicted as a giant Hungarian sausage.
It was a stinging humiliation for many Slovaks, who have spent centuries struggling to assert their own sense of nationhood, first as serfs under the Hungarian Kingdom in the 19th century and then as the poorer segment of the former Czechoslovakia.
Slovakia complained about the artwork until the Czech government apologized. The Slovak artist Martin Sutovec drew a caricature showing the Czechs as beetles wearing socks and sandals. Other critics said it was an insult that Slovakia — the first former Warsaw Pact country to join the euro zone, in January — was being compared with Hungary, the economic sick man of the region.
The fierce reaction underlined both the insecurities that continue to dog the European project, and the ambivalence of relations between Slovakia and its richer, larger neighbor 16 years after their “velvet divorce” in 1993.
Slovakia, so proud of having finally bested the Czechs in some international league by joining the euro zone first, exuded all the uncertainty that still makes it so hard for Eastern and Western Europe to feel like a joined-up whole.
Even a well-established country like Austria can feel lorded over by far-larger Germany.
After the rocky separation from the Czechs, Slovakia at first languished under the authoritarian rule of Vladimir Meciar. Then it remade itself as a low-tax, investor-friendly haven in Central Europe, becoming the post-Communist darling of the former Soviet bloc.
The decision to join the euro zone was embraced in Slovakia as a canny move that would shelter it during hard economic times. Instead, Slovakia’s economy tied Latvia’s for the sharpest downturn in the 27-member EU during the first four months of the year, contracting 11.2 percent after years of strong economic growth.
While the decline was a setback and brought “I told you so” remarks from the Czechs, who have clung to their national currency, the koruna, Slovak officials insist that it is they who will have the last laugh when the global economy improves and their wealthier, haughty neighbors remain isolated.
Martin Barto, vice governor of the National Bank of Slovakia, attributed the recent weakening of the economy to a steep fall in exports to Western Europe that had hit the country’s large automobile industry.
A pricing dispute over natural gas between Russia and Ukraine in January also cut Slovak supplies and all but halted industrial output for two weeks. But, Barto insisted, the stability and political influence afforded by membership in the euro zone will ultimately prove to be a lifeline.
“It was a big psychological boost for this country that we were in the euro ahead of the Czechs and the Hungarians,” he said in an interview. “There was a certain extra satisfaction, because the Czechs have always considered us their weaker and poorer cousins.”
Nevertheless, businesses across Slovakia have looked on with growing alarm in recent months as a small army of Slovaks has gone shopping in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, taking advantage of the relative strength of their euros to buy things from livestock to cars outside the country.
Roman Guta, a 35-year-old Slovak distributor of dental equipment, lamented that nearly a dozen buses filled with Slovak dentists had recently traveled to nearby Poland, where X-ray machines, dental floss and other dental necessities had become cheaper. But he insisted that he would not give up the euro for one simple reason: “For the first time, the Slovaks are ahead of the Czechs in something,” he said. “That is well worth whatever sacrifices.”
The euro already appears to be giving Slovakia an edge in attracting foreign investment. In April, when the German automaker Volkswagen was deciding where to invest US$436 million to manufacture a new low-cost family car, Up, for the global market, it chose Slovakia over the Czech Republic. The venture is expected to create 1,500 jobs.
Andreas Tostmann, chief executive of Volkswagen’s Slovakia unit, said the country’s adoption of the euro had helped swing the decision in its favor.
“Because it eliminated foreign exchange fluctuation,” he said, “it brings stability and it makes it easier to do business.”
Some economists in the Czech Republic said Slovakia’s embrace of the euro had also given it a political maturity sorely lacking in their own country, whose government recently imploded midway through its EU presidency.
“The Slovaks have become a proud nation, and they deserve it, while we Czechs have become the grumps of Europe,” said Tomas Sedlacek, an economic adviser to former Czech president Vaclav Havel. “The Czechs were the model, but the Slovaks have turned this around.”
Since the end of the Cold War, the US-China espionage battle has arguably become the largest on Earth. Spying on China is vital for the US, as China’s growing military and technological capabilities pose direct challenges to its interests, especially in defending Taiwan and maintaining security in the Indo-Pacific. Intelligence gathering helps the US counter Chinese aggression, stay ahead of threats and safeguard not only its own security, but also the stability of global trade routes. Unchecked Chinese expansion could destabilize the region and have far-reaching global consequences. In recent years, spying on China has become increasingly difficult for the US
Lately, China has been inviting Taiwanese influencers to travel to China’s Xinjiang region to make films, weaving a “beautiful Xinjiang” narrative as an antidote to the international community’s criticisms by creating a Potemkin village where nothing is awry. Such manipulations appear harmless — even compelling enough for people to go there — but peeling back the shiny veneer reveals something more insidious, something that is hard to ignore. These films are not only meant to promote tourism, but also harbor a deeper level of political intentions. Xinjiang — a region of China continuously listed in global human rights reports —
The annual summit of East Asia and other events around the ASEAN summit in October and November every year have become the most important gathering of leaders in the Indo-Pacific region. This year, as Laos is the chair of ASEAN, it was privileged to host all of the ministerial and summit meetings associated with ASEAN. Besides the main summit, this included the high-profile East Asia Summit, ASEAN summits with its dialogue partners and the ASEAN Plus Three Summit with China, Japan and South Korea. The events and what happens around them have changed over the past 15 years from a US-supported, ASEAN-led
To the dismay of the Chinese propaganda machine, President William Lai (賴清德) has been mounting an information offensive through his speeches. No longer are Taiwanese content with passively reacting to China’s encroachment in the international window of discourse, but Taiwan is now setting the tone and pace of conversation. Last month, Lai’s statement that “If China wants Taiwan it should also take back land from Russia” made international headlines, pointing out the duplicity of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) revanchism. History shows that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) stance on regional territorial disputes has not been consistent. The early CCP
RSS