Wed, Oct 22, 2025 page8

• Babis’ return to shake Taiwan ties

  • By Michele Maresca
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  The party of former Czech prime minister Andrej Babis this month won 80 out of 200 seats in parliamentary elections. Combined with the 15 seats of the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party and the 13 of the Motorists for Themselves (AUTO) party, the result paves the way for the populist leader’s return to power.

  In addition to Babis’ populist ANO party, the anticipated coalition is expected to include the two anti-system parties, which campaigned on discontinuity with central aspects of the EU policy framework.

  While the two smaller parties’ main domestic priorities differ — with the SPD focusing on immigration control and security policies, and the AUTO seeking to defend the interests of motorists — they share a primary foreign policy goal: reducing dependence on the EU by significantly opening up to foreign markets, including Russian and Chinese ones.

  Proposing populist and anti-system solutions, both parties unsurprisingly portray the EU as the scapegoat for contemporary societal challenges. In foreign affairs, the SPD and the AUTO aspire to redirect their country toward a conception of EU democracy attuned to actors perceiving the EU as a systemic rival — as exemplified by Hungary.

  By advancing along this path, the two parties are expected to rely on the ANO to recalibrate the foreign policy equilibrium established by the previous administration.

  A telling illustration of that government’s values-oriented stance — preceding economic considerations — was its engagement with Taiwan, to which it extended repeated signals of friendship, recognition and cooperation during the past legislative cycle.

  Ranging from Czech Senate Speaker Milos Vystrcil to Czech Chamber of Deputies Speaker Marketa Pekarova Adamova and Czech President Petr Pavel, the institutional encounters with Democratic Progressive Party leaders constituted unequivocal evidence of the Czech leadership’s values-driven commitment to consolidating robust relations with Taiwan.

  “The Czech Republic stands with Taiwan in any circumstance... We are with you now and will continue to be with you. In any circumstance, we are in the same boat. We are with you, as you are with us,” Pekarova Adamova said, underscoring her country’s commitment to Taiwan’s cause and its support for Taipei.

  Two acts of symbolic and substantive resonance marked Pavel’s stance toward Taiwan.

  In 2023, he became the first elected European head of state to engage directly with then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) by telephone. He last year received her at Prague’s Forum 2000 conference, when China was intensifying military maneuvers around Taiwan. Together, the gestures provided unequivocal evidence of the Czech Republic’s values-driven and serious commitment to Taiwan.

  Pavel can be envisaged as a guarantor of the Czech Republic’s Western orientation, firmly opposing any initiative liable to complicate relations with the EU.

  That stance applies not only to Russia, but also China, where economic incentives for deeper engagement might arise.

  From that vantage point, it is beyond doubt that Pavel would resist any policy that could jeopardize his country’s autonomy in the face of authoritarian regimes.

  Granting China substantial involvement in strategic domains — including ports and industrial assets — would constitute a perilous signal and a concrete risk, one that Pavel is intent on averting.

  Given that the process of forming a new government has not yet been finalized, it remains premature to speak of concrete political measures.Nevertheless, examining the statements of SPD leader Tomio Okamura provides insight into the possible trajectory of the next Czech executive.

  As he put it: “China is an important trading partner to be treated with mutual respect, avoiding subservience to Brussels and Washington.”

  Such words testify to a deliberate intent to recalibrate the foreign policy equilibrium established by the previous government — with the crucial backing of Pavel — in pursuit of a posture distinct from the “values-oriented” paradigm that had previously prevailed.

  Within this framework, Okamura’s assertion of the need to “avoid being dragged into geopolitical conflicts that do not concern the Czech Republic” is unsurprising, representing a position diametrically opposed to that of those who maintain that democracies are bound to defend one another irrespective of geographical location.

  The prevention of any development liable to alter the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait was considered by the previous government as intrinsic to its worldview and to its understanding of interstate relations within the international system.

  With two partners potentially advocating a reconfiguration of these dynamics, the responsibility of Babis would be to ensure that the populist formula he promoted during the electoral campaign does not culminate in alignment with authoritarian actors intent on contesting the societal model upheld by the EU.

  Failure in this regard would entail a regression, both in policy orientation and in the level of political consciousness attained, for the Central European nation.

  Michele Maresca is an analyst at Il Caffe Geopolitico, an online international law journal, and the think tank Geopol21.
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