Introduction

China-Czech relations have experienced drastic shifts back and forth from warm to cold ever since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1949. Czechoslovakia was one of the first countries to recognise the status of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) after its foundation. As a result, in the early 1950s, Czechoslovakia was regarded by China as a precious friend, providing valuable assistance to China’s modernisation process (Bakešová et al. 2019). The first group of sinologists represented by Jaroslav Průšek, the then director of Oriental Institute, made significant contributions to the transmission of Chinese culture in the Czech Republic. However, due to the Sino-Soviet split from the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, the two sides were forced into oppositional camps. Political, economic, and cultural exchanges reduced to a low level and relations became cold. After China’s reform and economic opening to the world, bilateral political and economic relations resumed in the 1980s (Fürst 2018a). However, the dramatic changes in 1989 caused another setback in bilateral relations due to the overthrow of communism in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

From the 1990s to the first decade of the twenty-first century, China-Czech political relations remained cold because of the human rights activism in the Czech Republic led by President Václav Havel. Economically, the Czech Republic has always maintained an interest in China’s vast market, but bilateral investment and trade were sluggish until the first decade of the twenty-first century. In 2011, China proposed a platform for cooperation with 16 CEE countries: the “16 + 1” cooperation framework was subsequently set up in 2012. Thereafter, the Czech government that came to power in 2014 adopted an unprecedentedly active China policy, and bilateral relations reached an important turning point (Fürst 2018a). Nevertheless, after rapidly reaching a historical high, bilateral relations once again deteriorated from 2018 onwards. This development was mainly due to Czech disappointment with the underwhelming implementation of Chinese investments, as well as an intensified focus on China’s human rights record.

This article reviews the development of bilateral relations in recent years, critically analyses China’s Czech policy, and observes problems inherent in the China policy of the Czech Republic from a Chinese perspective. The aim is to examine the problems in Sino-Czech relations in order to understand why the strategic partnership established in 2016 under the umbrella of ‘16 + 1’ cooperation is not working. In a generalisable sense, the research constitutes a case study for understanding some of the issues undermining China-CEE and China-EU cooperation more broadly. The main sources used are official statistics, documents, media reports, academic articles, and surveys, as well as the authors’ personal experience with relevant Czech institutes, Chinese officials, and scholars.

The paper is structured as follows. The “Introduction” section reviews the rise and fall in Sino-Czech relations from 2014 to 2021 in order to clarify the main developments in the period. The “From restart and honeymoon to crisis: a pair of lost strategic partners” section analyses shortcomings in the PRC’s approach to Czechia due to China’s limited understanding of the Czech political system and its underwhelming investment programme. The “Rethinking China’s policy towards the Czech Republic: several major problems” section outlines the problems inherent in the fragmented Czech approach to the formation of China policy from a Chinese perspective. The main finding, summarised in the conclusion and based on the detailed evidence presented through three sections, is that the cooling of Sino-Czech relations from 2018 onwards is due to insufficient mutual understanding and subsequent inability to build a firm foundation for cooperation. While we do not have space to focus on other countries, the research finding is generalisable to China’s problematic relations with other CEE countries such as Lithuania.

From restart and honeymoon to crisis: a pair of lost strategic partners

After President Miloš Zeman and President Xi Jinping met during the Sochi Winter Olympics in February 2014, the newly established Sobotka-led government, a three-party coalition government headed by the Social Democratic Party (ČSSD), began to promote a programme of active economic diplomacy towards China. In April 2014, the Czech foreign minister visited China again after a lapse of 15 years. The Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two sides issued a press announcement. The Czech side reiterated that the Czech Republic adhered to the one-China principle and did not support any form of Tibetan independence. This is regarded as the “restart” of bilateral relations (Richter 2014). As a watershed, 2014 witnessed unprecedented intensive exchanges between ministers and top leaders of the two countries. In October 2014, President Zeman paid his first state visit to China as the head of state.

In 2015, high-level bilateral exchanges were frequently reported in the press, especially in September, when President Zeman was invited to China to attend a parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the end of the Second World War. He was the only sitting head of a European Union (EU) member state who attended the ceremony. In addition to frequent exchanges at the political level, economic and cultural exchanges between the two countries also increased significantly. The first direct flight between the two countries was launched in 2015, opening a new stage for interconnection and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. Chinese investment funds, mainly coordinated by the private company CEFC China Energy, were injected into the fields of real estate, financial services, media, and sports in the Czech Republic. Bilateral trade reached a new historical high, and China became the Czech Republic’s largest trading partner outside the EU (Zhang 2019). President Zeman’s pro-China attitude and the Sobotka government’s active China policy, along with the promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the 16 + 1 cooperation platform in CEE, meant that the rapidly heating-up bilateral relations ushered in a historic highlight moment in 2016—the Chinese president paid a state visit to the Czech Republic for the first time since the establishment of diplomatic relations. The two sides upgraded the bilateral relationship to a strategic partnership and signed memorandums of cooperation in various fields (China Daily 2016).

However, in the 2017 general election, ČSSD won only 15 seats and suffered the worst election results in history while the ANO movement led by incoming prime minister Andrej Babiš won by a wide margin. Compared with the positive approach of its predecessor, the newly established government adopted a more pragmatic, prudent, and even sceptical attitude towards China (Dostál et al. 2020). In March 2018, Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC, was detained in China, probably because of corruption allegations relating to the activity of one of the company’s representatives in Africa (Garlick 2019: 444). This event triggered the downfall of CEFC in Europe, since the group was unable to pay promised instalments on its Czech investments (Garlick 2019: 446). Chinese state-owned enterprise CITIC Group stated in May 2018 that it would acquire CEFC’s assets in CEE (Muller and Lopatka 2018). The incident caused uproar in the Czech Republic, severely impacting China’s image. With this as a turning point, bilateral relations took a sharp turn for the worse.

At the end of 2018, the Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NÚKIB) issued a security warning to Chinese communications companies (NÚKIB 2018). Moreover, the Czech Security Service (BIS) has frequently issued warnings about Chinese espionage and cyber-attacks in the Czech Republic since 2018 (Prague Morning 2020). Against the backdrop of the issue of Huawei and 5G security, the Czech government began to take strict precautions against Chinese companies. The Babiš-led government held the Prague 5G Security Conference in 2019 and 2020, which excluded China (Horwitz 2019; Dano 2020). The Czech government’s campaign against China in the field of security extended to nuclear power. In March 2021, the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade excluded Chinese companies from bidding for a new project at Dukovany nuclear power plant (Czech Radio 2021), casting another shadow over bilateral relations.

Despite changes in the Czech government’s China policy, some opposition politicians refused to toe the official government line. In 2019, Zdeněk Hřib, the Prague Mayor affiliated with the opposition Czech Pirate Party, proposed deleting clauses in the Prague-Beijing sister city agreement signed by the previous mayor in 2016. The agreement acknowledged the UN-endorsed one-China principle stating that Taiwan is an indivisible part of China. Hřib’s action caused Beijing and Shanghai to terminate their sister city agreements with Prague (Šimalčík, and Kalivoda 2020). In 2020, Miloš Vystrčil, the President of the Czech Senate, undertook an official visit to Taiwan, openly challenging the one-China principle. His visit had an overwhelmingly negative impact on bilateral relations between the Czech Republic and the PRC by generating negative perceptions in both countries (Reuters 2020).

Nearly 5 years after the Czech Republic and China became strategic partners, both countries felt dissatisfied with progress on cooperation. The Czech side has repeatedly stated that Chinese investment is insufficient, and the bilateral trade deficit is too large. Even the pro-China President Zeman made a rare public expression of dissatisfaction with the insufficient amount of Chinese investment in 2019 (iDNES.cz 2019). He stated that he would not go to Beijing for the 2020 17 + 1 summit meeting between China and 17 CEE countries (ČTK 2020).

From China’s point of view, in the context of 16/17 + 1 cooperation and the BRI, the improvement of relations between the two countries between 2012 and 2017 greatly promoted exchanges in various fields between the two countries. For instance, there was an increase in the number of Chinese tourists to the Czech Republic, and many Chinese companies set up branches in the Czech Republic. However, after 2017, the Czech media increasingly emphasised China’s alleged human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Some Czech politicians, scholars, and journalists also began to view China as a security threat in 5G and other security fields. This not only disappointed Beijing, but also made it confused.Footnote 1 China believes that it has done nothing wrong towards the Czech Republic, so why did bilateral relations take a significant turn for the worse after 2018?

Rethinking China’s policy towards the Czech Republic: several major problems

To address the question of Chinese confusion about the deterioration in relations, we need to reflect on problems with China’s foreign policy towards the Czech Republic. The most important issue is that the Chinese government and people have not understood the political system and main actors in the formulation of Czech foreign policy towards China. Initially, after the first decade of the twenty-first century, the improvement of relations between the two countries arose from Beijing’s revised policy towards CEE: the PRC began to attach importance to relations with the “once neglected” CEE countries, and to devote more political and diplomatic efforts to the region. In response, thanks to the efforts of successive Czech prime ministers and President Zeman, summit diplomacy became an important channel for improving bilateral relations. Prime Ministers Nečas and Sobotka played key roles in the rapid warming of bilateral relations (Fürst 2013, 2018b). To some extent, President Xi’s historic visit to the Czech Republic was a response to the pro-China policy of President Zeman (and ČSSD, which was the major party in the coalition government at the time).

However, the shortcomings of summit diplomacy are also obvious: although the Czech president and prime minister might seem to their Chinese counterparts and to the Chinese public to represent the will of the whole country, their views do not necessarily correlate with those of the electorate, other members of the government, or some influential voices in the Czech public sphere. Leaving aside the question of whether public opinion and bottom-up political processes ought to be considered consistent with foreign policy, the reality is that the Czech political arena has not reached a consensus on China policy. Indeed, the China debate has become increasingly polarised due to domestic political conflicts (Fürst 2021). According to the Czech constitution, the formulation of Czech foreign policy involves three main actors: the first is the parliament, which has the legislative power, and the other two are the government and president, who have executive power. The main actor in Czech foreign policy is the government, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while the two houses of parliament and the president have varying degrees of influence on foreign policy formation processes (Kořan 2013; Kořan et al. 2016). In addition, within the parliament and even the coalition government, there are political struggles between various parties. Therefore, the decision-making process of the Czech foreign policy is complicated, fractious, and institutionally determined by multiple actors in a system of checks and balances.

Therefore, in contrast to China’s top-down implementation of the foreign policy formulated by the central government, although the Czech president has a certain influence on foreign policy, s/he does not embody the full picture of Czech foreign policy. On the one hand, the Czech president has the right given by the constitution to negotiate and sign international agreements, appoint and recall Czech ambassadors, accept foreign ambassadors, and sign foreign policy; on the other hand, the government has the highest executive power. According to the generally accepted principles of the Czech political system, the president should act as a “symbolic” head of state and cooperate with the government’s various agendas rather than as a main actor in the construction of diplomatic agendas. For example, the president is supposed to authorise the government to negotiate international agreements, sign diplomatic treaties submitted by the government, and appoint ambassadors recommended by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kořan 2013).

For China, President Zeman is a rare European ally from both emotional and practical perspectives. However, he has faced many attacks from opposition parties and the media. Political elites and intellectuals have criticised him for using the ambiguity of the constitution to grab power. As an experienced politician, President Zeman is not satisfied with merely playing the role of a “national symbol”. In this context, his active pro-China stance has been controversial in the Czech public sphere (Tabery 2020). Although Zeman has twice been elected president, there is evidence of a lack of public consensus for his decision to cultivate China as a national partner. Survey data reveal that only around 21% of Czechs approve of Zeman’s China policy, while about 46% are dissatisfied (Turcsányi et al 2020: 15).

As far as China is concerned, President Zeman has given China the illusion that he is the decisive figure of Czech foreign policy, which may cause China to misjudge Czechia’s China policy as well as the overall domestic political environment (Fürst 2018a). Similarly, China has made the mistake of regarding the pro-China policy of one party (ČSSD) in ruling coalitions between 2013 and 2021 as the overall attitude of the Czech government. This assumption has ignored the voices of other ruling parties, most notably the Babiš-led ANO movement in the 2017–2021 government. Neglecting to build relations with other parties means that Chinese policy towards the Czech Republic has been inadequate. This is especially the case since ČSSD lost all its seats in parliament in the 2021 general election, in which the party polled less than 5% of total votes. Thus, the ostensibly pro-China ČSSD can not be considered as representative of the current state of Czech politics or public opinion, and China’s cultivation of contacts mainly with ČSSD has not served to promote China’s interests or image in the long run. If China’s Czech policy had taken account of the various voices in the Czech political arena towards China, it would not be confused. Government promotion of pro-China policy has always aroused fierce objections from anti-China groups, meaning that China-related issues have generally always been polarised and politicised in the Czech Republic (Fürst 2019).

The second problem affecting China’s policy towards the Czech Republic is the underwhelming economic results. After the restart of bilateral relations in 2014, Czech government and business circles had high expectations for attracting Chinese investment and accessing the huge Chinese market. The various memorandums of cooperation signed during the summit meetings were framework agreements, not agreements for specific projects. In other words, these memorandums created an optimistic blueprint for enhanced economic relations when they were signed; but there was no certainty that they could be implemented. Nevertheless, these somewhat symbolic agreements gave Czech pro-China political and business circles high expectations for their positive approach towards China. The Chinese government also regarded high-level visits and the signing of cooperation agreements as a success of not only bilateral but also multilateral relations since the Czech Republic seemed to represent a model of 16/17 + 1 cooperation.

However, the gap between high expectations and low actual results of Chinese investment and Czech exports to China became a bone of contention for opponents to attack Czech pro-China policy and China in general. According to CzechInvest, a state agency subordinated to the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade, China has invested CZK10.9 billion in the Czech Republic since 2012 (see CzechInvest 2021). Although China became the biggest foreign direct investment (FDI) contributor to the Czech Republic in 2018, surpassing traditional investors such as Germany, Japan, and South Korea, the total amount is far lower than the CZK230 billion expected by the Czech side during President Xi’s visit to Prague in 2016.Footnote 2 Considering that the statistics provided by CzechInvest reflect projects mediated by the agency and do not include all Chinese investments (ČTK 2021), the actual amount of Chinese investment could be greater. However, even taking official Chinese statistics (Chinese Embassy 2020) into account, as of March 2020 China’s FDI stocks in Czechia were only USD1.81 billion (approximately CZK43.1 billion). This figure is very low compared with the figures agreed at the summit meetings.

In addition to the lower-than-expected total investment, the type of Chinese investments also disappointed the Czech side. Chinese investment is mainly in the form of mergers and acquisitions, with very few greenfield investments.Footnote 3 Such investments have little effect on stimulating the Czech economy and creating new jobs.Footnote 4 Due to the small number and scale of Chinese greenfield investments and the lack of large-scale flagship projects (such as large infrastructure projects), the stock of Chinese investment in the Czech Republic is very low. Accordingly, the public has very little sense of the benefits of Chinese investment.

Another Czech complaint regarding bilateral economic cooperation is the ever-widening trade deficit. Although Czech exports to China have increased year-on-year, the growth rate is lower than that of imports from China. This produces a growing trade deficit (Jiang 2020). For instance, according to China Customs (Jie 2020), from January to August 2020, the total value of bilateral trade between China and the Czech Republic was USD11.4 billion, a year-on-year increase of 4.3%. Exports from China to the Czech Republic were USD8.33 billion, an increase of 5.8%, while imports from the Czech Republic were USD3.07 billion, an increase of 0.5%. Thus, the Czech trade deficit expanded by 9.2%. Although the Chinese government has built platforms such as the China-CEEC Investment and Trade Expo to help increase imports from CEE countries, the effect seems limited.Footnote 5

Economic diplomacy, as the main tool for improving bilateral relations, should have produced effective economic results and boosted China-Czech cooperation. The limited economic results inevitably affect the Czech government and politicians’ motivation to continue promoting bilateral relations. From the Chinese side, this is not only a failure of expectation management, but also reveals the utopianism and vagueness in the early stage of policy formulation. Chinese leaders believe in “crossing the river by feeling the stones.”Footnote 6 There is no information about whether Beijing conducted sufficient feasibility studies when formulating its new policies towards the Czech Republic (as well as CEE). For instance, there was a need to assess whether the partner countries’ trade structures are complementary, whether there is demand for Czech products in the Chinese market, and the feasibility of greenfield investment in the Czech Republic.

However, one thing is clear: Chinese local governments and enterprises have extremely high policy sensitivity. When the central government put more political and diplomatic capital in CEE countries, so that these countries suddenly became political and economic hotspots for China, there was a huge influx of Chinese business and local government delegations into CEE. This created an image of opportunity in the early stage of China-CEE cooperation, raising the expectations of the target countries to unrealistic levels.

Furthermore, with the implementation of specific cooperation projects, many practical difficulties have emerged. For instance, China and the Czech Republic are in a similar position in the global industrial chain, providing intermediate products or outsourced assembly for developed countries’ high-end production. This means that trade complementarity between the two sides is not strong (Turcsányi 2020). As far as the Chinese market demand is concerned, Czech exports do not have a strong comparative advantage. Some Chinese companies originally hoped to simply copy their experience of investing in African countries but found that EU and local regulations generate many restrictions (Liu 2013). The weak economic outcomes caused by these issues are difficult to ameliorate in a short period of time through policy instruments. Without significant economic results as a support, China’s emphasis on win–win and pragmatic cooperation has been questioned as just rhetoric and frustrates Czech politicians who support the pro-China policy. Not only did they not accumulate political capital because of their pro-China policy, they were also attacked by political opponents because of the perception that they were under Chinese influence.

The last but very crucial point is that the Chinese side lacks understanding of the Czech dissident culture and underestimated the obstacles of political ideology for bilateral relations. This point has impacted the capacity of China’s public diplomacy to influence outcomes. Led by President Václav Havel, many Czech dissidents entered the ruling class after the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The “dissident tradition” or “legacy of Havel” has exerted a profound influence on the Czech political arena, foreign policy, and civil society. In the early 1990s, when the new Czech political system was still being constructed, Czech foreign policy was formulated by Havel and people surrounding him (Cadier and Sus 2017). Havel’s human rights diplomacy helped the Czech Republic to integrate into the mainstream liberal values of the West. The dissident tradition is thus integrated into Czech political institutions, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has a permanent human rights department. The “dissident tradition” advocates that the Czech Republic must stand firm with people suffering under an oppressive regime. This became the moral principle for the reconstruction of Czech democracy after the post-Cold War transition. This moral principle does not consider human rights issues as internal affairs, so the Czech Republic has an obligation to oppose all violations of human rights (Cabada and Waisová 2011). This self-constructed new democratic identity and sense of morality has led to a series of incidents involving political leaders supporting Chinese dissidents, as well as agendas related to Tibet and Taiwan since the early 1990s. In 2021, the Czech Senate passed Hong Kong and Xinjiang-related proposals. From China’s point of view, these are severe interference in China’s internal affairs. The different definitions of human rights and internal affairs between the two sides continue to be an important obstacle in bilateral relations.

Besides the political arena, the “dissident tradition” has also had a profound impact on Czech mainstream media and foreign-funded think tanks. As a result, negative anti-China discourse dominates Czech public discourse on China. Coupled with the tragic historical memory of the 1968 Prague Spring and the “normalisation period” that lasted for 20 years, the Czech public came to abhor the Soviet-instituted communist regime. This historical memory is easily projected onto China’s political system. However, China lacks research into the above-mentioned Czech reality and social culture—there is almost no relevant Chinese literature. The reason for this phenomenon is that the Chinese government did not clarify how to get along with the former communist countries in Europe, or how to deal with the dissidents’ anti-communist position. This lack of understanding has led to limited results in many aspects of China’s public diplomacy. The most obvious example is that in the early stage of the 16 + 1 cooperation, China often mentioned the traditional friendship with CEE countries, in the form of the communist brotherhood established in the 1950s. Unfortunately, this is not a positive statement in the eyes of most Czechs, and it can hardly arouse friendly feelings (Turcsányi and Qiaoan 2020). Czech society’s anxiety about its emerging Western identity makes it very sensitive to the communist past (Fürst 2018b). Thus, references to the communist period are mostly counterproductive.

The underestimation of ideological obstacles has caused China to neglect long-term and effective public diplomacy. As a result, there has been a phenomenon in Czechia of hot political exchanges but rather cold public opinion towards China. In countries where parliamentary elections are implemented, the influence of public opinion on politics should not be underestimated. The reason why China has become a medium for domestic political power struggles in the Czech Republic lies in the fact that the two opposed propositions of “good relations with China will boost our economy”, and “an anti-China position will defend our democratic values” can both attract voters. Although China has attempted in recent years to enhance the Czech public’s understanding of Chinese culture and Chinese policies, its ineffective approaches to public relations failed to connect with the Czech audience. Since China’s public relations campaign has not been much promoted by the mainstream media, China’s public diplomacy has not had a significant impact on the public. For instance, the Chinese ambassador has published many articles introducing China’s domestic and foreign policies, but since most of them are published in alternative media, a very limited audience has been reached. Cultural events such as the Happy Chinese New Year, Chinese Film Week, and Embassy Open Day also failed to attract much attention among ordinary people.

The Chinese perspective on Czech policy towards China

From a Chinese perspective, Czech policy towards China has several shortcomings. First of all, since Czech political power is relatively fragmented, political elites have not reached a consensus on what kind of China policy should be adopted. Ruling parties change frequently, so it is hard to form a long-term, stable, and coherent China policy. Within coalition governments, the attitudes of different ruling parties are not consistent with each other under the marriage of convenience. For instance, in marked contrast to the optimism held by ČSSD (the leading coalition partner) that the development of relations with China would bring huge economic benefits, Andrej Babiš, the chairman of ANO (the second largest coalition partner) and Finance Minister, often criticised ČSSD for profiting from promoting Chinese investment and trade.Footnote 7

Moreover, there were also different attitudes towards China even within the socialist-leaning ČSSD. Although Foreign Minister Tomáš PetříčekFootnote 8 was affiliated with ČSSD, he preferred a more ideologically oriented foreign policy rather than pragmatic economic diplomacy. He prioritised Czech democratic values and human rights concepts, as well as the EU’s common foreign and security policy. Accordingly, his attitude towards China was negative rather than enthusiastic. Another important change is that voter support for ČSSD collapsed from the beginning of 2016 onwards. In the 2021 general election, ČSSD was ousted from parliament altogether, after winning less than the required minimum 5% of votes. Without significant economic outcomes, the high-profile engagement with China failed to boost the decline of the centre-left party. In consequence, ČSSD gradually lost enthusiasm for its China agenda. The governing coalition was also impacted by fierce attacks on its pro-China policies by many opposition parties. Thus, since 2017–2018, the Czech debate on China policy has become more and more intertwined with domestic political conflicts. The “China card” has become a means for political parties and politicians to gain political capital (Dostál et al. 2020). This leads to a second problem of Czechia’s engagement with China: the influence of politicians’ personal agendas on the government’s overall China policy.

As mentioned above, President Zeman’s personal pro-China agenda was a key booster for the rapid advancement of high-level political relations between the two countries. At the other end of the China spectrum stood opposition politicians represented by Prague Mayor Hřib and President of the Senate Vystrčil. Their claims about the economic importance of Taiwan to Czechia lack strong arguments and practical evidence (Fürst 2020a). In the context of no fundamental changes in the situation of the Taiwan Strait, and as representatives of a country with no direct geo-economic or geopolitical influence in the Asia–Pacific region, high-level Czech politicians took the lead in breaking the practice of maintaining a diplomatic balance between mainland China and Taiwan which has generally been followed by Western countries. This approach was arguably illogical and not beneficial to Czech national interests. However, these politicians attracted a lot of media coverage. The actions taken by pro-Taiwan politicians not only did not stem from official Czech foreign policy, but also contradicted it, exposing the internal contradictions inherent in Czech politics (Fürst 2020a).

The politicisation of the one-China principle in Czechia is inseparable from the deterioration in China’s image. Czech media reports and public discussions on China became overwhelmingly ideological. The proportion of negative reports on China in Czech mainstream media was particularly prominent compared to other V4 countries (Turcsányi et al. 2019). Some think tanks supported by the USA and Taiwan even monopolised the right to comment on China-related issues. By labelling specific politicians and scholars as pro-China, they made positive or even neutral voices about China disappear under the pressure of public opinion. As a result, the Czech public debate on China became increasingly emotional and simplistic. Opposition to the Chinese Communist Party became a form of “political correctness” in public discourse. To be anti-China even came to constitute a Czech-style “identity politics” to some extent. All institutions, companies, and activities related to China, and even the Chinese people in Czechia (such as students), came to be regarded as dangerous “others”, opposing “we Czechs” who advocated democracy, freedom, and human rights (Rogelja and Tsimonis 2020). It was in this environment that the personal agendas of some politicians successfully attracted many members of the domestic audience.

Since the Czech Republic has a liberal democratic system which adheres to EU norms, Czech regulations and government cannot restrain the individual actions of politicians. This means that a politician’s personal agenda can, as in the case of Vystrčil’s trip to Taiwan, override the country’s foreign policy and have a huge impact on external relations. Furthermore, due to the weak economic interdependence between the two countries, it is difficult for China to effectively counteract behaviors it regards as provocative through economic countermeasures. Consequently, Taiwan-related issues can be utilised by opposition politicians in the service of their interests. While such views are understandable, politicians and most members of the Czech public do not understand the impact of the “one hundred years of humiliation” in modern Chinese history on Chinese politics and society. The Chinese are very sensitive to foreign powers intervening in the country’s internal affairs and territorial issues (Wang 2014). Maintaining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, preventing the humiliation of history from repeating again, and defending the dignity of the Chinese nation constitute important sources of the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party as the ruling power (Brown 2018). The support of some Czech politicians for separatism in Taiwan and Tibet evoked the Chinese people’s historical memory of the poor, weak motherland being carved up by foreign powers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This kind of trampling on the “bottom line” of national sentiments and core interests is unacceptable for many Chinese. From the Chinese perspective, those politicians who support separatism on the ground of China’s human rights issues and political system do not understand or care about the real demands and difficulties faced by ordinary Chinese people. In Chinese eyes, such politicians take the moral high ground and arrogantly preach at China in a self-righteous way. Czech criticism of China is full of strong ideological colour, as if the world is still stuck in the Cold War period, which seems weird and outdated to many Chinese people. Since the 1990s, high-level Czech politicians have met the Dalai Lama and Tibetan separatists, boycotted the 2008 Olympics, officially supported secessionists in Taiwan, and supported a diplomatic boycott of the 2021 Winter Olympics in the name of human rights issues. These actions are regarded by many Chinese as trampling on China’s sovereign interests. Such developments make it difficult for China to regard the Czech Republic as a stable and reliable partner with long-term strategic value.

Last but not least, as a member of the EU and NATO, Czech policy on China is also influenced by powerful allies. As the EU has adjusted its China policy in recent years, it regards China as a systemic rival, which means competitiveness and confrontation in China-EU relations are rising. This is evident from the fact that the China-EU Comprehensive Agreement on Investment was frozen, just 5 months after it was signed, due to the dispute over Xinjiang-related issues. Under the Biden administration, great power competition between China and the USA continues. The USA continues to try to contain China’s development in an all-round way by calling on its allies to form an “Alliance of Values” (Trofimov 2021). The former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Prague in 2020 demonstrated that the Czech Republic receives considerable pressure from the USA in the field of high technology and security such as 5G and nuclear power (Fürst 2020b). Of course, it is understandable that, as a small country, the Czech Republic needs to balance its relations with all parties. In the complex and changeable contemporary international arena, the Czech Republic may have to stand on the side of its allies, even though sometimes the interests of allies may not necessarily match Czech interests. This further deepens the unpredictability of the Czech Republic’s China policy.

Conclusion

Six years after becoming strategic partners, bilateral relations between the Czech Republic and China seem unable to escape the cycle of history: sliding from a historical peak to a dangerous trough. After reflecting on the two countries’ approach to bilateral relations, we can see that the two sides still lack mutual understanding and trust. China does not understand the context of Czech foreign policy formation and the complexity of Czech domestic political power struggles. Summit diplomacy with the participation of ruling parties and the president cannot guarantee long-term political relations. Due to the lack of understanding of the extensive influence of the “dissident tradition” on the political arena and civil society, many of China’s diplomatic efforts cannot be accepted and understood by Czech audiences, and it is even more difficult to enhance China’s image as a reliable partner. Similarly, the Czech side does not understand China’s insistence on sovereignty and territorial integrity. The support for separatism by some Czech politicians and mainstream media continues to be a serious obstacle to enhancing mutual trust.

In addition, due to the lack of outstanding cooperation results, especially in terms of China’s underwhelming investment programme, doubt has been cast on pro-China policies. This has undermined the Czech Republic’s trust in Chinese initiatives. As far as China is concerned, the Czech political arena cannot reach a consensus on its China policy, and the short-term policies of each Czech government may not be consistent with China’s long-term strategic planning. When the Czech government changes, the agreement previously reached may be completely overturned. Besides, the Czech approach to China is also influenced by other major powers, which increases the unpredictability of Czechia’s China policy. These factors undermine China’s trust in the Czech Republic.

The experience of bilateral exchanges between the Czech Republic and China in recent years has shown that if the two sides have neither close economic ties and interdependence, nor related geopolitical interests, it indicates that there is structural fragility in their bilateral relations. If the two countries cannot build a foundation for practical cooperation and cannot generate solid cooperative results, then the so-called strategic partnership may remain only as a historical footnote, fading away in the complex and changeable contemporary international reality. The mutual frustration between China and the Czech Republic could be seen as a microcosm of the bilateral relations of many CEE countries with China under the 16/17 + 1 cooperation framework. With the withdrawal of Lithuania, the 16 + 1 cooperation faces the danger of becoming a “zombie mechanism” due to lack of internal cohesion (Brînză 2021). In short, China’s fractious relations with the Czech Republic, as with much of the rest of CEE and the EU, urgently need a rethink—from both sides.