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Prague cuts sister-city ties with Beijing amid ‘tangible anger’ over pro-China policies
- City council votes to pull out of partnership agreement after mayor’s unsuccessful bid to remove ‘one China’ pledge
- Relations have been strained since Zdenek Hrib took the job a year ago
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Prague’s decision to end its sister-city agreement with Beijing reflects “tangible anger” in the Czech Republic over the president’s pro-China policies, analysts say.
The Prague city council voted on Monday to pull out of the partnership deal after mayor Zdenek Hrib’s unsuccessful bid to get Beijing to remove a “one China” pledge from the agreement. He argued that the pledge – confirming Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan – was a political matter and unsuitable for inclusion in the sister-city deal because it was a cultural arrangement.
The decision, which still needs approval from the city assembly, was understood to have prompted heated exchanges between Chinese diplomats and Czech officials.
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One Czech diplomat told the South China Morning Post on Tuesday that they had stressed it was a city-level decision.
“The Czech government tried its best to let China know that this is a city-level, not national-level, policy – one that would be impossible for the national government to overrule because it is a decision made by a democratically elected city hall,” said the diplomat, who requested anonymity.
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