Prague, Nov 19 (CTK) – PM Bohuslav Sobotka is leaving for China to sign a deal on Czech participation in the New Silk Road project that will cause Prague to abandon its pro-Western orientation and back the Beijing-promoted new global order, Teodor Marjanovic writes in Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) yesterday.
Xi Jinping, who is Chinese president, communist party general secretary and head of the central military commission, wields power in the system that leaned on its economic growth and nationalism rather than ideology in the past years. Now that the period of the steepest economic growth is over, the Beijing regime is starting to focus on ideology as the other pillar of its legitimacy, Marjanovic writes.
In this connection, he mentions current disputes between China and its neighbours over several islands and archipelagoes.
The “staking out of islands” in the South Chinese Sea by Beijing is a part of its broader plan to ensure its economic and power logistics, the New Silk Road project, which also concerns the Czechs, Marjanovic writes.
The axis of the project is the construction of a railway from China to Europe that would circumvent Russia via western Asian and Middle East countries. Xi Jinping has never officially announced the plan, but experts have put it together based on a number of pieces of information. Evidently, Xi Jinping believes that the naval route to Europe must not be the only one and must be complemented by other variants, Marjanovic writes.
This also explains why China has also focused on the Prague international airport, paradoxically named after Vaclav Havel. The growing Czech investments by the Chinese CEFC company, which is Xi Jinping´s commando, must be understood in the same way as the staking out of remote uninhabited islands. The goal is to make the airport a route “loyal” to China, Marjanovic writes.
The Czech government is evidently unaware of the pending danger. At a conference two weeks ago, Sobotka said the establishment of strategic partnership with China is one of his personal priorities, Marjanovic writes.
“I welcome the decision by our partners to make the Prague airport China´s transport centre for Central and Eastern Europe and the EU,” Sobotka said in reaction to the expansion of the Hainan and China Eastern air carriers.
He said he wants to create conditions for the Czech Republic to become an ideal gate into the EU for Chinese financial institutions.
However, Xi Jinping´s investments do not mean business only, but also a strategic attempt to establish a new global order. Also through the New Silk Road, the world is to become bipolar, divided into a Chinese and a U.S. spheres, Marjanovic writes.
Not only the countries in the pro-Beijing sphere would be banned from promoting free Tibet or criticising the violation of human rights in China, but they would become supportive pillars of the Chinese Communists´ effort to keep their power monopoly, Marjanovic writes.
Prague´s trans-Atlantic orientation and western civilisation standards such as the observance of agreements and people´s equality before law would gradually fade away. China would succeed in subduing Czechs to its different political and business culture, similar to that the Czechs toppled in 1989, Marjanovic says.
The objection that the British, too, recently hailed Chinese investments and warmly welcomed Xi Jinping on his visit to London is irrelevant. Britain can hardly lose its trans-Atlantic orientation because it is strong and tightly interconnected with the USA. This does not apply to the Czech Republic, however, Marjanovic writes.
The USA is trying to prevent the Chinese expansion by deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and occasional air force flights above the disputed islands, Marjanovic writes.
Russia, aware that it is too big to be swallowed by China, monitors the developments and hopes that Beijing may humiliate Washington. It does not shun energy and military cooperation with China, Marjanovic writes.
The Czechs, on their part, behave in the silliest possible way. Xi Jinping, the son of a significant Maoist propagandist, must wonder at how cheaply he has won Prague´s support for his project, Marjanovic writes.
On Friday, Sobotka will come to Beijing to sign the agreement on Prague´s joining the New Silk Road. Quite voluntarily, without being urged by anyone, Sobotka will sign the deal that will gradually navigate Prague away from its pro-Western orientation, Marjanovic concludes.
rtj/t/kva
