Visiting Taiwan on 6 December, the State Secretary of the Slovak Ministry of Economy, Karol Galek, said: “Slovakia supports Taiwan”. He also added that the two partners were ready to work together as “small but open economies”.
Slovakia is thus positioning itself alongside Lithuania to challenge China, which considers the island of Taiwan to be one of its provinces.
Since 3 December, Vilnius has accused China of blocking Lithuanian imports at customs. The European Commission said on 6 December that it was “in the process of verifying whether this is a systematic or individual case”.
This alleged Chinese action against Lithuania comes after the latter allowed Taiwan to open a representative office on its soil in November.
On 6 December, the Commission reaffirmed that “the European Union does not believe that the opening of a Taiwan representation or office, which is not the same thing as an embassy or consulate, is a challenge to the ‘One China policy’”. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)