Czech Chamber of Deputies speaker Tomio Okamura Photo: VCG

After the Chinese side announced that Czech Chamber of Deputies speaker Tomio Okamura will visit China from July 20 to 24, some media on the island of Taiwan have played up the news and claimed the trip could affect the island's ties with Czech Republic. 

Chinese experts dismissed this media narrative as an attempt to exploit the Taiwan question to influence Prague's China policy, saying it also reflects the waning effectiveness of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities' efforts to rely on external forces to boost its presence and create troubles for interactions between China and other countries.

The Czech Republic's new government, which took office late last year, has signaled its intention to improve relations with China, some media reported. 

Okamura's visit, confirmed by China on Saturday, is widely seen as part of Prague's efforts to stabilize and improve bilateral ties, Taiwan island's UDN.cn reported Sunday in an article.

Ahead of the trip, Okamura said on X that he hopes to attract more Chinese tourists, promote visa-free travel for Czech citizens to China, launch more direct flights, expand business cooperation and explore the possibility of hosting a Terracotta Warriors exhibition in Prague.  

According to the Xinhua News Agency, the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party, which Okamura chairs, is known for its nationalist, anti-immigration and Eurosceptic positions and is widely regarded as a far-right populist party. Okamura's election as speaker of the Chamber of Deputies marks the highest position held by an SPD member in Czech politics to date.

Taiwan regional media's coverage of the visit frequently mentioned the background that in recent years, DPP authorities in Taiwan have repeatedly courted some anti-China politicians in the Czech Republic. In March 2023, then Czech Chamber of Deputies speaker Marketa Pekarova Adamova visited Taiwan region in defiance of China's opposition. 

Czech Senate president Milos Vystrcil has also visited Taiwan island twice, in 2020 and June this year. During his latest trip, Vystrcil led a delegation of about 40 people, but the Czech government did not provide a chartered plane, and he traveled on a commercial flight instead. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said the decision was made out of consideration for the country's economic interests in China.

Zheng Jian, a professor of Graduate Institute for Taiwan Studies of Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Sunday that Okamura's China visit is a normal high-level parliamentary exchange between China and the Czech Republic based on shared bilateral interests and is in line with the one-China principle. 

"It is a legitimate diplomatic activity between sovereign states, but Taiwan green camp media have deliberately linked it to a so-called 'Taiwan region-Czech relations crisis.' The false narrative is distorting the logic."

Zheng also said the Czech government's efforts to improve ties with China are based on its own economic and social interests, showing that ideological confrontation cannot determine a country's foreign policy, while economic cooperation and development opportunities remain key considerations.

"The DPP authorities' attempts to exploit the Taiwan question through a few foreign politicians and interfere in normal exchanges between China and other countries are becoming increasingly ineffective, Zhang said. Private political stunts by a few lawmakers cannot override the practical need for countries to develop relations with China," he added.