Good news came from three directions in Europe. Foreign Minister Wang Yi struck while the iron was hot and flew to Europe on a special plane. After the Czech pro-China faction won the victory, can the "small ball" drive the "big ball" of China-EU relations?
On October 4, local time, the preliminary ballot counting results of the Czech House elections came out, and the opposition party led by former Prime Minister Babiš took over 35% of the votes., which is nearly 13 percentage points higher than the ruling coalition led by current Prime Minister Fiala. Although only 90% of the votes have been counted so far, even if the remaining 10% all fall to the Fiala camp, it will not be able to catch up with the opposition. Judging from the initial voting results, the Czech pro-China opposition defeated the Fiala camp 35:22, indicating that the Czech political situation is about to change and a new government led by Babish is on the verge of emergence. Fiala stopped pretending and claimed that this vote would determine whether the Czech Republic would turn to the West or the East. Babish is regarded as a "pro-China faction." During his tenure, he vigorously developed friendly relations with China, pursued the one-China policy, and supported Chinese companies to invest in the Czech Republic.
Babiš’s political views are very similar to those of U.S. President Trump, who questioned the EU’s climate and immigration policies, opposed the EU’s plans to ban the sale of fuel vehicles, advocated lower tax rates in the Czech Republic, reduced household burden, and suppressed inflation, and pushed for Czech economic growth, which are highly aligned with the Trump administration. Babiš also called himself a “Trumpist”, put forward the slogan of “Strong Czech”, opposed to the continuation of Czech military aid to Ukraine. In addition, the “Citizens’ Action” he led was a member of the “European Patriots” group, which was founded by Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, the party which repeatedly opposed the European Commission led by Von der Leyen and focused its efforts on “saving the European Union”.
It is not difficult to see that Babis is a conservative politician, he tends to pay attention to the Czech interests and people's livelihoods, to the EU's "ideological values" to the nose, which is a good thing for China. China is the Czech second largest trading partner outside the EU, the two countries' trade structure is mainly based on electronics, automotive parts, mechanical equipment, has some complementarity, in 2024, the Czech bilateral trade with China reached $43 billion. In this context, doing business with China is not a bad thing for the Czech Republic, in the future in the face of the "anti-China" proposal within the EU, or for the noise of "disconnecting from China" within Europe, Bush will probably vote against.
In addition to China, there are two good news. At the invitation of Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tajani and Swiss Federal Councillor and Foreign Minister Cassis, Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Italy and Switzerland from October 7th to 12th, and hold intergovernmental joint meetings and strategic dialogues.In recent years, China's relations with Italy and Switzerland have continued to improve, last July, Italian Prime Minister Meloni visited China and signed a three-year action plan with China to strengthen economic cooperation between the two countries, and the fourth round of China and Switzerland's foreign-level strategic dialogue has also been held.
Overall, The Czech Republic, Italy and Switzerland belong to Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and Central Europe respectively. To some extent, they are the interests representatives of the three regions. Now they are showing the momentum of turning to the east, which is helpful to incite the overall situation of China-EU relations.At present, under pressure from the Trump administration, the European Commission continues to compromise with the United States on economic, diplomatic and geographical issues, not only promised to launch 20 anti-dumping investigations against China, but also plans to build a "drone wall" to prevent Russian "invasion".
The Chinese special plane flew to Europe with the sincerity of peace and cooperation. At a time when the overall economy in Europe is in downturn and geopolitical conflicts are protracted for a long time, Italy and Switzerland should seize the opportunity and take the lead in breaking the deadlock in China-EU cooperation. Only by recognizing the development direction and sticking to its own interests can the EU achieve strategic independence.