Slovenia Kowtows to Communist China, Will Honour ‘One-China Policy’ on Taiwan

Slovenia's Prime Minister Janez Jansa arrives for an European Union Summit with all 27 EU
Getty Images/Breitbart Collage
Kurt Zindulka

Slovenia has cowered in the face of threats from Communist China, announcing that they will honor the so-called one-China Policy and use the name ‘Taipei’ for the planned Taiwanese representative office in the country.

Government officials have backed down from statements made by Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša, in which he supported Taiwan’s independence from Beijing and announced that his country would be opening a de-facto embassy with the island nation.

The Slovenian parliament’s foreign policy committee approved a resolution reaffirming the country’s commitment to the one-China policy, which demands that countries abide by Beijing’s position that Taiwan is a part of Communist China that merely needs to be “reunified”, despite the island never having been under communist rule. Taiwan also boasts its own distinct culture, currency, military, and democratically elected government.

Foreign Minister Anže Logar said that there has been “no divergence from our position” on the one-China policy, Euractiv reported on Monday.

“This message is indisputable, it comes from all political players and from the parliamentary committee in charge of this matter,” said Social Democrat MP Matjaž Nemec.

Thus the economic and cultural representative office in Slovenia will only refer to ‘Taipei’ rather than Taiwan. The move is distinct to fellow EU nation Lithuania, which opened a similar office under the name of Taiwan in November. Following Lithuania’s decision to balk at the CCP’s diktats, China has imposed blockades on all Lithuanian products and even products made in other EU nations with Lithuanian components in a bid to bring the country to heel.

Prior to any announcement on the naming of the office in Slovenia, the Chinese reportedly began imposing preemptive economic restrictions on Slovenia, a clear warning of what would come if they disobeyed Beijing — or Peking, as it is also known.

Beijing was angered by comments made by Slovenia’s populist right-wing Prime Minister, Janez Janša, who told India’s public broadcaster earlier this month: “If they want to join China… without any pressure, military intervention, blackmailing or strategic cheating as it is happening in Hong Kong currently, we will support it.

“But if the Taiwanese people want to live independently, we also have to support this position.”

Threatening the small country, the state-run communist mouthpiece the Global Times wrote last week that Slovenia should avoid repeating the “mistakes” of Lithuania, saying: “Chinese investors have got a whiff of the dangerous signal, and more pain will likely be felt by Slovenian businesses and society if Ljubljana [fails to] get the policies back on the right track.

“Any move violating the one-China principle and hurting China’s core interests will backfire. Slovenia needs to rectify its act quickly.”

In an interview with the Chinese business publication Huawen Weekly last week, Slovenia’s deputy Prime Minister Zdravko Počivalšek claimed that Janša had not consulted with the rest of the government before making his comments on Taiwan.

“Political ideas, political parties, and their interests in Slovenia vary greatly. When announcing that economic cooperation would be promoted through the opening of a “trade representative office”, many misunderstandings emerged, but some views were actually not discussed in the government,” Počivalšek said.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.