THE BIG GAME: The Chinese Communist Party wants to crush liberal democracies and dominate the world order. China wants to conquer and subdue the free and sovereign island for the same reasons Russia invades and murders the people of Ukraine or Georgia.
Taiwan is our first line of defence against Chinese aggression, the same way Ukraine is facing Russian hostilities.
That is why we are opening our@_EuropeanValues office in Taipei.
Our plan is simple: We will cooperate with the best global experts on understanding the Chinese threat:
Like the Taiwanese Defence Ministry think-tank @INDSRTW.
What can persuade Chinese leadership why NOT to invade Taiwan.
1) military deterrence: United States, Japan & Australia
2) political + economic deterrence: Europeans need to make sure Chinese leaders know it would have major political and economic costs for China in Europe.
A successful European deterrence strategy for Taiwan:
would make Chinese leadership assess that European response would be like after 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine = sectoral and oligarchic structurally-targeted sanctions, and mid-level international diplomatic isolation
An unsuccessful European deterrence strategy:
like after the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia: no systematic sanctions, no diplomatic isolation, effectively business as usual and increasing Western attempts to appease the aggressor.
Like the 1938 Munich Agreement.
Taiwan is a great knowledge base for understanding Chinese political, intelligence and military leadership, and it also has amazing expertise on technological research and ways for protecting it from Chinese espionage.
Europeans (including NATO leaders) want that knowledge.
That’s why we have decided to set up our office in Taipei, being the first private European think-tank to do so.
We are not doing it only for Taiwan, it is a European defense strategy it a global confrontation with the Chinese Communist Party.
We need Taiwan’s experiential knowledge of the Chinese threat to our collective security.
In turn, we can contribute to defending the existence of a free Taiwan by clearly signaling to Beijing:” If you invade or blockade Taiwan, you will lose the European market.”
We need to tell the Chinese leadership loud and clear:
Attacking Taiwan means China will lose remaining friends and appeasers the same way Adolf Hitler did when he attacked Poland in September 1939 or Vladimir Putin after invading Ukraine in 2014.
We stand strong with Taiwan.
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We talked to 30 Czech key govt & business leaders:
We asked the Czech govt & business leaders: How to safeguard Czech democracy and fair business environment from (mainly) Chinese state-organised predators?
For EVC as mainly national security-focused think-tank, we benefited from @CIPEglobal approach (thanks to @eric_hontz & @jeffdlightfoot and their teams) on how to think about defending fair business environment from foreign predators.
Ladislav Zemánek is a Czech neo-Nazi. He was a vice-chairman of a far-right extremist party.
Zemánek traveled to a Russia-organised propaganda trip to Donbas - later got sanctioned by Ukraine.
In 2016,Czech court found him guilty of antisemitic crimes, spreading hate against Jews.Attended team-building meetings of Central European neo-Nazis, like Slovak Marian Kotleba:
Ladislav Zemánek is contractor (his LinkedIn says “analyst”) working for Budapest-based China-CEE Institute. China-CEE Institute is a Chinese-government funded institution paying thousands of EUR to CEE academics for delivering updates on political developments in their countries
EUROPEAN POLICY FAILURE: Why does Russia (and its proxies such as Belarus) keep doing major hostile operations such as using a terrorist-style tactics to kidnap a journalist from a civilian airlines?
Since 2014,Russia has been conducting openly hostile na often murderous operations against European democracies:
from violent coup attempt in Montenegro
assassination operations in UK, Germany or Bulgaria,
to blowing up arms depot on NATO soil in Czech Republic or Bulgaria
It is known that Russia effectively controls the intelligence service (KGB) and armed forces of Belarus.
So the RyanAir kidnapping operation could not happen without Russian state approval or support.
THREAD: Crash course on possible Czech October election winner:
Czech Republic holds general (parliamentary) elections in October. Current governing parties (centrist/populist ANO, corrupted social democrats ČSSD and treasonous Communists KSČM) are all losing the popular support
NOW: ANO dropping to some 20+%, ČSSD and KSČM dancing around 5% threshold needed for entering the next chamber.
POSSIBLE WINNERS: The centrist-liberal coalition (Pirates and Mayors party (STAN)) leading polls with 27-30 %. They are nicknamed “PirSTAN”.
Yesterday,PirSTAN launched their election manifesto which is worth digging into as they might win October elections:
General foreign policy:
Usual EU/NATO priorities,Eastern Partnership + Western Balkans: usual Czech mainstream foreign policy, including future EU memberships)
Foreign Policy Committee of the Czech Senate asks the Czech government to "decrease number of employees of Russian diplomacy in the Czech Republic to one".
In other words: to expel the whole Russian diplomatic presence and keep just the Russian Ambassador.
I LOVE THIS VIEW:
18 Russian intelligence officers (SVR and GRU) are leaving Czech territory right now.
Czech Prime Minister @AndrejBabis & VicePM/Interim For.Minister @jhamacek announced that GRU unit 29155 was "involved" in a 2014 explosion of Czech ammo depot (Vrbětice) which killed two Czech citizen.
DETAILS OF GRU OPERATION, AS EXPLAINED BY CZECH POLICE INVESTIGATION, @okundra reports:
On 13 October 2014, two GRU Unit 29155 officers flew by Aeroflot from Moscow to Prague. They left on 16 October 2014 to Austria and then flew back to Moscow.