- Island’s deputy foreign minister, Hsu Szu-chien, meets mayor Zdenek Hrib and other politicians who refused to endorse one-China principle
Taiwan has sent a presidential envoy to the Czech capital after the Prague city authorities moved to cut ties with their counterparts in Beijing over the one-China policy.
The self-ruled island's deputy foreign minister, Hsu Szu-chien, met the capital's mayor Zdenek Hrib and other politicians on Monday and discussed the rupture with Beijing, Taiwanese foreign ministry officials said.
Hsu was representing President Tsai Ing-wen at the 23rd Forum 2000, an event to discuss democracy, human rights and civic development issues that runs from Sunday to Wednesday.
According to Taiwan's semi-official Central News Agency, assembly members " including representatives from Hrib's Pirate Party " told Hsu that they had decided to sever ties with Beijing after the Chinese capital refused to respond to a request to remove a one-China clause from a twin city agreement.
Prague signed the agreement with Beijing when President Xi Jinping visited the Czech Republic for the first time in March 2016.
It specifically states that Prague must abide by the one-China policy and accept that "Taiwan is a part of China's indivisible territory".
But Michaela Krausova, head of the Pirate caucus in the city assembly, told the Taiwanese news agency that such an agreement was "inappropriate" for a twinning arrangement, which rarely included such political constraints.
"After I was elected to the city council late last year, I proposed that the clause be removed from the agreement, only to be ignored by the Chinese side," Krusova said.
"This was why Prague finally decided to terminate its relationship with Beijing."
Jakub Michalek, the chairman of the Pirate group in the country's chamber of deputies, told Hsu that the controversy surrounding the clause had prompted the city's vote to remove it.
Hrib, a doctor who once worked as an intern in a Taiwanese hospital, is known for his support for the island and met Tsai during a visit there in March.
His efforts to scrap the one-China clause angered Beijing, which moved to pre-empt a vote by the city assembly to ratify the decision to end the sister city agreement.
On Wednesday the authorities in the Chinese capital announced they were terminating the deal because of Prague's attempts to "interfere" with China's internal affairs.
In response the Pirate Party " the largest in the city's governing coalition " published a statement on Facebook that criticised China's attempts to "bully" the city, adding that it refused to "bow down to the authoritarian regime responsible for the 're-education' camps (in Xinjiang)".
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