Taiwan vice-president, Hsiao Bi-Khim, during a civil protection exercise at a high school in Tainan, on March 27, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ceng / AFP / Profimedia
Taiwan's vice-president said he would not be intimidated by the Czech Information Services reports that Chinese officials were planning to start a car accident during the time Hsiao Bi-Khim was in Prague, The Guardian reports.
The vice-president Hsiao Bi-Khim was in the Czech Republic in March 2024, on the first external visit she made and the president of Taiwan, Lai Ching-Te, after winning the January elections. At that time it was written that a Chinese diplomat passed the car on the red, while watching the car in which she, escorted by the police, from the airport.
This week, officials of the information services in Prague told the local press that the incident was part of a larger plan of Chinese diplomats and officers from Chinese secret services that worked in the Prague Embassy, a plan that involved preparations for the emergence of an apparent car accident.
On Saturday, Hsiao thanked the Czech authorities for ensuring safety during the visit.
“The illegal activities of the CPP (Chinese Communist Party, no) will not intimidate me and will not prevent me from playing Taiwan's interests in the international community,” she wrote in a post on social networks.
The new details of the plan against Hsiao were revealed on Thursday by the Public Czech Radio Service, Irozhlas.
What do intelligence services in Czech say
The director of the Czech military intelligence service, Petr Bartovský, told Irozhlas that the driver stopped by the police only was following Hsiao, but that the institution also identified plans, out of the Chinese Embassy, to “demonstrate Mrs. Hsiao”.
The spokesman for the service, Jan Pejšek, said the plan involves an “attempt by the Chinese Civil Secret Service to create conditions for a demonstrative kinetic action against a protected person, who has not exceeded the training phase.” According to Czech journalists, it was a collision with Hsiao's car.
“These activities, which flagrantly violate the obligations arising from the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, have been carried out, among others, by individuals who hold diplomatic positions at the China Embassy in Prague,” said Pejšek.
Taiwan's continental business council focused on China, condemned Chinese actions on Friday, which he said “seriously threatened the personal safety of Vice President and his entourage.” The institution has requested explanations and public apologies.
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Guo Jiakun, said Chinese diplomats “always respect the laws and regulations of the host countries” and that the Czech government “has severely mixed in China's internal affairs” when it allowed Hsiao's visit, an “intransigent separatist of Taiwan”.
