Prague City Hall to terminate sister-city agreement with Beijing

Prague City Hall has announced it will terminate the sister-city agreement between Prague and Beijing, because the Chinese authorities are unwilling to drop an article of the document in which Prague recognizes the policy of One China.

The agreement was signed by the city’s former mayor, Adriana Krnáčová, and the Pirate Party, which heads the Prague ruling coalition, has been critical of it from the outset.

The dispute has caused a rift in Czech-Chinese relations with China recently cancelling a number of planned tours by Prague cultural ensembles.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček say that while the government respects the “One China” policy it cannot dictate anything to the democratically elected Prague leadership.