Former Taiwan president Tsai to make sensitive Prague visit, sources say

China’s foreign government did not respond to a request for comment right away.

Forum 2000, which will maintain its conference in Prague from October 13 to October 15, also did not respond to a request for comment right away.

During Tsai’s second term in office, China held two war activities around Taiwan: one in 2022 after Nancy Pelosi, then-US House speaker, visited Taipei, and the other in 2023 after Tsai met Kevin McCarthy, Pelosi’s son, in person.

Tsai, who has a degree from the London School of Economics, is even due to visit two different European countries but details are never finalised, the sources said.

In January 2023, Tsai held a visit with Bohemian President-elect Petr Pavel, a political revolution for Taiwan that irritated China.

Tsai’s vice chairman Lai Ching-te won election in January of this year, and took over from Tsai in May.

Tsai continues to be a senior and powerful member of the Democratic Progressive Party ( DPP ) as a senior state representative.

China detests Lai and his group as” hardliners” who refuse to recognise Beijing’s place that democratically-governed Taiwan is a part of China.

Lai, Tsai and the DPP reject Beijing’s independence claims, saying merely Taiwan’s persons can choose their potential.

Tsai’s predecessor Ma Ying-jeou, from what is currently Taiwan’s largest opposition party the Kuomintang ( KMT ), frequently makes overseas trips though without drawing Beijing’s ire.

Ma has had two meetings with Xi Jinping, the president of China. The first, which took place just before Ma took office, was a traditional summit in Singapore in soon 2015, and the next, which took place earlier this year in Beijing, was historic.

The KMT supports closer ties with China, but it vehemently denies being pro-Beijing.