China cancels Prague music tour in Tibet row with mayor

A TOUR of China by Prague’s Philharmonic Orchestra has been cancelled and the city zoo’s long-held dreams of hosting a panda shattered in an escalating feud between its maverick mayor and Beijing.

Chinese authotities are furious at Zdenĕk Hřib, 38, the Czech capital’s anti-establishment mayor, for refusing to toe Beijing’s line over its sensitivities about the status of Tibet and Taiwan.

Since his election last year, Dr Hřib, a Czech Pirate Party politician, has flown the Tibetan flag at the capital’s city hall, met Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwanese president, and resisted Chinese demands to expel Taiwan’s representative from a meeting of foreign diplomats.

Dr Hřib, who did a medical training internship in Taiwan, has also openly demanded that China remove a clause from a Prague-beijing co-operation that requires the Czech capital to “respect the one-china policy and acknowledge Taiwan as an inseparable part of Chinese territory”. China claims Taiwan, a democracy of 23million people, as its own territory and has warned it will annex the island by force if necessary.

The simmering dispute spilt over into a direct threat from Beijing’s foreign ministry on Wednesday that the city authorities should change their ways or “they will eventually damage their own interests”. The ministry’s Geng Shuang told the state-run Xinhua news agency that Prague and its mayor had “behaved very badly on issues involving China’s national sovereignty”.

“This is the fundamental reason why related parties and individuals of Prague are not welcomed by Chinese people,” Mr Geng told the agency.

Despite large Chinese investments in the Czech Republic, which include the acquisition of Slavia Prague football club, Dr Hřib criticised China’s threats – putting him at odds with his own government.

“Abolishing the Prague Philharmonic tour, which had already signed a contract, shows that China is not a reliable business partner,” the mayor said.