China rebukes Swiss parliament over Taiwan vote

The House of Representatives is one of the two Swiss federal parliamentary chambers. © Keystone / Peter Klaunzer

The Chinese embassy in Bern has said that a vote by the Swiss parliament this week to deepen relations with Taiwan amounts to a meddling in its internal affairs.

During the debates in parliament on Tuesday, which led to the approval of a motion calling for better cooperation with lawmakers in Taipei, some Swiss politicians made “irresponsible statements”, the Chinese embassy wrote on its website on Wednesday.

“All these acts grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs,” the embassy said.

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The One-China policy “forms the basis of bilateral relations with Switzerland”, it added, requesting that the House of Representatives adhere to this principle, which precludes any recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state.

Parliamentary bodies should be obliged to fully and precisely implement the foreign policy set by the federal government, the message further demanded. “Separatists”, calling for “Taiwan’s independence”, should not be backed.

The motion on Tuesday aimed to boost democracy and promote peace in Taiwan, and comes after a five-member Swiss-Taiwan parliamentary friendship group visited the island in February, meeting government and parliamentary representatives as well as Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen.

That visit had also been criticised by a Chinese representative in Switzerland.

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The official Swiss position on Taiwan indeed does not recognize it as a state, due to the One-China policy in force since 1950. In addition to diplomatic relations, however, Switzerland maintains diverse economic and other relations, with contact – including high-level contact – happening at a technical level.

The motion meanwhile does not affect the government’s policy towards China, its backers said on Tuesday; nor does it need the backing of the second chamber, the Senate, given that it relates solely to inter-parliamentary relations involving the House of Representatives, the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper reports.