By Jia Feimao | 2026-01-23

China has recently offered so-called "legal advice" to several European countries, urging them to restrict visits by Taiwanese politicians as Taiwan's engagement with Europe gains momentum.

On January 12, the London Guardian reported that Chinese officials made demarches to European embassies in Beijing, or contacted European governments directly via Chinese embassies, warning them not to "trample on" China's position.

China is seeking to obstruct visits by Taiwanese officials by reinterpreting existing administrative rules. Beijing cited the Schengen Borders Code, stressing that a condition for entry by non-European Union (EU) nationals is that they "are not considered to be a threat to the … international relations of any of the member states."

Allowing Taiwanese officials to enter a European country would endanger that country's ties to China, Beijing suggested.

China considers Taiwan its territory and has never ruled out using force to seize the island.

Squeezing Taiwan

In some cases Beijing referred to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, or suggested European countries bar Taiwanese nationals from their government buildings, which would match the United Nations' policy for its buildings.

Although most European countries rejected Beijing's assertions as not "legally sound," the Guardian said some smaller states still felt pressure to comply.

"Beijing knows well that some EU member states are very keen to attract Chinese investment," Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, an assistant professor of political science at National Dong Hwa University in Hualien, Taiwan, told the Guardian.

Predating China's pressure on the EU, last summer it threatened to cancel its first high-level trade and economic dialogue with the United Kingdom in seven years after a UK trade minister visited Taiwan in June, the Guardian reported separately.

Those talks ultimately took place last September.

Beijing is deliberately misinterpreting the Schengen Borders Code and EU member states will not necessarily heed its heavy-handed "advice," Marc Cheng, executive director of the European Union Center in Taiwan, said.

"From the perspective of EU governments, China is discussing political issues, not legal ones," Cheng told Focus.

Beijing presented its suggestions to European countries during last November and December, according to the Guardian. It might have been motivated by a series of trips by Taiwanese VIPs through Europe.

Taiwanese officials engage Europe

Last September, Taiwan's foreign minister, Lin Chia-lung, made high-profile visits to Czechia, Italy and Austria. In early November, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim addressed the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which was holding its annual summit at the European Parliament in Brussels.

Hsiao's speech was the "first-ever delivered by a senior member of the Taiwanese Government in a European legislature," IPAC said in a statement at the time.

Days later, Tsai Ing-wen, a former president of Taiwan (2016–2024), addressed the inaugural Berlin Freedom Conference in Germany.

Those visits occurred even though China urged European countries to deny entry to "Taiwan's so-called president or vice president (former ones included)" along with a list of other officials, the Guardian reported.

Such engagement by Taiwanese leaders supports mutually beneficial ties and China has no right to interfere, Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said.

China's coercion of Taiwan and other countries undermines global and Indo-Pacific peace and stability and threatens the EU's direct interests, the ministry said, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.

Rising Taiwanese-European interactions

"Between 2019 and 2024, the volume of mutual visits [by Taiwanese and EU or EU-country officials] increased more than sixfold, from 11 to 71," the Slovakia-based Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) said in a report last December.

"The normalization of mutual visits also included their moving from secrecy into the public spotlight and from unofficial interactions to more formal meetings," CEIAS noted in its report.

The report said Europe was reassessing external partnerships amid growing parliamentary, economic, trade, technological and political exchanges, while Taiwan had gained importance from its advanced semiconductors and role in critical supply chains.

China's push for European countries to deny entry to certain figures has drawn backlash across political and academic circles, with calls not to yield to Beijing and to continue exchanges with Taiwan.

"The more pressure vis-a-vis Europe, the more pressure vis-a-vis Taiwan, the closer we will stand together," European Parliament member Engin Eroglu, who represents Germany, tweeted.

"External pressure is the catalyst for a new era of EU-Taiwan cooperation," he added.

"Beijing has started dictating [to] European countries that they must not host Taiwanese politicians. Which is another arbitrary red line by the Chinese Communist Party. We should ignore it and extend even more invitations for our Taiwanese friends," Andreas Fulda, an associate professor of politics at the University of Nottingham in England, tweeted.