Dominika Remžová
Thesis Title: Trade, Investment and Soft Power: Contextualising China’s and Taiwan’s Relations with the Visegrad 4.
The aim of this project is to analyse the relationship between China’s economic statecraft (facilitated by what was originally known as the 17+1 initiative) and Taiwan’s economic, political and public initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and to do so from a perspective of the V4 states. A focus is on substantive (rather than purely rhetorical) shifts in the V4 states’ pursuit of relations with the two East Asian powers. The V4 perspective is significant for two reasons: (1) China’s trade and investment flows to the V4 significantly exceed those to the rest of CEE, and (2) V4 are all EU member states. The research is structured as a case study analysis; Czechia and Hungary being the two main cases, and Slovakia and Poland providing comparative perspectives. With Czechia having an increasingly Taiwan-friendly stance, and Hungary being one of China’s staunchest supporters in the EU, these two cases were chosen to highlight the diversity of relations between the V4, China and Taiwan, correcting the perception of the region (and its foreign policies) as a monolith. Most of the existing literature on the topic assumes causal relationship between the deteriorating relations with China (explained predominantly by systemic factors related to the anarchic international structure) and improving relations with Taiwan (explained predominantly by domestic factors related to the agency of the political elites in power). The existing research also assumes the explanatory power of economic interests and normative values, which are taken as the main variables/factors based on a rather uncritical assessment of the elite narratives. To fill in gaps in the existing knowledge, this project aims to explain the shifts by focusing on the inter-level analysis (i.e. the relationship between the systemic and domestic factors).
Biography
Dominika Remžová is an ESRC-funded 1+3 student in Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. She holds a BA (Hons) degree in Chinese Studies (First Class) from the University of Manchester and an MA degree in Taiwan Studies (Distinction) from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), having completed her language training at both the National Taiwan and National Taiwan Normal Universities. Dominika has presented at several academic conferences, winning a dissertation award for her presentation on Taiwan’s lack of retributive transitional justice at the 2021 European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) conference. At the University of Nottingham, she has first worked (as a research assistant) for the Rights Lab, and currently she is engaged with the Taiwan Research Hub (both as an editor of its policy series, and an occasional contributor to its online magazine, Taiwan Insight). Dominika is a policy-oriented researcher. She is a non-resident Research Fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS), where she focuses on foreign/security policies and party systems/politics of China, Taiwan and other East Asian states. During her time at CEIAS, she has produced several op-eds, policy briefs and research reports (including government-commissioned policy papers), and outside CEIAS, she has worked for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the Global Taiwan Institute (GTI), and the European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS). Dominika has a proficient command of Slovak (native), English (C2) and Mandarin Chinese (C2), an intermediate command of German (B2) and Japanese (B2), and is currently learning Hungarian.
Publications
Marinaccio, J., Remžová, D., and Chen, Y. “Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election and its candidates: What to expect in foreign policy and cross-Strait relations?” Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS), September 2023, accessible at https://ceias.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/CEIAS_TW-elections-paper.pdf.
Reid, M., Remžová, D., and Schulz, K. “Repositioning Central and Eastern European Approaches to Cross-Strait Relations.” Global Taiwan Institute (GTI), March 2023, accessible at https://globaltaiwan.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/0323GTIOR_CEE.pdf.
Šimalčík, M., Gerstl, A., and Remžová, D. (eds.) “Beyond the Dumpling Alliance: Tracking Taiwan’s relations with Central and Eastern Europe.” Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS), March 2023, accessible at https://ceias.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/CEEtaiwan_paper_final_PRINT.pdf.
Remžová, D. “Hard Cash or Soft Values? Assessing the ‘Lithuanian Model’ of Eastern European Relations with China and Taiwan.” Taiwan Insight, April 2022, https://taiwaninsight.org/2022/04/22/hard-cash-or-soft-value-assessing-the-lithuanian-model-of-eastern-european-relations-with-china-and-taiwan/.
Remžová, D. “An Opening Gambit, or a Losing Gamble? – Lithuania’s ‘New Direction’ on China.” European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS), December 2021, accessible at https://eias.org/publications/op-ed/an-opening-gambit-or-a-losing-gamble-lithuanias-new-direction-on-china/.
Remžová, D. “Changing of the Guard: The Politics of German-Taiwanese Relations in a Post-Merkel Era.” Global Taiwan Institute (GTI), December 2021, accessible at https://globaltaiwan.org/2021/12/changing-of-the-guard-the-politics-of-german-taiwanese-relations-in-a-post-merkel-era/.
Remžová, D. “Victims without Perpetrators: Slovakia’s and Taiwan’s Lack of Retributive Justice.” Taiwan Insight, April 2021, accessible at https://taiwaninsight.org/2021/04/27/victims-without-perpetrators-slovakias-and-taiwans-lack-of-retributive-justice/.
Remžová, D. “The Czech Model: A New Era for Taiwan’s Diplomacy in Europe?” China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe (CHOICE), November 2020, accessible at https://chinaobservers.eu/the-czech-model-a-new-era-for-taiwans-diplomacy-in-europe/.
Public Engagement
Dominika has provided podcast interviews and organised events on a variety of China/Taiwan-related topics. She is also one of the authors and editors of a monthly English-language newsletter produced by CEIAS, the purpose of which is to disseminate information about political, economic and civil society relations between Asian (Northeast, Southeast, South) and CEE states to a variety of expert and non-expert stakeholders.
Other Research Interests
Theoretical focus on historical materialist and constructivist IR/IPE theories; functional interest in economic statecraft, regionalism and supply chains
Politics and International Relations
Nottingham
2021 Cohort, 1+3
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominikaremzova/
Supervisory Team
Dr Chun-yi Lee
Dr Jonathan Sullivan
Memberships
European Association of Taiwan Studies (EIAS)