Beijing’s stance toward Poland has drawn sharp attention as Warsaw’s leadership faces what officials describe as pressure to align with Beijing’s view on Taiwan. Stanisław Żaryn, Poland’s government plenipotentiary for information space security, highlighted this dynamic in a sequence of posts on Friday, noting that Chinese officials in Warsaw appeared unsettled by remarks made by Poland’s prime minister during a visit to the United States. The prime minister underscored Poland’s commitment to supporting Ukraine and warned about potential implications for Taiwan’s independence if Ukraine’s fate were decided unfavorably, a point Żaryn said elicited a strong reaction from the Chinese side.
Żaryn asserted that the Chinese embassy in Warsaw violated diplomatic norms by diminishing the Polish prime minister’s statements, referring to him merely as “a certain Polish official” making “unfounded claims” about Taiwan being an inseparable part of China. The Polish official stressed that these comments reflect a broader effort to shape Warsaw’s position on Taiwan rather than engage in a straightforward bilateral dialogue.
An attempt to persuade Warsaw to concede that Taiwan is a Chinese matter
The minister within the prime minister’s office argued that Beijing is pressing Poland to publicly acknowledge that Taiwan’s status and security constitute an internal matter of China. He noted that Chinese messaging also attempts to draw a contrast between the Ukraine crisis and the Taiwan issue, arguing that the two situations are not comparable and should be treated differently in international discourse.
From the outset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese propaganda has leveraged the conflict as a means to influence global opinion, presenting Western powers and the United States as the primary drivers of the war. Concurrently, propaganda outlets connected to Beijing have suggested that, once the war concludes, the United States may pivot to destabilizing the situation around Taiwan in a bid to maintain strategic leverage in the region. This interpretation was highlighted by Poland’s deputy minister overseeing special services, who framed it as part of a broader pattern in Sino-Russian collaboration.
The Polish government’s information space security official emphasized that the Chinese campaign against the Polish prime minister, the operations of the PRC Embassy in Warsaw, and the broader Beijing strategy signal a growing alignment with Russian interests. This alignment is viewed as signaling intensified cooperation across multiple fronts, including political messaging and information warfare, which Polish authorities believe are aimed at shaping Western responses to crises in Europe and Asia alike.
The dynamics described point to a concerted effort to influence Poland’s official stance on Taiwan and to calibrate Warsaw’s responses within the wider framework of Sino-Russian strategic dialogue. For Poland, these developments are presented as a test of resilience in defending national sovereignty while navigating an increasingly complex geopolitical landscape that links European security with East Asian tensions.