On October 1st, 2019 the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Jacek Czaputowicz nominated Paweł Milewski as the Polish Ambassador to Japan. The bilateral relations between Poland and Japan could be described as model ones in terms of a volatile international environment.. In the recent four years, two meaningful and important agreements between the countries have been signed. In 2015 Poland and Japan signed The Working Holiday Program and in 2017 the 2017-2020 Action Plan for the implementation of the Strategic Partnership between Poland and Japan was signed. Paweł Milewski inherited a stable (in terms of international relations) environment to extend and intensify Polish actions and bilateral cooperation. His abilities to break through and lobbying within structures of Polish MOFA can turn out very helpful. New mbassador can also play a major role as a skillful initiator and leader in developing new areas for cooperation. Read More …

On 17 October, the UN General Assembly voted to elect Poland to the UN Human Rights Council for the 2020-2022 term. HRC produces the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the human rights records of all UN Member States. HRC can also issue resolutions condemning human rights abuses and calling states for change. On July 9 2019 twenty-two countries at the United Nations’ top human rights body issued a joint statement urging China to end its mass arbitrary detentions and related violations against Muslims in the Xinjiang region. In response to the letter China mobilized almost forty like-minded countries including Russia, Myanmar, to sign the letter supporting its actions in Xinjiang. The current composition of the HRC packed with authoritarian regimes or countries with poor human rights record strongly undermines the Council’s mandate and ability to perform its basic duties. Poland along with other CEE countries, with exception of Baltics states, have been so far rather silent on the Chinese actions in Xinjiang.Poland as a newly elected member should support the voices calling China to end ethnic cleansing, use the HRC forum to criticize Chinese actions and to join the relevant international initiatives. Read More …

On September 27 Japan and the EU inked an infrastructure cooperation pact, which is the second meaningful agreement within the last year. The EU pledged the amount of 60bln EUR to support further investments. New pact creates numerous opportunities for the European companies related to the renewable energy sources (RES) to look at the southeast Asia markets. Forecasts provide clear picture – Asia-Pacific region is assumed to possess 60% of global solar installations until 2022 (this includes 112GW in South Asia only). There are a lot of companies in Poland (more than 250) that manufacture complete products or components for windmills, devices for hydropower installations, biomass installations, solar collectors, PV modules, heat pumps and (mainly) devices for biogas plants.The question is if Polish domestic manufacturers will look at the newest opportunities and if Polish government would like to support their efforts. Read More …

At the end of September PayPal received approval from the People’s Bank of China to buy a 70% controlling stake in a domestic payments firm GoPay – Guofubao Information Technology. PayPal is the first foreign firm to enter China’s payment services market. GoPay is a minor player and PayPal will face giant fintech ecosystem that Ant Financial and Tencent have already built. Alipay and WeChat Pay dominate China’s digital payment market with joint 90% share. Competing with Chinese giants in the area of domestic payments can be difficult but PayPal as a well recognized platform both in China and abroad can use its position to snatch the cross-border payment services from the competitors.Polish small and medium companies (SME) face multiple challenges while trying to export to China. Using PayPal services in China for many Polish businesses can be much easier than using services provided by Chinese companies or global players and helpful in the diversification of the sales channels.Read More …

On September 21 media outlets reported, that two months earlier in the internal Bulletin Paweł Brzeziński, the administrative commissioner of the polish shipping company Polsteam, bluntly criticized the government’s project of building in Polish shipyards two modern RoPax ferries. Brzeziński complained, that project of timely building in Polish shipyards is unrealistic given financial resources provided and existing infrastructure. He suggested placing orders abroad and altought the location of production was not named China was one of the obvious choices. Current Polish government have been promising revival Polish shipyards. The declarations however hit the tough economic realities and little progress has been made so far. The revival of Polish shipbuilding industry needs time and significant financial resources, while management of PŻM needs cost and time effective solution to compete with foreign operators to avoid being pushed out of market. Ordering vessels in China is a viable option. Three years have been lost for industry and now ministry and PŻM management face difficult choice. Read More …

EUJEPA creates new opportunities for Polish business in Japan and they can be
amplified by the country’s positive image. Undoubtedly Poland has a positive image in Japan. Nonetheless, the lack of well-calculated and (possibly) successful national branding is a big issue. There are also several serious issues that limit the potential of using Poland’s positive image as tool in boosting national soft power: 1) insufficient funding, manifested in searching for entities, that will sponsor a selected embassy’s publications; 2) highly insufficient activity of Polish embassy in social media. The lack of strategy for national branding and misreading by MOFA what soft power is can prevent it from being used as a significant component of the public diplomacy. Japan still recognizes Poland as an ally and a reliable country, and even if Japanese businesses aren’t involved in Poland on a large scale, the successful PD could intensify this involvement in the foreseeable future – not to mention possible political benefits. Read More …

On September 23 Warsaw Institute of Technology announced the establishment of the Confucius Institute in cooperation with Jiaotong University. The operations of the new branch will cover not only providing Chinese language courses, organizing workshops and other cultural or social events but will also include business consulting services and workshops in the Chinese economy, law, and business environment. The activities of the CI raise growing anxiety among scholars, think tank analysts, politicians and public opinion in many democratic countries. While in many countries CI is in retreat or under growing pressure in Poland their branches thrive. The increased presence of the CI or other Chinese state and CPC sponsored or supported organizations in Poland and growing number of their activities greatly facilitate the Chinese official and often misleading narrative on China’s state foreign policy and domestic situation to gain prominence in the public discourse. Being offered financial support from the Chinese side Polish scholars and think tank analysts often choose to be silent on issues considered as sensitive by CPC officials. Read More …

Among 14 SEZs operating in Poland, the Japanese companies are present in 12 of them with 3 major ones.Outside SEZ the Japanese investments are concentrated mainly in Warsaw. Manufacturing is the most common activity model of the Japanese located in SEZs (more than 60% of investments). The activities of the remaining Japanese companies are focused on wholesale and retail sales (almost 20%), followed by construction and transport/storage (more than 10%). Only four companies are focused on services. The detailed knowledge of Japanese companies’ operations could be crucial to encourage other businesses from a similar industry to invest in Poland, especially in the case of the no-deal Brexit, which creates an opportunity, that could be exploited could by the board members of SEZs, and by the “SEZ Poland”. Read More …

On September 25 Universal Postal Union (UPU) agreed to reform its fee structure under a proposal by the United States and averted the United States leaving the organization. The agreement was clinched in negotiations among 34 countries including China. From January 2021 US would be allowed to begin imposing “self-declared rates” for distributing foreign mail in the US territory regardless of the general UPU rates. Chinese online platforms e.g. AliExpress offer extremely cheap or even free of charge shipments of products to many countries while shipments to China are much more expensive. The difference is in fess paid by different countries for mail or parcel delivery within the territory of another UPU member. The higher cost of sending items to China puts foreign sellers mainly from the SME sector at great disadvantage comparing to their Chinese peers. In Europe Nordic countries are among the sharpest critics of the current rate system Business associations from various European countries have recently again requested actions from the EU officials to reform the UPU system due to its distortive impact on competition. Read More …