Beijing’s pressure on Lithuania started when Vilnius decided to leave the 17+1 format and to announce it publicly, according to an interview with The Epoch Times by Diana Mickevičienė, the Lithuanian ambassador recalled from Beijing.
Lithuania informed Beijing of its decision to withdraw from the 17+1 – the Chinese format for cooperation with Eastern and Central Europe – in February 2021. Vilnius justified its decision by saying promises of a breakthrough in exports to the Chinese market had not materialized and the process was very slow.
Mickevičienė said that Lithuania’s efforts to export grain to China had encountered difficulties, and on one occasion several containers had been detained for allegedly containing a fungus that does not exist in Lithuania.
According to the ambassador, this step could have been taken because the Lithuanian foreign minister supported Taiwan’s membership of the World Health Organization (WHO). Barriers to Lithuania’s access to the Chinese market were “were abolished so slowly or almost not abolished”, said Mickevičienė.
According to her, the relations between Vilnius and Beijing were gradually becoming a subject of discussion for all the participants of the 17+1 format, which became the second reason for Lithuania’s withdrawal from the forum.
“We had our bilateral issues, but we were forced to sort of discussing them in the view of all the 17 countries, which we thought was not justified because the bilateral track is still the main track and every sovereign country wants to have a bilateral track,” said Mickevičienė, adding that Beijing tried to make favourable proposals to individual countries or groups of countries, which, in the diplomat’s opinion, undermined the unity of the EU market.
“We’ve seen certain efforts of playing us against each other [and] against Brussels,” Mickevičienė said.
When Vilnius informed Beijing of its decision to withdraw from the 17+1 format, China seemed to understand the situation and asked not to make it public. Lithuania agreed. However, Beijing continued to invite Lithuanian representatives to meetings and to display the Lithuanian flag at meetings without Vilnius.
According to the ambassador, the Chinese government did not honour its own commitment that membership of the format is voluntary, so Lithuania had no choice but to announce its withdrawal publicly, which it did in May 2021.
Immediately afterwards, the Lithuanian embassy in Beijing began to feel the consequences: cultural projects began to stagnate, Chinese party members refused to meet with the ambassador, students studying Lithuanian were denied access to the embassy’s cultural events, and galleries and private museums refused to work with the embassy, citing Lithuania’s inclusion on the list of unfriendly countries.
When Vilnius announced it was opening a Taiwanese mission, there was anger from Chinese officials. According to Mickevičienė, it was standard practice to allow sending countries to pick the name for their missions, which is why Lithuania agreed that it be called “Taiwanese” rather than “Taipei’s”. The name has particularly incensed Beijing, which claimed that it violates the “one China” principle.
The idea of a Taiwanese representative office was first discussed with Beijing, but its reaction was: “the others have made mistakes [by permitting Taiwanese office in their countries], but the Chinese would not allow [Lithuania] to make the same mistake”, said Mickevičienė.
“My government took it very seriously as something which was limiting our ability to operate as a sovereign country,” the diplomat said.
She stressed that the Taiwanese mission in Vilnius was not an embassy and therefore did not violate the “one China” principle.
“Even the Chinese side themselves admitted in their written and verbal communications that we violated the spirit, but not the letter of the commitment,” the ambassador pointed out.
Following the announcement of the opening of the representative office, many Lithuanian businesses exporting to China faced difficulties, a train from China to Lithuania was cancelled, Beijing unilaterally downgraded the status of diplomatic relations and recalled the ambassador.
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