As Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu is visiting Lithuania this week, conspicuously absent from the schedule is a meeting with his Lithuanian counterpart. The latter insists it does not represent a shift from Vilnius’ pro-Taiwan policies.
On Thursday, Wu met with Lithuanian Parliament Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen and also held a meeting with other lawmakers.
“It is two good friends meeting with each other and sharing all kinds of things about bilateral relations. It was wonderful,” Wu told reporters.
Speaking with BNS, Čmilytė-Nielsen, who has recently visited Taiwan herself, thanked the minister for the warm welcome she received in Taipei.
“We discussed ways to further step up economic cooperation and support for Ukraine,” she said.
Wu also met with members of the parliamentary group for relations with Taiwan.
However, he is not meeting with his Lithuanian counterpart Gabrielius Landsbergis.
Lithuania’s current government has declared it is pursuing a “values-based” foreign policy, one of the key tenets of which has been striking closer ties with Taiwan. The island opened a representation office in Vilnius a year ago, triggering a diplomatic stand-off with Beijing which accused Lithuania of violating the one-China principle and subjected it to undeclared trade sanctions.
“Lithuania has a policy, a clear direction and that’s all I have to say on the matter,” Landsbergis told reporters on Thursday, asked why he is not meeting Wu.
Landsbergis said that he did not coordinate with Western partners about whether to meet with Wu.
“There is one-China policy that is often commented on and that defines the level of official communication [with Taiwan]. It has some room for manoeuvre. And it must have. That is why we insist that these are not, as colleagues call them, one-China principles, but a one-China policy that is set by each country,” Landsbergis said.
“For the most part, it is synchronised among Western countries. In other words, that we have an adequate framework within which we formulate that policy. The visiting guest is not from a country with which Lithuania has diplomatic relations. Nor is it from a country with which our closest partners would have diplomatic relations,” the Lithuanian foreign minister added.
According to him, Lithuania never intended to start diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The Taiwanese Representative Office in Vilnius does not represent a change of that policy.
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