Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has castigated fellow EU member states that do business with China, saying his own country is an example of surviving “without Russian gas and Chinese contracts”.
He made the remarks on Thursday after a meeting with United States Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell in Vilnius.
“As we see our partners and friends in Europe signing new contracts with China, we warn of the dangers of those contracts... We are an example that it is possible to survive without Russian gas and Chinese contracts,” the Lithuanian foreign minister told a press conference.
“Diversification, finding new partnerships, refusing to take the path of least resistance – [...] the long-term return is more sustainable and higher,” he added.
According to Landsbergis, the EU should have a common strategy towards China.
“As is often the case in Europe, 27 states create 27 different interests. Our opponents are able to exploit this,” he insisted.
Meanwhile, Campbell said that Lithuania was the country that had come under the most pressure from China when it allowed Taipei to open a representative office under the name of “Taiwan”.
“[Lithuania] has demonstrated resilience, diversified its economy, it has grown stronger through interaction with other partners. This is a Lithuanian set of actions which we deeply admire,” Campbell said.
According to him, Washington is deeply concerned about the growing cooperation between China and Russia.
“Our team is carrying a message of concern to Europe about increasing partnership between China and Russia. China’s support for Russian defence industrial base, its efforts behind the scenes to support Russia in its battlefield aims in Ukraine have been devastating and concerning,” Campbell said.
“It is a network that is growing more sophisticated, more clandestine, more worrisome to us. Our purpose in these engagements across Europe is to share information with partners,” he noted.
According to Campbell, the United States urges its European partners to publicly express their concerns about Sino-Russian cooperation and to bring them to the attention of their authorities.
“Sometimes when there is a dialogue between a European partner and China, simply mentioning the concern and then going right to ‘let’s sign the trade agreements’ send a mixed message,” he added.
Campbell is considered to be the architect of the current US administration's Indo-Pacific strategy.
This was the third bilateral meeting between Landsbergis and Campbell this year. The previous meeting was in July, when the Lithuanian minister was in Washington.
United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is currently visiting Poland.
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