Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė said Wednesday she sees no reason why Taiwan’s representative office in Vilnius could not be renamed after the island’s capital, Taipei, signalling openness to adjusting a move that triggered a diplomatic rift with China.
“I don’t see any reasons why, for example, it could not be called the Taipei Representative Office. That would not deny our support for democratic processes,” Ruginienė told reporters at the government. “We support democracy and freedom in Belarus, in Ukraine and other countries, and likewise in Taiwan.”
China considers self-ruled Taiwan part of its territory and has vowed to reunify the island with the mainland, by force if necessary. Beijing insists other countries adhere to the “one China” policy when developing ties with Taipei.
Ruginienė said renaming the office would not be a quick decision and would require coordination with strategic partners.
“I don’t see a major problem [with renaming the office], but this is not a five-minute decision. Such a question should be coordinated with strategic partners and discussed more broadly. But the fact that we rushed is a fact,” she said.
Last week, Ruginienė told BNS that Lithuania had “jumped in front of a train and lost” by allowing the office to open under the name “Taiwanese Representative Office” in 2021 without coordinating with the European Union and the United States.
China has urged Lithuania to correct what Beijing calls mistakes in developing ties with Taiwan as a precondition for normalising bilateral relations.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry, for its part, has said Taipei is not discussing any change to the name of its representative office in Lithuania and continues to promote cooperation with Vilnius in the fields of lasers, semiconductors and finance.
Ruginienė stressed that opening the office itself was not a mistake.
“It was not the opening of the office, because other EU countries have done that as well. But standing out from the context, knowing that the name would cause consequences, was a hasty step that I think we could correct it,” she said.
The prime minister said Lithuania’s foreign policy should focus on national interests rather than what she described as “supposed values”.
“We must finally return to the roots, and decisions taken by those in power must be directed exclusively toward the interests of this country and the people living in it,” Ruginienė said.
“For too long we have been talking empty talk about various supposed or imagined values and completely unrelated things, without thinking about what is beneficial to this country and its people,” she added.
Vilnius and Beijing have for several years disagreed over how to restore diplomatic representation after the dispute over the office’s name. Since mid-May last year, there have been no accredited Chinese diplomats or other staff in Lithuania. Bilateral trade also dropped sharply after the office opened in 2021.
Ruginienė’s government program includes a pledge to “restore diplomatic relations with China to the same diplomatic level as in other European Union member states”.
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