Lithuania’s new PM says allowing Taiwan’s de-facto embassy was ‘maybe too brave’

VILNIUS, July 14 (Reuters) – New Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius said on Tuesday the 2021 decision to allow Taiwan to open a de-facto embassy in the country was “maybe too brave” as he sought to repair relations with China on his first day in the job.

China downgraded its diplomatic relations with Lithuania in late 2021 after the European Union and NATO nation of 2.9 million people let Taiwan open a “Taiwanese” representative office on its soil. The move has also hit trade ties.

The manifesto of the government of Sinkevicius, which was voted through on Tuesday, clearing the way for him to become prime minister, includes the goal to “normalise” the relationship back to appointing each others’ ambassadors.

Beijing views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory with no right to set up such offices in countries with which China has formal ties.

Countries such as Australia, Britain and the United States host offices that are usually known as “Taipei” representative offices, which avoids the implication of statehood and sovereignty. 

“We want a return to how it was. We’ve had a long-term relationship with China, and then there were these political decisions – brave ones, maybe too brave, maybe standing out from the context,” Sinkevicius told parliament as he answered questions before Tuesday’s vote, referring to Taiwanese representation. 

“We want same relationship level as the rest of Europe.”

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said that Taiwan and Lithuania continued to deepen bilateral relations since establishing representative offices, and that their cooperation remained “unaffected by any third party.”

“The Taiwanese government and the new Lithuanian government will actively discuss cooperation plans in areas such as trade, economy, and investment to jointly achieve mutually beneficial and prosperous outcomes and strengthen the resilience of democratic economies,” the ministry said in a statement to Reuters. 

Since the Taiwanese representation was opened in 2021, China has pressured a multinational company working in China to sever ties with Lithuania, and has closed its market to Lithuanian products including beef and dairy, resulting in a World Trade Organization challenge by the European Union.

The EU has also adopted an “anti-coercion instrument” which allows the bloc to retaliate against third countries that put economic pressure on its member countries to force a policy shift.

Sinkevicius told reporters he believed the relationship with China could be restored without a change in the Taiwanese representation. “The Foreign Ministry has several options on how to solve the situation”, he said, without detailing the options.

In February, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said “the door for communication” between the countries was open, but called on Lithuania to “translate its willingness to improve bilateral relations into concrete actions, and promptly rectify its error”.

The government’s manifesto also pledged to keep defence spending above 5% of GDP and to seek a continued U.S. troop presence in the Baltic nation as a deterrent against Russia, while continuing to support Ukraine.

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Alison Williams and Raju Gopalakrishnan)