Tiny country is causing global trouble for China

It has a population of just 2.8 million and the world’s 83rd largest economy, but this tiny nation is causing a huge headache for China.

How Lithuania is causing trouble for China’s relationship with Taiwan.

Big brothers hate little brothers with big mouths. Nowhere is that more evident than Beijing’s over-the-top reaction to criticism from tiny Lithuania.

It didn’t have to be this way.

China has a population of 1.4 billion. It is the world’s second-largest economy. It has the world’s largest navy. And it covers almost 9.6 million square kilometres.

Lithuania has a population of 2.8 million. It is the world’s 83rd largest economy. Its navy is mainly made up of a few minesweepers. It covers just 65,000 square kilometres.

Few paid attention when Lithuania’s government in capital Vilnius voiced its objections to Beijing’s repressive campaign against its Uighur population and coercive acts towards Taiwan.

It was a voice in the wilderness. Beijing could have ignored it. But it didn’t.

Instead, the authoritarian state brought the full force of economic coercion to bear. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) reacted with outrage to this minuscule defiance of its will.

And now it’s paying a global price.

Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda. Picture: Petras Malukas/AFP

China’s President Xi Jinping. Picture: World Economic Forum/AFP

On Friday, Lituania confirmed a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics amid concerns over the human rights situation surrounding of Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province. On Monday, the US followed and now the UK is considering it too.

Of wolf-warriors and attack clowns

Beijing’s wolf warrior diplomats howled at a Lithuanian trade delegation visiting Taiwan late last month. They called the delegates “paid political actors”.

It wasn’t just Lithuania. It was a delegation including the Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia.

None have significant economies. And their presence on the world stage is as tiny as their combined territory.

But Beijing sees their budding relationship with Taiwan as a severe threat. Worst of all, it makes self-governing Taiwan look like an independent state.

How much did you spend to invite these low-end European political actors? Poor Taiwan. Not sure if these people would buy some unsalable pineapples of the island with the money paid by Tsai.🤔 https://t.co/qZ3Pj2sg42

— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) November 29, 2021

“How much did you spend to invite these low-end European political actors?” declared Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin. “Poor Taiwan. Not sure if these people would buy some unsalable pineapples off the island with the money paid by Tsai [President Tsai Ing-wen].”

Lithuania bit back.

“Xi is sending his clowns to attack us,” retorted trade delegate and member of parliament Matas Maldeikis. “We should call China ‘The People’s Republic of Comedy’.”

Xi is sending his clowns to attack us 🤡 We should call China "The People's Republic of Comedy".#UnsaleablePineapples#PeoplesRepublicOfComedyhttps://t.co/xuFBizv9D9

— Matas Maldeikis MP 🇱🇹 (@MatasMaldeikis) November 30, 2021

“The editor of The Global Times says Lithuanians don’t want Taiwan’s pineapples. Fake news! I am Lithuanian, I am in Taiwan, and I want a pineapple,” he later added.

Hu, the hawkish chief of the Communist Party-controlled news service, had referenced a Chinese ban on importing Taiwanese pineapples.

Then Lithuania found itself erased from China’s customs check-in service.

Clash of narratives

Beijing has a strategic objective to “set and shape” global debate. It’s about “international discourse power” (huayu quan).

It injected Chairman Xi Jinping’s slogan “Ecological Civilisation” into the COP26 climate change conference. Phrases like “shared future”, “win-win co-operation” and “shared future for mankind” are being pushed into almost every international arena.

It’s also managed to sell its international investment activities as a “Belt and Road Initiative”.

“These events indicate that China is increasingly confident and capable in propagating terminology and vocabulary that carry normative impact,” argues London School of Economics research associate Hugo Jones. “Simply put, China’s discourse power shows signs of growth.”

Earlier this year, Chairman Xi urged his diplomats to sell an image of a more caring “loveable” China, and to “tell China’s story well”.

“This task is especially urgent given the prevalence of what has been termed “China threat” discourse – depictions painting China’s rise in a negative light,” Jones says.

The problem is, Xi’s diplomats are openly combative.

They’ve been finding their task of selling the “Chinese Dream” to a global audience tough going. And Beijing’s over-the-top reaction to Lithuania’s noncompliance may be a sign of increasing frustration.

China’s global image is collapsing. A Pew Research Centre survey from June found two-thirds of those surveyed in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, and the United States now have a negative opinion of Beijing. The European Union has labelled China as a “systemic rival”.

Beijing, however, appears to think might makes right.

“For now, China’s leaders appear to have decided that their new-found national strength, combined with the general malaise of the West, means that the rest of the world will have to adapt to Beijing’s preferences,” says Peter Martin, author of China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy.

The mouse that roared

Lithuania is China’s most loathed nation. For the moment.

In the past year, Vilnius has challenged Beijing over its treatment of the ethnic Uighurs. It’s decried the crackdown on Hong Kong’s democratic culture. It has challenged the use of economic coercion to shape European markets.

But Vilnius didn’t stop there.

Last month, it approved the opening of a Taiwanese Representative Office. That’s essentially a de facto embassy. However, Beijing was upset that the office included “Taiwan” in its name.

Staff at The Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania in November. Picture: Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs/AFP

Now Vilnius is spearheading a charge to boycott China’s upcoming Winter Olympics.

Its motives aren’t entirely selfless.

“By acting as the driving force behind anti-Chinese initiatives, Lithuania hopes to focus US attention on the region and procure guarantees that Washington will not scale back its presence in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States,” Carnegie Moscow analyst Denis Kishinevsky says.

And Beijing’s backlash has given Vilnius that, and more. Lithuania suddenly finds itself at the front of the world stage.

Meanwhile, China’s wolf warriors appear unable to adapt to the deteriorating situation.

Xi himself may be behind this.

“He has repeatedly instructed diplomats to defend China more aggressively, even crafting handwritten notes directing them to show more ‘fighting spirit’,” Martin says. “The message for any ambitious Chinese diplomat or propagandist is clear: To get ahead, it is important to match Xi’s assertive tone.”

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel