China’s bullying is a warning to Europe, says Lithuania

Lithuania has accused China of launching a ‘co-ordinated’ economic attack on its businesses as a warning to the rest of Europe not to side with Taiwan.

The relationship has fallen to a nadir in recent weeks after Lithuania permitted Taiwan to open a quasi-diplomatic office in Vilnius. Picture: AFP

Lithuania has accused China of launching a “co-ordinated” economic attack on its businesses as a warning to the rest of Europe not to side with Taiwan.

Lithuanian firms say they have been locked out of the Chinese market, with other European companies coming under pressure to drop their products, after the Baltic state strengthened its ties with the self-ruling island.

“The reaction from Beijing has been extraordinary,” said Gabrielius Landsbergis, 39, the Lithuanian Foreign Minister.

“We’ve never seen anything like it before. Maybe it’s trying to teach (Europe) a lesson so that nobody would follow in our footsteps, or it wants to show that it has weapons of economic coercion that the West didn’t think China had, or was ready to use.”

Relations between the two ­nations have deteriorated sharply since 2019, when Lithuania identified China as a threat in its annual national security report and President Gitanas Nauseda, 57, criticised Chinese attempts to buy a stake in Klaipeda, the country’s largest port.

After further friction over China’s suppression of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, Lithuania pulled out of the 17+1 club, set up to channel Chinese investment into central and eastern Europe. It was also one of only a handful of countries to challenge a World Health Organisation study dismissing the possibility that Covid-19 had leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan.

Later, its MPs passed a motion condemning China’s persecution of the Uighur minority.

The relationship has fallen to a nadir in recent weeks after Lithuania permitted Taiwan to open a quasi-diplomatic office in Vilnius, the capital. China regards the island as a renegade province and plans to bring it under its direct control, by force if necessary.

The director of The Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania, Eric Huang, third from right, with staff members Vilnius. Picture: AFP

It was the first time Taiwan had established a representative office in a European country under its own name rather than that of its capital Taipei, the term preferred by China.

Since then, Lithuanian companies say they have encountered “technical errors” when they try to register shipments to and from China. At least 60 firms have also been quietly cut adrift by their ­European partners under pressure from Beijing, according to Vidmantas Janulevicius, head of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists.

Last month, the German-­Baltic Chamber of Commerce warned that German investors might be forced to shut their factories in Lithuania unless there was a “constructive solution” to the stand-off.

The BDI, the largest German business group, said the measures amounted to a “trade boycott”.

China insists the claims that Lithuanian products have been frozen out of its market are “completely groundless”. Wang Weidong, with the Chinese embassy in Germany, said: “The Lithuanian side needs to look for internal reasons if co-operation between the two countries encounters difficulties. It needs to admit wrongdoings and take measures to rectify (them).”

Trade with China accounts for barely 1 per cent of Lithuania’s GDP, but the broader supply chain problems are painful for a country where exports make up nearly three quarters of the economy. Mr Janulevicius said the effects were hitting almost every sector.

“We need to find some compromise,” he added. “We’re a democratic country. We have this spirit of wanting to be free, which is why I think the support for Taiwan is quite strong. We support our government but we really need to find a balance between the economy and keeping our democratic way of being.”

The German business lobby has criticised China’s conduct as a “devastating own goal” – but, significantly, it also suggested that Lithuania should dial down its commitment to Taiwan and bring itself back into line with the rest of Europe.

The Times