Lithuania defies China over Taiwan ties in new Asia strategy

The European Union’s biggest China hawk isn’t backing down.

As Lithuania prepares to host the NATO leaders’ summit in less than a week, a new government strategy on the Indo-Pacific region published on Wednesday reinforces the Baltic country’s decision to build strong economic ties with Taiwan, in defiance of intense pressure from China to change course.

The new document — which calls Taiwan’s trade ties one of its “strategic priorities” — comes as Brussels and Beijing enter a new phase of tension over trade. The Netherlands recently decided to block exports of advanced semiconductor machines to China, prompting Beijing to roll out export controls on critical minerals.

Going further than the EU’s mildly critical language, Lithuania’s strategy describes China as a “global economic and military power that has consolidated ever-intensifying autocratic control methods domestically and is exercising an increasingly aggressive foreign policy aimed at projecting its power externally.”

The Baltic nation is engaged in a serious trade and geopolitical dispute with Beijing. Lithuania became the first member to drop out of the China-led 17+1 grouping for mainly ex-Soviet nations, before allowing a new Taiwan trade office to be set up in Vilnius in 2021. In response, China targeted Lithuania with economic bullying tactics, which subsequently forced the EU to adopt a new anti-coercion trade weapon.

According to the strategy, issued by Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Beijing’s coercion has not worked.

“Unsuccessful attempts by China to exert economic and diplomatic pressure on Lithuania proves that a country can withstand economic blackmail if it has built up societal resilience and has reliable partners,” it says.

Taiwan is a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own. A world leader in advanced microchips, Taiwan is critical to meeting many Western economic and military needs.

“Lithuania is seeking to enhance practical cooperation with Taiwan, a likeminded democracy, and an important economic and technological partner in the region,” the strategy document says. “The development of economic relations with Taiwan is one of Lithuania’s strategic priorities and a part of its economic diversification policy.”

It stresses adherence to the “One China policy,” under which countries recognize the People’s Republic of China and do not have diplomatic ties with the authorities of Taiwan.

But the document continues: “Military support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine or using force or coercion to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait are red lines.”

Lithuania, which has stepped up strategic coordination on China policy with the U.S. over the past two years, warns that Beijing is prepared to utilize “economic, political, diplomatic, and other types of coercion” to achieve its goals.

“It is crucial to work with Indo-Pacific societies in order to curtail the spread of Russian disinformation bolstered by China and China’s informational pressure against Taiwan,” it adds.