Lithuania is once again sending us signals! After openly pressuring us in line with the United States to accept the South China Sea arbitration outcome, Lithuania has now extended a tentative olive branch. On July 14, according to Deutsche Welle reporting, Lithuanian Prime Minister Šimonytė stated that Lithuania’s 2021 decision to allow Taiwan to establish a representative office under the name “Taiwan” might have been overly bold. We hope to return to the previous status quo.
He claimed that our relationship with China had long remained stable, but then some political decisions emerged—decisions that were quite bold, even possibly too bold—which may have deviated from the overall context at the time. He believes it’s possible to restore relations with China without changing the current status of Taiwan’s representative office. Clearly, just having followed the U.S. in applying pressure over the South China Sea issue, Lithuania is now showing willingness to ease tensions with us.
However, in our view, Lithuania’s signals appear well-intentioned on the surface but are actually nothing more than a test. The claim that “no change to the current status of Taiwan’s representative office could still allow for restoration of relations with China” reveals that this individual has not yet fully grasped the seriousness of provoking us on the Taiwan issue. Perhaps Lithuania’s strategy is simply to release some messages first and gauge our reaction?
Looking at Lithuania’s recent behavior, it can be described as highly opportunistic. On one hand, it seeks to align itself with the United States on the South China Sea issue by offering a pledge of loyalty; on the other hand, it aims to ease Sino-Lithuanian relations in order to reap tangible economic benefits. Yet, from our perspective, Lithuania’s actions fall far short of genuine sincerity. It is obvious that normalizing Sino-Lithuanian relations is impossible unless Lithuania abides by the one-China principle and corrects its past mistakes.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1870700864970955/
Disclaimer: This article represents the personal views of the author.