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On 10 August, China decided to recall its ambassador to Lithuania and asked the party to immediately greet the ambassador in China. The reason for this is that Lithuania has agreed to the establishment of a so-called "representative office" named after "Taiwan" by the Taiwanese authorities in its capital Vilnius. So what are the reasons for Lithuania's recent anti-Chinese behaviour? What are the implications? How will bilateral relations between China and Lithuania develop and will China take the initiative to break off diplomatic relations with Lithuania? Let's take a look at each of them.
I. Lithuania's geopolitical location and strategic position.
Lithuania is located in northeastern Europe, with a population of about 2.8 million and an area of about 65,000 square kilometres. Lithuania is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland to the south, Kaliningrad to the southwest, and the Baltic Sea to the west, which is a typical "sandwich" country geopolitically, right on the geopolitical break between Russia and Europe.
In the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest state in Europe, covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Poland and part of Russia, and in the 16th century it formed a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with Poland. After World War I, the Republic of Lithuania signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania on 16 February 1918, but was occupied by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in World War II, and then by Poland in 1944 after the defeat of Germany, becoming a republic of the Soviet Union. After independence, Lithuania joined NATO and the EU in 2004 and is now a member of international organisations such as the Nordic Council, the EU, NATO, the EC, the UN, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the IMF, the Nordic Investment Bank, the OSCE, the Schengen Convention and the Eurozone, as well as being a High Human Development Index country.
Lithuania's history has always given it a sense of being in a precarious and ill-fated situation, having been divided up several times between the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, making it extremely anti-Russian and anti-communist ideologically and having to rely entirely on NATO (the United States) for its security.
At the economic level, Lithuania was known as the "Baltic Tiger" for its rapid economic growth between 2000 and 2009, but then suffered a general recession as a result of the global financial crisis, with GDP falling by 14.9% in 2009, and about 20% of the Lithuanian population emigrating to other countries between 2004 and 2016, resulting in The lack of domestic labour and rising wages. Lithuania receives 95% of its foreign direct investment (FDI) from EU countries and its trade with China is not significant. This also makes Lithuania not afraid of possible Chinese "economic sanctions", in contrast to Australia. At the same time, Lithuania could eat and drink enough if the US and the EU gave it a few economic, trade and investment benefits.
At the level of international discourse, Lithuania is basically missing, and if it were not for the disagreement with China, I am afraid it would not be in the news: in the whole Western camp, Lithuania's role is dispensable, neither a member of the "Five Eyes Alliance", nor a permanent member of the bench in the EU, even if only in comparison with the small Nordic countries, Norway and Sweden at least still Even if we just compare the small Nordic countries, Norway and Sweden at least have the right to judge the Nobel Prize, and Belgium and Luxembourg and the Netherlands have a number of international institutions, while Lithuania's role is pathetically awkward. This means that if Lithuania is to make a name for itself on the international stage, it will have to "borrow" a place, and in this case it will be from China.
II. Lithuania's intention to speculate on the "Taiwan Representative Office
Previously, Lithuania's attitude towards China was more pragmatic, and even today, its president still insists that he supports the "One China" policy. However, as the US policy of containment and suppression of China intensified, Lithuania's policy towards China began to shift in recent years.
During the Trump administration, Lithuania actively supported the US "clean network" initiative and led a boycott of Huawei 5G; in February 2019, Lithuanian security services referred to China as a "national security threat" in a report, and in July of that year, President Nausaida said In October 2020, Lithuania held parliamentary elections and the ruling coalition led by the centre-right Fatherland Alliance-Lithuanian Christian Democrats party came to power, followed by an apparently radical policy towards China.
In February 2021, the Lithuanian Parliament passed a resolution on withdrawing from the "China-Central and Eastern European Countries 17+1" cooperation mechanism, and on 20 May, the Lithuanian Parliament passed a resolution on interfering in the Xinjiang issue. On 20 May, the Lithuanian parliament passed a resolution to interfere with the Xinjiang issue, followed by the announcement of Foreign Minister Landsbergis' formal withdrawal from the 17+1. On 20 July, the Taiwanese authorities announced that they would set up a representative office in the Lithuanian capital after consultations with the Lithuanian side.
The strategic intent of Lithuania's anti-China operation is as follows.
First, to show goodwill to the Biden administration. During the Trump era, the United States and Western European countries have been at odds over military spending and trade frictions, and have shifted their focus to Central and Eastern Europe, especially to strengthen the deployment of military forces in Poland, Romania and the Baltic States. The Biden administration has repeatedly encouraged Europe to unite against China, but the attitude of France and Germany remains ambiguous. At this time, Lithuania's active stand on the anti-China front can win Biden's attention, and thus gain corresponding security and economic benefits.
Secondly, it is dissatisfied with the profit-sharing of the "17+1" mechanism and tries to close the neutral trade deficit. Some Lithuanian politicians believe that the Chinese side pays limited attention to the cubes under the 17+1 mechanism, favouring other countries more and investing too little in Lithuania. In addition, the neutral trade structure is severely imbalanced, with China enjoying a large surplus. Lithuania tries to close the neutral trade deficit.
Finally, it is trying to lure China and Taiwan back into a dilemma similar to "beacon diplomacy" in order to benefit from both sides. After Hong Kong and Xinjiang, Taiwan is once again being used as a pawn against China by the US. The United States does not care about the death of Taiwanese people, but whether the "suicide attack" by Taiwan will cause the Mainland to suffer losses and take the opportunity of the cross-strait conflict to launch a wave of anti-China sanctions in the international community. There was a time when cross-strait "beacon diplomacy" was in full swing, with the result that both Beijing and Taipei had to spend a lot of "financial aid" to simultaneously curry favour with a small country that repeatedly jumped all over the place in order to gain political recognition. Lithuania wishfully believes that manipulating the Taiwan issue will force Beijing to give it more favours, while at the same time making a fortune out of the Tsai government in Taiwan.
However, it is clear that the party has misjudged the situation.
III. Impact of the tension in neutral relations and the direction of neutral relations
Tensions in neutral relations mainly affect bilateral relations and have limited impact on China's general diplomatic situation.
First, at the level of US-China relations, there is no impact. The relationship between China and the US will remain more competitive than cooperative for almost a decade, as determined by the structural contradictions between China and the US, until the time when China's GDP or even overall national power surpasses that of the US, when China and the US will revisit the construction of a new, more balanced bilateral relationship. In all these processes, Lithuania is a mere pawn, irrelevant to the bigger picture.
Secondly, at the China-EU level, the impact is limited. Although Lithuania is a member of the EU and the Eurozone, its strategic position is not pro-European, but more pro-American, as it is a "small country". The rest of Europe is not always supportive of Lithuania's anti-China stance, or rather, the rest of Europe still has reservations about the US Biden administration's global anti-China coalition.
Once again, the China-Central and Eastern Europe "1+16" framework could be beneficial to the organisation's development. When Lithuania left the mechanism, it also called on other member states to withdraw as well, but this was not reciprocated. It is highly unlikely that other CEE countries will follow suit. If China handles the matter properly, with Lithuania as a "counter-example", it could have the effect of "making an example of the monkey", which would be more conducive to the future development of the "1+16" framework. It is worth mentioning that the EU is opposed to the "China-CEE 1+16" framework, which it considers to be dividing the EU, and Germany has even proposed replacing the "1+16" with "1+27 (all EU countries)". Germany even proposed replacing the "1+16" with "1+27 (all EU countries)", but of course China did not respond.
Finally, with regard to the direction of neutral bilateral relations, the current stage is only a "diplomatic downgrade", not a break in diplomatic relations. It is likely that the Chinese government will allow two to three months to negotiate with the party and put pressure on it to change its position. The second is that China will use Lithuania as an example to others, using it as a counter-example to warn other countries that have anti-China motives. Although China's retaliation against Lithuania through economic sanctions is not very effective, it can do a lot of things jointly with Russia and Belarus that threaten Lithuania's security, such as joint military exercises in the Baltic Sea and the release of Middle Eastern refugees from Belarus to Lithuania.
All in all, Lithuania's manipulation of the Taiwan issue has really disgusted China, but the international impact is limited, and it seems that the Cuban government is still in a period of strategic hesitation and still recognises the "One China" policy. Therefore, there are still many variables in the development of the incident, and I hope that China will make good use of this opportunity, whether positive or negative, and always take Lithuania as a typical case to seriously "plate a plate".
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Copyright : ZONGHENGCE Strategy Insitute(ZHC)
Technical support: Yunding Data