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Lithuania, a member country of the European Union, has strengthened its relationship with Taiwan, causing misgivings in Beijing. The Government of Taiwan, an island that China considers part of its territory, has opened a representative office in Vilnius. In response, China withdrew its ambassador to Lithuania and since then trade between the two countries has been on the decline. Latvia and Estonia for their part announced their withdrawal from a forum backed by the Asian giant. What do they risk by challenging China?
In defense of Lithuania, the European Union accused China of “discriminatory practices” for refusing to import Lithuanian goods. Given that the situation did not improve, Brussels decided to sue China before the World Trade Organization and to establish this demand it had the unanimous support of the 27 EU countries.
Lithuania was removed from the Chinese customs clearance system. Beijing also suspended freight trains bound for the Baltic and said Lithuania’s withdrawal from the customs system was due to a mistake, but also closed lines of credit for Lithuanian companies. The result of all these measures was a 91% drop in Lithuanian imports to China.
The final blow was the sanction imposed by Beijing on the Lithuanian Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications for having paid a visit to Taiwan.
In recent days, Latvia and Estonia announced their withdrawal from a China-backed forum. This forum was created to promote relations between Eastern European countries and China. But the decision of these last two countries to withdraw and the tension with Lithuania seems to represent a new setback in Chinese diplomacy.
The governments of Riga and Tallinn argued that their withdrawal is due to the fact that China has strengthened its relations with Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine has been interpreted in the Baltic States as the first step in a series of actions against countries that were once part of the sovietic Union.
China has not criticized Russia or condemned its actions in Ukraine, but it has disapproved of the economic sanctions imposed by Europe and the United States on Moscow. At what price are the Baltic States challenging China? We analyze it in this edition of El Debate together with our guests:
– Patricio Giusto, political consultant, director of the Sino-Argentine Observatory and professor of the postgraduate course on contemporary China at the Argentine Catholic University.
– Andrés Serbin, doctor in Political Sciences, international analyst and president of the regional think tank CRIES.
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