The US and Germany on Wednesday backed Lithuania in its spat with China, saying the pressure exerted by Beijing against the tiny Baltic nation was unwarranted, while China yesterday countered that Washington was using Vilnius and Taipei “to contain” Beijing.
Lithuania last year let the Taiwanese office in Vilnius bear the name “Taiwanese,” instead of “Taipei,” which many countries use to avoid offending Beijing.
Lithuania’s move infuriated Beijing, which withdrew its ambassador to Vilnius and expelled the Lithuanian ambassador to Beijing.
Photo: AP
“We have immediate concern about the government of China’s attempts to bully Lithuania, a country of fewer than 3 million people,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after a meeting in Washington with his German counterpart.
Blinken said that China had been pushing European and US companies to stop building products with components made in Lithuania or risk losing access to the Chinese market.
“This isn’t just about Lithuania, but about how every country in the world should be able to determine its own foreign policy free from this kind of coercion,” he said, adding that the US would work with its allies to diversify supply chains and counter “all forms of economic blackmail.”
German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock said that “we as Europeans stand in solidarity at Lithuania’s side.”
US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) told Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis during a call on Wednesday that the Baltic nation had Washington’s support to counter what they called China’s “economic coercion.”
The two officials pointed out that the US and the EU “as democratic market economies, share a number of core values and principles that we need to defend internationally.”
Lithuania faces unofficial trade hurdles with China, which denies it is blocking the nation’s exports. The EU has raised the issue with the WTO.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) said Washington was using the Baltic state to “use Taiwan to contain China.”
“The US side has defended Lithuania’s erroneous act of creating ‘one China, one Taiwan,’ and attempted to put together a small clique condoning the Taiwan independence forces,” Wang said at a daily briefing.
Wang also blasted Taiwan’s move to create a US$200 million investment fund for Lithuania to offset China’s economic reprisals as “dollar diplomacy,” adding that “soliciting foreign support to Taiwan independence will only lead to a dead end.”
Taiwan said it is ready to help Lithuania in resupplying trade.
“There are more than 120 sea containers — at least 1.5 million euros [US$1.69 million] worth — blocked by Beijing. We’re ready to take all of those and help Lithuanian companies,” Representative to Lithuania Eric Huang (黃鈞耀) said.
Presidential Office spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka on Wednesday announced the fund on Twitter.
“The way to confront bullying is not to give up, it’s to work together,” she wrote.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS