The “status quo” of the Taiwan Strait cannot be changed unilaterally, and “any eventual resolution must be found via diplomacy and dialogue,” a delegation comprising the heads of the Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian parliaments’ foreign affairs committees said yesterday
Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament, Zygimantas Pavilionis, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lithuanian Seimas, and Rihards Kols, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Latvian Saeima, arrived in Taiwan yesterday on a six-day visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Pavilionis called them the “Three Baltic Musketeers” in a tweet on X, announcing the start of their visit to the “beacon of freedom, democracy, human rights & rules-based order.”
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Kols described the trip as a “fact-finding mission/visit” that would focus on security and defense, business, cultural ties and economic partnerships.
“The visit shows a shared policy in relations with Taiwan in accordance with EU policy,” the Estonian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee said in a news release on Saturday.
The three “underline that the status quo in the Taiwan Strait cannot be changed unilaterally, and they oppose the use or threat of force. Any eventual resolution must be found via diplomacy and dialogue,” it said.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Taiwan Presidential Office
In other developments, Lithuanian lawmaker Matas Maldeikis told the Voice of America that Taiwan would ultimately benefit from Lithuania’s success in resisting Chinese economic coercion and political bullying.
“Lithuania was well aware that it would pay a huge price for supporting Taiwan, including commercial losses, but it will not compromise with the [Chinese] Communist Party,” Maldeikis was quoted as saying in a report published in Chinese on Saturday.
“In the long run, the biggest winner from what is happening here [in Europe] is Taiwan,” he said.
In 2021, Taiwan opened the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania in the capital, Vilnius, using the name “Taiwanese” with the permission of Lithuania, instead of “Taipei,” which most countries use for fear of provoking Beijing.
China then imposed economic sanctions on Lithuania, downgraded diplomatic ties between them and withdrew its ambassador from Vilnius, while demanding the European country do the same.
Beijing envisioned a quick win, believing that the Lithuanian government would cave in or make concessions, Maldeikis told the Voice of America.
“The result was unexpected,” he added.
NATO held a summit in Vilnius last month and Lithuania’s exports grew 45 percent in a year and a half after China imposed the sanctions, Maldeikis said.
Lithuania showed other nations that by disobeying China a country can still win, he said.
“We will not sell ourselves out for the Chinese market, nor will we deceive ourselves and others by saying that nothing happened to sell products to the Chinese market,” he said.
Lithuanians standing up to Beijing “forces the EU to stop hiding behind diplomatic, but sometimes meaningless rhetoric when it comes to the situation in the Taiwan Strait,” Una Aleksandra Berzina-Cerenkova, director of Riga Stradins University’s China Studies Centre, said in the Voice of America piece.
The “wolf-warrior diplomacy” practiced by China over the past few years has fueled resentment among Lithuanians, Maldeikis said.
Under the leadership of the US, a new wave of support for Taiwan has emerged in the international community, he said.
In Lithuania, taking a supportive stance toward Taiwan and a firm stance against China helps win votes for politicians, he said.
However, relations between Taiwan and Lithuania sparked controversy last month when Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) said that Taiwan provided funds and technology to produce 8-inch silicon wafers in Lithuania to cultivate ties.
Representative to Lithuania Eric Huang (黃鈞耀) told the Voice of America that it was a mutually beneficial program with funding provided by both sides.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’