Extreme anti-China brewing bitter fruit, Lithuania suffered heavy losses, wanted to restore relations with China, but refused to apologize. What kind of losses did extreme anti-China cause to Lithuania? What is the reason for its complex mentality of wanting to restore relations with China, but never wanting to apologize?
Recently, the chairman of the Democratic Union of Lithuania "For Lithuania" and a member of parliament, Lyus Skvernellis, said that Lithuania needs to normalize relations with China, "not basically without diplomatic relations as it is now", but must do so in a way that prevents Lithuania from being humiliated.
You know, since 2021, Lithuania changed the name of the "Taipei" office of the Taiwan authorities to the so-called "Taiwan Representative Office", which has aroused strong dissatisfaction in Chinese mainland. Subsequently, China not only withdrew its ambassador to Lithuania and expelled Lithuania's ambassador to China, but also downgraded neutral relations to the level of chargé d'affaires, while comprehensively restricting tourism, diplomacy and economic and trade exchanges between the two sides. This series of measures has undoubtedly put Lithuania's economy under great pressure.
After that, the Lithuania government had no remorse and resolutely chose a path close to United States and alienated from China. Not only did it withdraw from the "17+1" cooperation mechanism between China and Central European countries, which is beneficial to both sides, but it also made negative remarks against China on many international occasions, and even blindly followed United States on sensitive issues such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict to make groundless accusations against China. This series of actions further deteriorated the relations between the two countries, resulting in the relationship between the two countries almost in a state of "severance of diplomatic relations".
More crucially, the economic benefits lost from China have not been Lithuania regained from United States. On the contrary, after shouting for the United States, Lithuania's domestic economic situation is getting worse and worse, which makes the Lithuania government have to start reflecting on the serious consequences of the deterioration of relations with China and try to restore lost economic and trade opportunities by improving relations.
Therefore, in May this year, Lithuania President Nauseda took a key step to improve relations with China, showing his willingness to ease relations between the two countries. He said that he would consider changing the name of the "Representative Office in Lithuania Taiwan" to adopt the expression "Taipei" instead of "Taiwan" in line with international practice.
However, this alone is not enough, and Lithuania's previous collusion with the Taiwan authorities seriously violated the one-China principle. At such a critical moment, Lithuania has shown a complicated mentality. In his statement, Svernellis stressed that the diplomatic impasse between Lithuania and China has been going on for a long time, and this near-severance is not beneficial to both countries.
But at the same time, Skvernellis made it clear that Lithuania will not accept "reconciliation at the expense of national dignity", that is, the so-called "kneeling before China and apologizing for its transgressions." In addition, he reiterated Lithuania's position on the Taiwan issue and stressed that Lithuania will not do anything that could be regarded as "humiliating" the Taiwan authorities. This statement not only reflects Lithuania's tangled mentality, but also shows that it still harbors unrealistic illusions about interfering in the Taiwan Strait and supporting "Taiwan independence."
In fact, Lithuania knows very well that the sharp decline in neutral relations is due to the intensification of Lithuania's anti-China road, which has caused Lithuania's economy to suffer a major blow in recent years, and its pillar industry, logistics and transportation, has suffered a heavy blow. Under these circumstances, it is obviously unrealistic for Lithuania to want to be forgiven by China, but it is unwilling to take practical action.
As Svernellis himself said, any repair of relations needs to be based on mutual respect and dialogue on an equal footing. If Lithuania sincerely hopes to restore relations with China, it should face up to and correct its erroneous behavior on Taiwan-related issues and show its sincerity in respecting China's sovereignty and territorial integrity with concrete actions. Only in this way can the relations between the two countries usher in a turning point.