Lithuania has become the only EU country to publicly endorse a controversial US visit to Taiwan by House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Now speaker Pelosi has opened the door to Taiwan much wider, I am sure other defenders of freedom and democracy will be walking through very soon,” Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Twitter on Tuesday (2 August).
He spoke out as Pelosi’s plane touched down the same day in Taipei, where she met with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday to voice US solidarity.
“I think they made a big fuss because I’m speaker — I don’t know whether that’s the reason or an excuse. Because they didn’t say anything when the men came,” Pelosi told press, referring to a visit by six male US lawmakers in April.
The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, earlier warned Pelosi that she was “playing with fire”.
The Chinese military scrambled jets and warships in snap military drills in the region.
And the Chinese foreign ministry warned: “No country, no forces and no individual should ever misestimate the firm resolve, strong will and great capability of the Chinese government and people to defend state sovereignty and territorial integrity and to achieve national reunification”.
Lithuania already attracted Chinese fury, including trade sanctions, last year by letting Taiwan open a quasi-embassy in Vilnius and by sending ministers and MPs on visits to Taipei.
MEPs have also defied China by going to Taipei last November and in July this year. And Landsbergis’ comment on “other defenders of freedom” pointed to a planned future visit by the British parliament’s foreign-affairs committee.
Meanwhile, EU-China relations have also frayed over Beijing’s political support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and over Chinese abuse of its Uighur minority.
Behind the EU silence on Pelosi’s visit, “there was apprehension in European capitals that one of China’s possible responses … may be an acceleration in the level of its cooperation with Moscow,” Jonathan Eyal, from British defence think-tank Rusi, wrote in an op-ed in The Straits Times newspaper.
2 comments
1
Lithuania has become the only EU country to publicly endorse a controversial US visit to Taiwan by House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Now speaker Pelosi has opened the door to Taiwan much wider, I am sure other defenders of freedom and democracy will be walking through very soon,” Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Twitter on Tuesday (2 August).
He spoke out as Pelosi’s plane touched down the same day in Taipei, where she met with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday to voice US solidarity.
“I think they made a big fuss because I’m speaker — I don’t know whether that’s the reason or an excuse. Because they didn’t say anything when the men came,” Pelosi told press, referring to a visit by six male US lawmakers in April.
The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, earlier warned Pelosi that she was “playing with fire”.
The Chinese military scrambled jets and warships in snap military drills in the region.
And the Chinese foreign ministry warned: “No country, no forces and no individual should ever misestimate the firm resolve, strong will and great capability of the Chinese government and people to defend state sovereignty and territorial integrity and to achieve national reunification”.
Lithuania already attracted Chinese fury, including trade sanctions, last year by letting Taiwan open a quasi-embassy in Vilnius and by sending ministers and MPs on visits to Taipei.
MEPs have also defied China by going to Taipei last November and in July this year. And Landsbergis’ comment on “other defenders of freedom” pointed to a planned future visit by the British parliament’s foreign-affairs committee.
Meanwhile, EU-China relations have also frayed over Beijing’s political support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and over Chinese abuse of its Uighur minority.
Behind the EU silence on Pelosi’s visit, “there was apprehension in European capitals that one of China’s possible responses … may be an acceleration in the level of its cooperation with Moscow,” Jonathan Eyal, from British defence think-tank Rusi, wrote in an op-ed in The Straits Times newspaper.
Brave Lithuanians!