China fumes and recalls its envoy to Lithuania over Taiwan controversy
DHARAMSALA, 11 Aug: Reacting furiously over Lithuania’s decision to allow Taiwan to open a diplomatic office in the country, China has recalled its own ambassador from the baltic country and demanded that Lithuania recall its Beijing envoy.
Taiwan and Lithuania agreed last month that the self-ruled island’s new mission in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania will be called the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania rather than Chinese Taipei much to the dismay of Beijing.
The Office set to open this fall would mark the first time the island’s name has been used for one of its offices in Europe.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has reacted furiously on Tuesday issuing a statement that declared that Lithuania has violated the one china policy with warning of potential consequences.
“The Chinese government expresses its categorical opposition to this move. China has decided to recall its ambassador to Lithuania and demanded the Lithuanian government recall its ambassador to China,” read the statement issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
“The Chinese side warns the Lithuanian side that there is only one China in the world and the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China. We urge the Lithuanian side to immediately rectify its wrong decision, take concrete measures to undo the damage, and not to move further down the wrong path,” it occluded.
Meanwhile, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry has expressed regret over China’s actions and stated that it respects Beijing’s “one China principle” and that it also “stands ready to develop mutually beneficial ties with Taiwan, just as many other countries in the world do.”
Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Joanne has commended “Lithuania’s firm will to defend the concept of national dignity and freedom,” and that the two sides will continue to strengthen exchanges in various fields on the basis of universal values such as democracy, freedom, and human rights.
The self-ruled island headed by independence-leaning President Tsai Ing-wen now has formal relations with only 15 countries, many of them small, less-developed nations in Central America and the Pacific, including Belize and Nauru,
Beijing claims self-ruled and democratic Taiwan as its own and views it as a wayward province to be reunified with China by force if necessary.
Taiwan has been self-governed since 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang troops fled to the island after losing China’s civil war to Mao’s Communist Party.
