Taiwan opens office in Lithuania using its own name instead of Taipei

Taiwan announced Thursday that it formally opened its representative office in Lithuania using its own name instead of Taipei, a diplomatic move criticized beforehand by China that seeks to isolate this island internationally.

“The Taiwan Representative Office in Lithuania officially begins its operations in Vilnius on November 18, 2021,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of this territory, governed democratically and claimed by Beijing.

Although most countries do not officially recognize it, Taiwan has de facto embassies in many places that normally assume the name of the Economic and Cultural Office of Taipei (its capital), a name tolerated by Beijing.

In July, Lithuania agreed to open a representative office under the name of Taiwan, causing deep unrest in Beijing, which considers the island as its own.

China withdrew its ambassador from Vilna and requested the same from Lithuania, which eventually ended up doing so. It also halted the shipment of freight trains to Lithuania and suspended the issuance of food export permits.

Taiwan and mainland China have been ruled separately since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the defeated nationalist camp took refuge on this island in the hope of eventually taking the mainland back from the hands of the Communists.

Although initially many countries continued to recognize the government of Taiwan as the legitimate representative of China, now there are only about fifteen countries that maintain their diplomatic relations with Taipei instead of Beijing.

“Blessed opening”

Under Xi Jinping, China has increased military and diplomatic pressure on Taiwan, especially since the 2016 election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who views the island as de facto sovereign.

For the communist authorities, the official use of the word “Taiwan” gives international legitimacy to this territory.

Last year, Taiwan already used this nomenclature when opening an office in Somaliland. However, that territory is barely recognized internationally, while Lithuania is a member of the European Union.

“This blessed opening will set a promising new course for the bilateral relations between Taiwan and Lithuania,” said Taipei in its statement.

In May, Lithuania announced that it was withdrawing from the 17 + 1 cooperation forum between China and Eastern European countries, calling it a “source of division.”

Politician from the Czech Republic and Slovakia have also pressed for a rapprochement with Taiwan.

In 2019, Prague canceled a twinning agreement with Beijing and signed one with Taipei. A high-profile visit by the head of the Czech Senate, Milos Vystrcil, to Taiwan last year enraged China.

Last month, a delegation of Taiwanese officials visited Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania, also drawing the ire of Beijing.

China continues to be an important commercial and diplomatic ally for many other nations in the region, and is also a precious source of vaccines against covid.

In this context of tension, Taiwan also organized on Thursday a ceremony for the entry into service of the first squadron of the most advanced F-16 fighters, a US-made aircraft, at an air base in the city of Chiayi, in the south of the island. (I)