EU seeks 'de-escalation' of Lithuania-China feud but takes no further action
The European Union's top diplomats hope to de-escalate Lithuania's dispute with China as they also seek to secure a summit meeting with Beijing before the end of March.
Following a two-day session of the bloc's 27 foreign ministers in the French port city of Brest, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that members stood in "solidarity" with Lithuania - even if no new support measures were forthcoming.
"Some things are going well, some less well," he said of the EU-China relationship, adding that members "expressed clear solidarity with Lithuania and discussed how we could actively press on with de-escalation".
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Borrell added that an EU - China summit at the end of March would give him "the opportunity to travel to China to prepare".
"It will also be an important summit to review where we are in our relations with China," he said.
Lithuania has been embroiled in a months-long dispute with China over its decision to allow a diplomatic centre named the Taiwanese Representative Office; typically, such de facto embassies for the self-governed island are known as Taipei Representative Offices.
As a result, Lithuania was apparently targeted for a sweeping economic coercion campaign by China; the EU announced it would gather evidence for a case before the World Trade Organization.
Despite repeated calls by Lithuania's foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis for further concrete actions by the EU, though, there were no new measures announced on Friday.
Talking points from one member state, seen by the South China Morning Post, called for a review of the EU-China investment deal - which has collapsed over bilateral sanctions - claiming it would be another way of holding China to account.
But with few short-term fixes available, it looks like the EU will stick with two existing plans.
The first, the potential WTO case, could take years to unfold. And since the WTO's appeals function has expired, any case may never be fully resolved.
The second is an anti-coercion instrument, a legislative tool now in draft form that would permit Brussels to strike back at economic bullying. This too could take months, if not years, to navigate a bureaucratically dense passage to becoming law.
Standing next to Borrell, France's foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters that his government would try to accelerate the measure's passage.
"We criticise the coercion by China. As you know, there is an anti-coercion system on the table and part of our response under the French presidency will be to speed up the text so that coercive measures by China in relation to Lithuania cease," Le Drian said.
On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron's diplomatic adviser, Emmanuel Bonne, met in Wuxi with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Vice-Premier Liu He and Vice-President Wang Qishan also held video conferences with Bonne, in an effort to curry favour with France as it assumes the reins of the EU presidency.
Beijing's evident coercion campaign has frozen Lithuanian exporters out of the lucrative Chinese market. Companies from other EU countries including Germany and Sweden have also faced an unofficial embargo because their products contained Lithuanian-made parts.
In an interview with The Washington Post published before the second day of talks in Brest, Landsbergis reiterated a call for EU support, saying that his government's stance against China was reliant on stronger backing from Brussels.
"There's only so much pressure we can take. But if we stand in solidarity, if we give a very clear response that such coercion is not just against one country in the union that China tends not to like, but it's more an incursion on the single market, then we send a signal that this is against European rules," Landsbergis said.
In capitals around Europe, though, there seems to be little appetite for a trade war with China. Yet there is also concern that yielding to Beijing would embolden similar behaviour in the future.
"It somehow irked us as European partners, because I think there are not many EU member states which choose to pick a fight with the Chinese government on the choice of 'Taiwan' or 'Taipei' for the representative office," said Nils Schmid, foreign policy spokesman for the coalition-leading Social Democratic Party in Germany's parliament.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has called the office naming a "mistake", and an overwhelming number of Lithuanians were found to oppose the policy in a recent government-sponsored poll.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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