[depth of ring time] how many American factors are behind Lithuania\'s face changing as anti China gunpowder?

[depth of ring time] how many American factors are behind Lithuania's face changing as anti China "gunpowder"?

[Special reporter of the global times in Germany, aomu special correspondent liuyupeng Ma Xiao] on 20, Taiwan announced that it would set up a "Taiwan Representative Office" in Lithuania, and declared it an "important diplomatic breakthrough", and was severely warned by the Ministry of foreign affairs and the Taiwan Affairs Office of China. In March, Lithuania also announced that it would have a representative office in Taipei. 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Lithuania, but Lithuania is willing to act as "cannon fodder" against China in recent years, challenging China's core interests again and again. Experts believe that Lithuania's attitude towards China has actually changed. In the context of intensified competition between China and the United States, Lithuania tries to attract the attention of the United States by focusing on the Chinese strong forces in order to adjust its role in the West. The closer China Russia relations also prompted Lithuania, which has always regarded Russia as the biggest threat to national security, to make a near paranoid choice in foreign policy.

Quick face change and American factors

Lithuania has repeatedly reiterated several years ago that it hopes to establish economic cooperation with China, a distant Oriental giant, and even call China a "strategic partner," according to the Russian view daily. In addition, Lithuania is very interested in the Silk Road Economic Belt Project under construction in China, and actively recommends itself as a transit transit country. In early November 2018, the then Lithuanian president, grybostkate, was invited to visit China, which was considered to be a major success in national diplomacy. The neutral countries have developed rapidly in the field of economic and trade. In Lithuania, people are happy to build friendship with China, an economic power.

However, in just three months, Lithuania's attitude towards China turned 180 degrees and began to reach the Anti China issues such as Xinjiang and Taiwan related issues. In february2019, the National Security Department of Lithuania issued the annual security threat report, which first proposed that "China's Espionage" became one of the national security threats of Lithuania. "China's domestic policy issues drive China's intelligence activities in Lithuania," the report said. In July of the same year, Lithuania's president, naosaida, said that China's investment in the construction of deep-water ports in kleppeda could damage the country's national security.

The statement that "Chinese intelligence is strengthening its activities" has been circulating in the United States and Western European countries for a long time, but it is fresh in Eastern Europe, Russian satellite news agency reported. In mid March, a court in Estonia, the Baltic state, sentenced Tamo kutes, a marine scientist, to three years in prison for spying for China.

It is well known that in those countries that rely most on the United States, intelligence agencies are created under the control of the United States, and their governments are difficult to control, the report said. With the increasingly global and uncompromising characteristics of Sino US competition, the "major partners" of the United States cannot stand by and close cooperation with the United States means that they must abandon their independent foreign policy. Therefore, it is not possible to exclude some Eastern European countries to worsen their relations with China even if they may cause losses to themselves.

In 2020, Lithuania's national security department issued a new report criticizing China's pursuit of technological advantages. The report appeared during the COVID-19 period, while China provided a large number of humanitarian aid to Lithuania, such as masks, but Vilnius did not appreciate it. In october2020, Lithuania held parliamentary elections, while the conservative alliance of the motherland, the Christian Democratic Party, won the election and formed a ruling coalition with the liberal movement and the Liberal Party. Before taking office, the ruling coalition said "will oppose any violations of human rights and democratic freedoms and will defend those who seek freedom from Belarus to Taiwan and around the world".

In January, Lithuania decided to ban Chinese enterprises from authoritating the provision of security equipment to Lithuanian airports on the ground of national security. The decision, retorted Tongfang weitv, was not only based on political motives, but would distort the competition in the security equipment market and harm the interests of Lithuanian taxpayers. In February, the Lithuanian government downgraded to attend the summit of leaders of China Central and Eastern Europe countries, with only traffic minister scuodis. In March, Lithuania announced plans to open a "trade representative office" in Taiwan by the end of the year. On May 20, the Lithuanian parliament passed the resolution on human rights concerning Xinjiang, which also covers Tibet and Hong Kong affairs, stigmatizes China's "genocide" in Xinjiang and demands the restoration of "independence" of Hong Kong and "religious freedom" of Tibet. Two days later, Lithuanian foreign minister lansburges announced his withdrawal from the "17 + 1" cooperation between China and central and Eastern Europe.

It is worth noting that while Lithuania has shown its strength in China, 10 Lithuanian enterprises participated in the China International Food and Beverage Exhibition held in Shanghai from May 18 to 20. The Ministry of agriculture of Lithuania said China is one of the largest and fastest growing markets in the world, and it is becoming increasingly important for Lithuanian agricultural products and food exporters. Last year, Lithuania exported 93million euros to China's agricultural products and food, mainly including wheat, fruit, nuts, beef and malt beer.

Mezevic, an expert at the European Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, said Lithuania's foreign policy could be explained by "ignoring rationality". Shanghai, China alone, has a GDP of several times that of the country, and Lithuania's behavior is totally inconsistent with the theory of international relations. But it needs to be understood that the Lithuanian government's actions are not for its own benefit, but for the benefit of the United States. China does not need to take any measures to "punish" Lithuania, and it is enough to bypass it, including not providing investment to it, developing trade with it, and not including it in the Silk Road Economic Belt Project. In the future, it will become a country that cannot benefit from maintaining constructive relations with China.

Paranoia from the political level

"China is far enough from Lithuania to make China a threat is ridiculous. But the distance between Lithuanian leaders and paranoia is negligible. " Meizhvic, an expert at the European Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said Lithuania did not have a real external threat, but copying the American foreign policy poses a huge internal threat to its security.

Liu Zuokui, a researcher at the European Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the new Lithuanian government is mainly composed of the middle right political parties, with conservative ideology, which has changed from the pragmatic style of the previous government, and has been shaking in terms of participation in China CEE cooperation.

In may2019, Lithuania held a presidential election, and the independent candidate and economist, nauseda, defeated the then middle right party candidate himonit, and was elected the new president of Lithuania. In October 2020, Lithuania held parliamentary elections, and himonit became the new Prime Minister of Lithuania. Lance Burgess, the grandson of the country's first president, has no comparable influence in Lithuanian politics. The common ground of these three is to be pro European and American, anti China and Russia.

Both naseda and simonit are economists, and from an age point of view, nasidabi shimoni is 10 years old, according to foreign media reports. Naseda was born in 1964 and grew up in the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, nauseda graduated from the Department of economics, Vilnius University, Lithuania. After Lithuania independence in 1990, naseda had the opportunity to continue to study at the University of Mannheim, Germany. The experience of living and learning in Germany made him think that the Soviet system was no longer suitable for Lithuania.

After returning to China, nauseda entered the financial industry, and served as chief economist of the Bank of Europe, the largest bank of Lithuania, and often appeared in major media. In the presidential election in 2019, naseda strongly supports the claim of his predecessor, geriboskat, who claims that it must keep close cooperation with NATO and the EU, and let the United States strengthen the military power of Lithuania to deter Russia, and even support Poland's invitation to the United States to garrison in its own country.

Since his election at the end of last year, himonit has started a series of good deeds to Taiwan. In addition to publicly expressing support for Taiwan's "free fighters" in the ruling agreement and announcing that it will establish a representative office in Taiwan, it announced in June that it would donate 20000 doses of aslikan vaccine to Taiwan in return for 100000 masks donated by Taiwan to Lithuania.

In February, himonit wrote on social media calling Russia's new crown vaccine "satellite V" a "weapon Russia uses to divide and rule the world.". In the international policy debate for the presidential election in Lithuania in 2019, himonit said that if elected, she would increase her defense budget. She likened Russia to "a country that attempted to undermine all international agreements" and claimed that Russia's presence would jeopardize European security. But she supports improving relations between Lithuania and Poland.

But for lance Burgess, these are all left of his grandfather's family. Lance Burgess, his grandfather, was a music professor. He studied at the Vilnius Conservatory of music in the 1950s and studied from the Soviet musicolonast dwareonas. In 1988, after the establishment of the "sayukis" organization supported by the United States, old lansburges changed his life and became one of the leaders of "sayukis" as a university professor and sought independence of Lithuania.

Lansburges inherited the political gene of "pro american and anti Russian". During the parliamentary election in june2020, he wrote an article entitled "Lithuania is time to make a choice", criticizing China's domestic and foreign policies, and explicitly proposing for the first time that Lithuania should withdraw from the "17+1" cooperation mechanism. In August 2020, Lithuania formed the largest number of sympathy groups in Europe to show solidarity in response to the visit of Czech councillors to Taiwan, and the leader was lansburges.

Suffering from a strong sense of instability

Before the COVID-19, the Global Times reporter interviewed Lithuania several times, and the politicians and business people who came into contact with China were more impressed with China. In 2018, reporters drove around Lithuania, such as Trakai castle, cross hill, konas, etc. Every place, you can see a group of Chinese tourists. Many local restaurants, souvenirs and so on also use Chinese to attract business. A local head of the business tourism department also asked reporters specifically how to attract Chinese tourists and Chinese investment. It is observed that Lithuania is the most conservative of the Baltic States, Latvia is in the middle, and Estonia is more open.

Ms. Wang, a Chinese businessman in Vilnius, studied in Lithuania in the 1990s and chose to do business after graduation. She told reporters that the Baltic countries have always been good impression of China, and the locals are also more friendly to Chinese people. Chinese restaurants and made in China are very popular. She also found it strange that the Lithuanian government suddenly turned over China over the past two years. In its security report released in february2019, China was listed as the main security threat in unprecedented times, and Chinese spies were also accused. She believes that this is related to China's approach to Russia, and of course the US factor is crucial. For historical reasons, Lithuanian people have a strong sense of "instability", and they are wrongly opposed to China in front of national security.

In 2017, welnius businessman oshra, who started neutral trade, told reporters that he had been in Shanghai for several months at university and then visited China for several times. He sells Chinese mobile phones, television and other electronic products in Lithuania. He also felt sudden about Lithuania's unilateral attack on China, but China was more tolerant. At present, neutral trade and oshla's business are not greatly affected, but it does not exclude that the future may be politically affected. He said that the local people's impression of China and Russia is not as negative as that described by the media, but will certainly be affected by the mainstream media of the country and the European and American media to some extent.

"The relationship between the two countries has cooled sharply and has nothing to do with it itself," a Lithuanian scholar who declined to be named told the global times that there was no destructive incident between the two countries. In addition to China's sanctions against a Lithuanian member, it is also the first in the EU sanctions, and the member has attacked human rights in Xinjiang. He believes that the main reason behind it is the United States, with Russian factors as the auxiliary, which are all related to the national security of Lithuania.

"The voice of Germany" said Lithuanians like to call their own country "the front line" and dare to fight openly with Russia and Belarus《 The Belarusian Daily recently published an article entitled "Lithuanian harpdogs and Chinese elephants" saying that China's response to Vilnius's recent loudly voice of withdrawing from the "17+1" cooperation mechanism was restrained.

In China's view, this platform is an open economic and trade cooperation mechanism, and the project does not lose a key partner. Chinese experts even saw the opportunity to "reduce negative assets" within the framework of the cooperation mechanism after Lithuania decided to withdraw, which would make it more sustainable in the long term. "Lithuania, which has so much saliva on China, has no idea what other way to get some leftovers from its U.S. boss's desk," said a Belarusian netizen

Some media said that the "17+1" cooperation mechanism has been regarded as a mechanism that may divide Europe from the beginning. Liu Zuokui, a researcher at the European Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that Lithuania has many reasons for its withdrawal from "17+1": besides the factors of the United States and Russia, Lithuania did not get the initial idea of its accession in the process of China CEE cooperation; Secondly, the Baltic countries have always had an identity issue. For example, Lithuania considers it a Nordic country and does not accept the position of CEE, but it still decides to join in and see if it can get any benefits; Finally, there is indeed pressure from the EU and the euro zone countries. The EU, especially the Western European countries, has criticized the separation of China CEE cooperation from the EU. Therefore, when the Lithuanian foreign minister announced its withdrawal from "17+1", he said faithfully to the EU that cooperation should be carried out under the framework of "27+1", which is, the EU's cooperation with China.

However, Liu stressed that Lithuania's exit will never affect the overall cooperation and development of "17 + 1". To some extent, it can be said that it will reduce the burden on the cooperation mechanism. Because countries like Lithuania are not only not very responsible in the organization, but they have negative effects and have been Gang connected. We can see that in other regions or international organizations in history, there are often retreat behaviors and repeated activities, such as UNESCO. It is normal for an organization member to withdraw, join or join again. When it is not suitable, he can go out and change his / her method. If he finds that he or she is not as good as in the group, he / she will join again. For a sovereign state, joining or exiting is an option within its rights.