Since 2020, the Baltic states have distanced themselves from the People’s Republic of China (or simply China). They have left the 17 + 1 format for cooperation between China and Central and Eastern Europe and imposed restrictions on Chinese investment. However, one country, Lithuania, has also launched a political offensive against China. It has accused China of violating human rights in Xinjiang and conducting fraudulent elections in Hong Kong, and allowed Taiwan to set up the Taiwanese – not Taipei – Representative Office in Lithuania.
Why would a small country in Eastern Europe challenge a great power in East Asia? Most commentators point to strategic and economic reasons: Lithuania has benefited little from China’s economic initiatives and needs to prove its loyalty to the United States as the guarantor of its security. However, that’s not the full story; Lithuania’s policy toward China also reflects its contradictory national identity.
On the one hand, Lithuania is an heir to an empire, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which ruled over today’s Ukraine and Belarus. On the other hand, it is a small Baltic state that was annexed by the Soviet Union during World War II and regained its independence at the end of the Cold War. As a result, Lithuanians support other peoples that want to determine their own fate and – not always consistently – believe that they should promote their values “from Belarus to Taiwan.”
Dueling Identities
Unlike Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania has a long history of independent statehood. From the 13th to the 16th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ruled over a vast territory that included today’s Belarus and Ukraine. According to President Valdas Adamkus (1998-2009), this made Lithuania the “center of gravity” in a region extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Lithuania also presented an alternative to the autocratic government in the Principality of Moscow. The Grand Duke enjoyed considerable powers, especially in foreign policy, but had to consult with the nobility, who gathered in the Seimas. In the 16th century, Lithuania formed a union with Poland, but kept its own army, laws, and treasury until it was incorporated into Russia in the 18th century.
As a result of this historical experience, the Lithuanian elites believe that they should export their ideas and practices – the liberty of the nobility and the Catholic faith in the early modern era; democracy and human rights today – to other countries. More actively than Estonia and Latvia, Lithuania participated in the EU’s Eastern Partnership (2009-), which tried to bring the former Soviet republics closer to Europe through economic cooperation and technical aid. Lithuania also supported the Maidan revolution in Ukraine in 2014, sending financial and legal experts to advise the new government. Finally, it funded and trained Belarusian NGOs and offered asylum to opposition politicians who fled the country after the rigged presidential election of 2020.
These policies were not without critics. Although she would later change her mind, President Dalia Grybauskaitė (2009-2019) complained: “We make friends with beggars and confront countries that make decisions” (a reference to Russia). Moreover, Lithuania’s policies did not work: Ukraine became more corrupt and dysfunctional, while Belarus became more authoritarian and moved closer to Russia.
Before the 2020 parliamentary election, young politicians in the conservative Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD) decided to do something that would show “real ambition.” The key figure here was Gabrielius Landsbergis, the grandson of Vytautas Landsbergis, the first leader of independent Lithuania, who wanted to make his own mark in history (he would become the next minister of foreign affairs). Equally conscious of his family’s legacy was Žygimantas Pavilionis, the son of a leading Soviet-era intellectual, who had unsuccessfully run for president (he would be elected the chairman of the Seimas’ Committee on Foreign Affairs). The homo novus in the group was Mantas Adomėnas, an MP who had been expelled from the party for taking bribes and sought to relaunch his career (he would be appointed Landsbergis’s deputy).
The three men came up with a new foreign policy formula: to position Lithuania as a critic of China and an advocate for Taiwan. This would fit with the U.S. policy of containing China and give Lithuania an issue on which it could claim leadership in the EU.
To sell their new foreign policy to the public, TS-LKD leaders argued that Taiwan was to China what Lithuania had been to the Soviet Union: a small and democratic country that wants to chart its own course against the wishes of a large and authoritarian neighbor. In 2019, Pavilionis and likeminded MPs visited Taiwan. When they returned, they proposed establishing formal ties with Taiwan. They stressed the material benefits of doing so – Lithuania would learn how to strengthen its national defense and develop high-tech industries – but also noted that Taiwan “is a small state with a similar fate to ours, fighting every day for the right to live in a democratic system, protecting its identity and the thousand-year legacy of Chinese history.”