The world can’t let Lithuania stand alone

Lithuania is a small country with a big problem. After a series of perceived slights, China has brought its massive economic leverage to bear on the tiny Baltic state. Pressure increased dramatically in recent weeks after Taiwanese officials opened a de facto embassy in the Lithuanian capital using the island’s name. (The many other such offices around the world, including in the US and several European countries, refer to “Taipei” rather than Taiwan.) In response, China downgraded diplomatic relations with Lithuania and at least temporarily erased the country from its customs system, cutting off bilateral trade. Now Beijing is reportedly taking aim at Lithuanian components, warning multinationals to excise the country from their supply chains.
Lithuania is at least the fifth European nation to face China’s unhappiness since 2009, for offenses including meeting with the Dalai Lama (Denmark), expressing solidarity with Taiwan (Czech Republic), highlighting human-rights abuses (Norway, Sweden), and banning Chinese 5G technology (Sweden again). Targets in the Indo-Pacific have suffered even sterner punishment. China has cut off rare-earth exports to Japan over a territorial dispute; engineered a consumer boycott of South Korean companies over the deployment of a US missile system; and blocked billions in imports from Australia, Canada and the Philippines for various other perceived slights.
Unlike US sanctions against countries such as Iran and North Korea, which are transparent and lodged within a clear legal framework, China’s actions are often undeclared, to maintain deniability, and aimed at suppressing criticism. As a tactic, they will only become more tempting as China’s power — not to mention its sense of destiny — grows. Future pressure campaigns are inevitable, especially if countries such as Lithuania can be forced to cave.
The Western response to date has not matched the scale of the challenge. After pleas from Lithuania, the European Union raised the issue with the World Trade Organization and with Chinese officials directly, while the US, UK, France and Germany have expressed solidarity with their Naot ally. Mostly, though, Lithuania has been left to fend for itself, as have too many other countries and companies in similar positions. A proposed “anti-coercion instrument” that would equip the EU to respond to economic bullying with restrictions on financial services, trade and investment is still months from approval.
In the near term, Lithuania’s friends should do more to help it withstand Chinese pressure.
—Bloomberg