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Hutong Cat | A lesson on China’s rules of engagement with smaller countries
On November 21, a Sunday, Beijing downgraded its diplomatic ties with Lithuania, expressing dissatisfaction after the country allowed Taiwan to open a de facto embassy in the capital Vilnius
An often-used Biblical comparison has been summoned, wrongly, if we go by at least one modern interpretation, to describe the ongoing diplomatic tussle between China and tiny, Baltic and democratic Lithuania.
Not that China, flush from the success of controlling the pandemic, overall economic robustness and expanding military prowess, cares.
On November 21, a Sunday, Beijing downgraded its diplomatic ties with Lithuania, expressing dissatisfaction after the country allowed Taiwan – another small, self-ruled democracy off the Chinese coast – to open a de facto embassy in the capital Vilnius.
It’s the first representative office from the island to be allowed to use Taiwan, and not Taipei, in the European Union (EU) in identifying itself – a “Taiwan Representative Office” instead of a “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office”, like the one we have in Vasant Vihar in New Delhi.
“Lithuania only has itself to blame, it will have to pay for what it did,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson had thundered earlier.
I am not sure if President Xi Jinping did it with a chuckle to himself as he read the speech but the day after downgrading ties, on November 22, he told the leaders of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at a summit that Beijing would not “bully” its smaller neighbours amid ongoing tension over maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Xi said China would never seek hegemony nor take advantage of its size to coerce smaller countries.
Lithuania isn’t China’s neighbour but within a week of downgrading ties with the Baltic nation, Beijing had stopped consular work in Vilnius, Europe-bound freight trains were no longer stopping in the country, Chinese companies were withdrawing business and Chinese state media was breathing fire about the consequences – a series of steps, which could be called “bullying”, even harassing, a much smaller country.
The Chinese media and foreign ministry are now talking about Lithuania’s lack of respect for human rights and that the country is “delighted to be a pawn of the US”; a Chinese expert called Lithuania “a buffoon” in August.
Though their differences escalated in the latter half of 2021, the erosion of Beijing-Vilnius ties has taken place gradually in the last few years over evolving diplomatic events and incidents.
In 2019, for example, Lithuanians held a rally in support of Hong Kong democracy protesters; reports from Vilnius said the Beijing embassy promptly gathered Chinese nationals for a counter-demonstration.
“Negative sentiments evoked China in the Baltic country when a Chinese tourist removed a memorial to Hong Kong protesters at Lithuania’s Hill of Crosses, a national symbol of resistance to Soviet rule,” researcher Eunika Rejtova recently wrote for the Central European Institute for Asian Studies (CEIAS).
It did not help matters that in 2020, a data leak revealed a Chinese company had gathered information on more than 500 prominent Lithuanian citizens.
A sceptical public opinion eventually changed public policy when Lithuania withdrew, earlier this year, from the “17+1” dialogue mechanism between China and central and eastern European countries.
Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, a postdoctoral research fellow in Taiwan and a former political advisor to the European Parliament explained this as part of the region’s growing scepticism of China.
Ferenczy told me that EU member states have become increasingly sceptical of China’s growing presence and influence across the bloc, namely through high-profile acquisitions by Chinese SOEs and investment in Europe’s critical infrastructure and the lack of reciprocity in market access.
The battle of narratives between democratic and authoritarian governance has also amplified in recent years with the EU labelling China a “systemic rival” in 2019.
“Lithuania has supported the growing convergence inside the EU on the need to rethink the EU’s China policy,” she said.
Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielis Landsbergis has also said that all 27 EU states should instead band together as one and approach China from a unified position of strength.
And here’s the possible lesson from this for smaller countries engaging with China: Engage all you can or will but remember Beijing will not tolerate any opinion or policy that goes against its “core” issues like, Taiwan, which it claims as its own and says, it has no independent standing as a country, forget what 23 million Taiwanese think or believe.
“It shows Beijing will not brook any dissent, or even nuance, on issues important to it,” Sean King, a scholar affiliated with the University of Notre Dame Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Affairs Affiliated said.
Any policy change, which is seen in Beijing as anti-China invites censure to begin with and then, possible, retaliation.
Lithuania is lucky as its trade with China, though increasing – and more than with Taiwan currently – is minimal; it is among the EU countries with the least significant trade ties with Beijing.
It’s a different story for other smaller countries, say in South Asia, like Sri Lanka, Nepal or Bangladesh, which are flush with Chinese money and counting China-build infrastructure projects.
Last May the Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh, Li Jiming, warned that bilateral ties could be substantially damaged if Dhaka joined the US-led Quad alliance comprising India, Japan and Australia.
And, it didn’t even have to be China’s “core” issue like Taiwan or the Quad for Sri Lanka to pay damages to a Chinese company for stopping the supply of contaminated fertiliser because, according to a government minister, “We cannot afford to damage diplomatic relations over this issue”.
The allegations of China encroaching on land disputed with Bhutan are well known.
Lithuania is in a better position. Especially with the US expected to back it up in its unequal battle with China.
“But what we see in the case of Lithuania is not the first time China ‘punishing’ a country; we have seen many precedents and similar reactions can be expected as democracies increasingly take measures to protect themselves,” Ferenczy said.
China, for sure, reacts with anger against all countries that appear to be officially engaging with Taiwan including the US and Japan; these countries are China’s competitors in various fields with comparable national strength.
There’s only one adjective, however, to describe the use of disproportionate force even if it is diplomatic by bigger nations against smaller ones with less than 3 million people. The one that President Xi told ASEAN China will never be.
