Yesterday, Taiwan opened a de facto embassy in Lithuania.
“The Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania officially commences its operations in Vilnius on Nov. 18, 2021. This blessed opening will charter a new and promising course for bilateral relations between Taiwan and Lithuania,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement yesterday.
“The first representative appointed to this new office will be Mr Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), currently our chief of mission in Latvia. His new title and responsibilities will immediately take effect on the day that he assumes his official duties in Lithuania,” it added.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
There is tremendous potential for cooperation between industrial sectors, including semiconductors, lasers and financial technology, it said.
“Taiwan will cherish and promote this new friendship based on our shared values,” it added.
China demanded in August that the Baltic state withdraw its ambassador to Beijing and recalled its ambassador in Vilnius after Taiwan announced that its office in the city would be called the “Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania.”
The names of other Taiwan offices in Europe and the US use “Taipei,” to avoid referring to the nation itself, which angers China.
Beijing has also been angered by Lithuania’s decision to open its own representative office in Taiwan, although a definitive date has yet to be set.
China’s dispute with Lithuania over Taiwan has also drawn in the US, which has offered its support to Vilnius to withstand Chinese pressure.
Many other countries maintain de facto embassies in Taipei, including several of Lithuania’s fellow EU member states, as well as Britain, Australia and the US.
Meanwhile, the Lithuanian government has repeatedly affirmed its decision to open a representative office in Taiwan, despite the powerful pressure campaign put on by Beijing.
Lithuania’s office in Taiwan is expected to be established early next year, Lithuanian Minister of the Economy and Innovation Ausrine Armonaite said when receiving a visiting delegation from Taiwan last month.
Former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) has been invited by Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis to attend a democracy forum in Vilnius today and tomorrow, and Chen would deliver a speech titled “Taiwan as a Litmus Case for Democracy” tomorrow, the ministry said on Monday.
Chen visited Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation in Poland before heading to Lithuania, according to the ministry.
Additional reporting by Lin Chia-nan
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS