The government yesterday reiterated that it welcomes plans by Lithuania to open a trade office in Taiwan, as the European nation reviews its policy on East Asia.
The Baltic nation in March announced its plan to open a representative office in Taiwan, before dropping out of the Beijing-led “17+1” bloc in Eastern Europe in May.
Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis on Wednesday said his country is conducting “a policy review” with regard to the East Asian region, as he met with the heads of 62 Lithuanian diplomatic representations, consular posts and missions through videoconference.
“The aim is to diversify markets and strengthen relations with these countries,” the Lithuanian ministry said in a news release that day.
“The Embassy in Australia was opened, while offices in South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan will be established,” it said.
In Taipei, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said in a statement that the Lithuanian government has repeatedly expressed its plans to expand partnerships with Taiwan, including preparations to open a trade office.
The ministry respects the Baltic nation’s legal process for establishing the office, Ou said.
The Lithuanian government also demonstrated its friendship with the announcement that it would donate 20,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, Ou said.
The government looks forward to developing closer ties with Vilnius, Ou added.
Meanwhile, nonprofit Give2Asia’s Asia-Pacific Network manager Jill Chang (張瀞仁) on Monday shared on Facebook a letter from a Lithuanian center that supports high-risk pregnant women.
Krizinio Nestumo Centras recently received 87 new donations through the Global Giving platform, all from Taiwan, project leader Simona Nevieriene wrote in the letter to Chang.
The donations came with such messages as “Love from Taiwan,” “Thanks from Taiwan,” and “Taiwan Loves Lithuania,” the letter showed, adding that donations were still coming.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) on Wednesday last week urged Lithuania to abide by its “one China” principle, saying Beijing objects to any forms of official exchanges between its diplomatic allies and Taiwan.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was wooing leaders from across Africa with a banquet on Wednesday night, King Mswati III of Eswatini was notably absent. That is because the kingdom — about the size of New Jersey and with just 1.2 million people — is one of Taiwan’s remaining dozen diplomatic allies. That means Eswatini does not participate in Xi’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the centerpiece of China’s diplomatic outreach to Africa, which was held in Beijing this week. The landlocked nation, which sits between Mozambique and South Africa, is the last holdout in Beijing’s seven-plus decade mission to make Africa
RSS