The government is closely watching the incoming center-left Lithuania coalition government and hopes cordial relations with Vilnius would continue, a senior Taiwanese diplomat said on Tuesday.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department of European Affairs Director-General Eric Huang (黃鈞耀) made the remarks when asked at a weekly news briefing about Taiwan’s interactions with the Lithuania’s Social Democratic Party (SDP) and other opposition parties in the Baltic state.
The SDP won 52 out of the 141 parliamentary seats in Lithuania’s Oct. 13-27 elections, with Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte’s center-right Homeland Union finishing a distant second with only 28 seats.
Photo: CNA
The SDP’s Gintautas Paluckas led the party in this year’s elections and would likely serve as prime minister at the head of a center-left coalition in the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament.
Following the elections, Paluckas told Lithuanian media that he wished to restore full diplomatic relations with China, repairing a rift caused by the inclusion of “Taiwanese” in the name of Taiwan’s representative office in Vilnius.
An English-language Lithuanian National Radio and Television report on Thursday last week quoted Paluckas as saying that the name of the representative office, which opened in Vilnius on Nov. 18, 2021, had been a “grave diplomatic mistake.”
Taiwan’s representative offices overseas are typically named the “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office” or “Taipei Representative Office,” in keeping with the host countries’ preference to avoid any references that would imply Taiwan is a separate country from China.
China responded to the naming controversy by recalling its ambassador to Vilnius and expelling Lithuania’s ambassador to Beijing, as well as suspending direct freight rail services to the Baltic nation and severely restricting Lithuanian products’ access to the Chinese market.
During Tuesday’s news briefing, Huang congratulated Lithuania for completing its elections.
“Taiwan looks forward to working with Lithuania’s new government,” he said.
Huang, who served as Taiwan’s first representative in Vilnius until January, said the ministry has maintained cordial relations with all major Lithuanian political parties since the opening of the office.
However, he would not say if Taiwan would change the office name if asked by the new Lithuanian government to do so.
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