China has told multinationals to sever ties with Lithuania or face being shut out of the Chinese market, a senior government official and an industry body told reporters, dragging companies into a dispute between the Baltic state and Beijing.
China downgraded its diplomatic ties with Lithuania last month after Taiwan opened a representative office in Vilnius.
Lithuania’s ruling coalition had agreed in November last year to support what it described as “those fighting for freedom” in Taiwan, putting its relations with China at risk.
Photo: AP
Earlier last month, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said in a statement that Lithuania had ignored China’s “strong objection” to the opening of the Taiwan office.
The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.
Lithuania’s direct trade with China is modest, but its export-based economy is home to hundreds of companies that make products such as furniture, lasers, food and clothing for multinationals that sell to China.
“They [China] have been sending messages to multinationals that if they use parts and supplies from Lithuania, they will no longer be allowed to sell to the Chinese market or get supplies there,” Lithuanian Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Mantas Adomenas told reporters. “We have seen some companies cancel contracts with Lithuanian suppliers.”
He did not name any companies or suppliers affected.
The Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists, which represents thousands of Lithuanian companies, confirmed that some multinational companies that buy goods from Lithuanian suppliers were being targeted by China.
“This week was the first time we saw direct Chinese pressure on a supplier to drop Lithuanian-made goods,” confederation president Vidmantas Janulevicius told reporters. “Previously, we only had threats it could happen, now they became reality.”
“For us, the most painful part is that it’s a European company,” said Janulevicius, referring to the multinational. “Many Lithuanian businesses are suppliers for such companies.”
He did not name any companies.
Lithuania is looking at setting up a fund to shield local companies from Chinese retaliation, a senior government official said.
The Lithuanian government is in talks with the companies at risk of fallout from the China dispute about offering possible financial support, such as loans, the government official said.
Lithuania has also appealed to the European Commission for support.
In a letter sent earlier this week to top officials at the commission and seen by reporters, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis asked for support in rebuffing China.
“A strong reaction is necessary at the EU level in order to send a signal to China that politically motivated economic pressure is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” the letter said.
The European Commission said in a statement that the EU was ready to stand up against all types of political pressure and coercive measures applied against any member state.
“The development of China’s bilateral relations with individual EU member states has an impact on overall EU-China relations,” it said.
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
In Earth’s upper atmosphere, a fast-moving band of air called the jet stream blows with winds of more than 442kph, but they are not the strongest in our solar system. The comparable high-altitude winds on Neptune reach about 2,000kph. However, those are a mere breeze compared with the jet stream on a planet called WASP-127b. Astronomers have detected winds howling at about 33,000kph on the large gaseous planet in our Milky Way galaxy approximately 520 light-years from Earth in a tight orbit around a star similar to our sun. The supersonic jet-stream winds circling WASP-127b at its equator are the fastest of their kind
RSS