VILNIUS - Gintautas Paluckas, the Social Democrats' candidate for prime minister, says his government would seek to restore full diplomatic relations with China, but it has no intention to make excessive concessions.
"Having normal relations is certainly an aspiration because the EU, despite the fact that relations with China will not be very rosy, they will argue about the economy, about tariffs, about protectionist measures, (...) but the EU is trying to maintain diplomatic relations," Paluckas said in an interview with BNS on Friday.
"We cannot fall out of this context and call it leadership," he added.
Lithuania's ties with China soured in 2021 after the opening of a Taiwanese office in Vilnius when Beijing downgraded its diplomatic relations with Lithuania and imposed trade restrictions.
Asked whether Lithuania would seek the return of its ambassador to Beijing and the return of the Chinese ambassador to Vilnius, Paluckas said: "Absolutely yes."
In his words, the normalization of relations would be pursued "without humbling, falling to one's knees and begging for anything".
"We are a sovereign country, we have no dependency on China and nobody is trying to create one, but diplomatic relations are valuable. And one truly needs to have them," the Social Democrat said.
Lithuania made a "grave diplomatic mistake" by allowing Taiwan to open a Taiwanese-named representative office in Vilnius, he said. Paluckas, however, refrained to say whether he would agree to ask Taipei to change its name if China asked.
"Let's not speculate, we don't know what the Chinese will ask for. We don't know the real situation," Paluckas said.
In Lithuanian and English, the name of the Taipei representative office in Vilnius uses the word "Taiwanese". Meanwhile, in Chinese, it used the name "Taiwan".
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