President's Taiwan criticism might be based on insufficient ingo – Lithuanian formin

  • 2022-06-16
  • BNS/TBT Staff

VILNIUS - President Gitanas Nauseda's criticism of the way the government handled China's response to the opening of a Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius may have been made based on insufficient information, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis says.

Delivering his State of the Nation Address earlier in the day, Nauseda said the government was not prepared for Beijing's retaliatory action and assumed "that China’s response would be limited to restricting export and import operations and would not affect third-country business in Lithuania."

Landsbergis, leader of the ruling conservative ruling Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats, says China threatened to take certain measures against other countries that cooperated with Lithuania, but "this is not the case".

"The president states that as a fact, but there was a threat, but very active steps by the European Commission, certain countries and our partners, in particular the US and Germany, stopped any attempt by China to put pressure on third countries," Landsbergis told reporters at the Seimas.