Taiwan Office In Vilnius Spells End To Lithuania's Ties With China - Former Prime Minister

The opening of the Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius effectively means that ties between Lithuania and China will be severed, the chairman of the Democratic Party in the Seimas, former Prime Minister of Lithuania Saulius Skvernelis said on Friday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th November, 2021) The opening of the Taiwanese representative office in Vilnius effectively means that ties between Lithuania and China will be severed, the chairman of the Democratic Party in the Seimas, former Prime Minister of Lithuania Saulius Skvernelis said on Friday.

The official representative office of Taiwan has opened in Vilnius on Thursday. Eric Huang, who is currently the Acting Head of the Taiwan Mission to Latvia, was appointed as the head of the office.

"We have chosen this path, other countries have chosen another one, created a mission of a different nature with the same substance, different only by name. We have obviously put an end to our bilateral ties and say that we will not have any diplomatic, trade or economic relations with China," Skvernelis said in an interview with the Lithuanian news Radio.

On August 10, China recalled its ambassador from Vilnius due to the fact that the Lithuanian authorities had allowed Taiwan to open a representative office in the country. On September 4, Lithuania, in response, recalled its ambassador to China for consultations.

Taiwan has been governed independently from mainland China since 1949. Beijing views the island as its province, while Taiwan a territory with its own democratically-elected government maintains that it is an autonomous country but stops short of declaring independence.