While Beijing has multiplied the retaliation measures against the Baltic state for hosting an official representation of Taiwan, the European Union makes a common face to the Chinese power.
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For the European Union (EU), this has life-size test value. By seizing the World Trade Organization (WTO) against China, “because of its discriminatory practices against Lithuania, which also strike [the single EU market”, announced the Commission on Thursday. January 27, Brussels submits the event of the twenty-seven and the EU’s ability to impose on the international scene.
In recent months, relations between Vilnius and Beijing have deteriorated. China did not appreciate that Lithuania leaves the “17 + 1” forum, this essential link of the new silk roads which brings together the empire of the middle and 17 countries in Central and Eastern Europe (12 of which 12 members of the Union). She frankly annoyed when the small Balte state left Taiwan open on his soil an official office of representation on his name, while Beijing does not recognize state status on this island.
The retaliation measures have not been late. On November 25, 2021, China announced that it did not deliver visas to Lithuanians. In the wake, she interrupted her imports to Lithuania, and she also arrested the Lithuanian goods who arrived in her ports, invoking faults in her IT department. For Vilnius, the situation remained manageable: Certainly, its exports to China fell 91% in December 2021 from the same month of the previous year, but Lithuania carries out less than 1% of its trade with Beijing.
“Value chains have been assigned”
However, what was initially a bilateral affair between these two countries quickly became a community subject. Some Member States, particularly in Eastern Europe, “said that what happened to Lithuania could arrive,” entrusts a European official. Moreover, Beijing did not just put sticks in the wheels to Lithuanian companies. Without explanation, several European manufacturers who use components from Lithuania have lost orders or have also been prevented from exporting to China.
“In Finland, Germany or Sweden, value chains have been affected,” continues this source. And the sacro-saint interior market found it disturbed. From then on, a country like Germany, which tended to consider that Vilnius could only be caught in this story, began to see things differently. In this context, the Commission received unanimous support from the twenty-seven when it referred to the opportunity to seize the WTO, judging the practices of Beijing “discriminatory and illegal” in the light of the rules of multilateral trade.
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