A Lithuanian MP has told Breitbart News that “communism is a plague” and that China represents one of the “most imminent threats” to the free world after the latest round of threats from Beijing over the opening of a de-facto Taiwanese embassy.
On Sunday, the Chinese Communist Party officially downgraded diplomatic ties with Lithuania after the NATO ally and EU member state opened the ‘Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania’ in the capital city of Vilnius on Thursday.
The use of the word ‘Taiwan’ — instead of the CCP’s preferred ‘Chinese Taipei’ — for the name of the office enraged Beijing, who claimed that the move violated the so-called One-China policy, which demands countries do not recognise Taiwan as an independent nation, despite the country having its own distinct government, military, currency, and culture.
Announcing the decision to downgrade diplomatic ties, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warned that the communist government will “take all necessary measures to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The state-run propaganda outlet the Global Times threatened that if “Lithuania offends China and Russia, its security environment will face more dangers,” going on to claim that the Baltic state’s actions could jeopardise “regional security and even global peace.”
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart London, Lithuanian MP Dovilė Šakalienė responded to the threats by noting simply: “Communists are not nice people anywhere.”
Šakalienė said that Lithuania’s history of “repression and terror” under the boot of Stalin’s Soviet Union, which tried to enact the “communist goal of eradicating free will, fundamental rights, and freedoms,” has informed her country’s desire to stand up for Taiwan against the totalitarian regime.
“Communism is a plague,” she pronounced, adding: “We didn’t like it, and I don’t think we will ever like it.”
The Lithuanian MP argued that as a communist state, China fundamentally doesn’t understand that democratic nations have their own free will and can make their own decisions, saying that “facts are in one universe and People’s Republic of China’s opinions are in another universe, and they are not related.”
“China is threatening world order and the global standards that the world has agreed to after the Second World War,” she said, warning that Beijing is becoming one of the most “imminent threats to democratic societies, including Lithuania.”
The lawmaker said that Lithuania has been “very consistent” in its foreign policy since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in supporting freedom and democracy throughout the world and that it is not China’s concern who Lithuania does business with.
Šakalienė, who was sanctioned in March by the CCP for putting forward legislation condemning the “genocide” in Xinjiang, told Breitbart London that Lithuania has not violated any international law by opening the Taiwanese Representative Office and that both her country and Taiwan have the right to make their own decisions as to who they seek economic relations with.
In August, China recalled its ambassador from Vilnius and the state-run Global Times newspaper shortly thereafter threatened that China may go to war with the “crazy, tiny country” over the de-facto Taiwan embassy.
“It is a high voltage line, even a watershed between peace and war,” the communist mouthpiece wrote.
On Monday, the same paper claimed that “Europe will sooner or later be worried that what Lithuania does will bind Russia and China together into a tight embrace, breaking the current global geopolitical balance.”
While Lithuania is geographically distant from China, Šakalienė warned that Beijing may attempt to ally with Russia and Belarus — both of whom share a land border with her country — and attempt to exploit situations such as the migrant crisis to destabilise Lithuania.
However, the Lithuanian MP said that while her country is small in comparison to China, years of repression under the Soviet Union and later gaining independence and freedom have given Lithuania the experience and understanding necessary to withstand the “anger and hostility” of communist states.
“When communists threaten us? Well, we understand it,” she said.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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