Budrys rejects claims China prompted Taiwan office name request

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said calls for Taiwan to change the name of its representative office in Lithuania were not initiated by China. He made the remarks at a meeting with the Liberal Movement parliamentary group on Thursday, LRT reported.

Budrys said an unofficial document received by the Taiwanese Representative Office was “one episode, taken out of a series of meetings.” He denied that Taiwan had been given an ultimatum to change the office’s name by October 1, as reported on Monday.

Liberal Movement chair Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen asked about the reported request and plans to restore relations with China. Budrys acknowledged several threats linked to China, including challenges to economic security, excess industrial capacity and unfair trade. He said Lithuania was directly affected by trade restrictions imposed by China.

But Budrys said it was an illusion to think Lithuania was safer because China had no diplomatic representation in the country. During the five years without such a representation, he said, Lithuania’s economic dependencies and threats in some areas had grown. He argued that the level of threats should not be linked to whether a diplomatic representation is present.

The minister said efforts to restore China’s diplomatic representation had been pursued consistently since 2021, including under the previous government. He said decisions would follow an analysis of the benefits and risks for Lithuania, and that he did not believe the country was at a crossroads.

Budrys said he regretted that the issue had become public, arguing it had damaged trust and made further foreign policy work more difficult. Former foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said earlier this week that he believed China had initiated the request. Budrys rejected that claim, saying there had been no order to change the office’s name and that the episode had been taken out of a series of meetings. He also rejected the suggestion that it was part of a Chinese operation.