The failure of democratic countries’ support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion could be “inspiring” for China, according to a Lithuanian parliamentarian.
The democratic world must unite in its support for Ukraine, Dovile Šakaliene, a member of the Lithuanian Parliament, said at a press conference in Vilnius on Thursday.
“If [we] let Ukraine fall, that would be very inspiring for the People’s Republic of China,” Šakaliene said. “If we protect Ukraine … then I think that would be a lesson, a hard lesson for the People’s Republic of China. A democratic world, sometimes maybe slow and messy and sometimes bureaucratic, but we do unite. We are efficient, and we can be speedy when it’s necessary.”
Šakaliene added that she has “hope” that if China attacked Taiwan, democratic countries would stand as united as they are standing now for Ukraine.
Beijing sees mainland China and Taiwan as part of one country and says it wishes to unite with Taiwan peacefully, but has not denounced the use of force to achieve its goal.
The press conference was held during a two-day visit to Lithuania by a cross-party delegation of British parliamentarians belonging to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).
The trip aimed to show solidarity with Lithuania, the delegation said in a statement, which described the Baltic nation as having “held firm in the face of increasing pressure from authoritarian regimes in both Moscow and Beijing.”
British parliamentarian Sir Iain Duncan Smith said at the press conference that the IPAC, which comprises 200 parliamentarians across 22 legislatures internationally, had expressed concern over China’s “existing abuses, and its extraterritorial threats to areas like Taiwan.”
“We have a very good understanding of how abusive the Chinese government can be … It makes perpetual threats to Taiwan, and those threats aren’t just gestures. As we’re learning or should have learned before over Ukraine, when a totalitarian state, like Russia or China, threatens things, it tends to follow through and do them.”
According to Smith, the U.K. intends to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific region to show its support for the stability of the region.
“The recent sailing of one of the new U.K. aircraft carriers was an indication of support,” he said, referring to British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth’s 28-week tour in the Indo-Pacific last year.
In its statement over their visit to Lithuania, the British delegation called on the U.K. government to “affirm the sovereign right of Lithuania to develop relations with Taiwan as it sees fit, and work to foster greater engagement with Taiwan in diplomatic exchange, trade and defense.”
The group noted that China enacted several punitive diplomatic and economic measures against Lithuania last December after Taiwan opened a representative office in Vilnius, leading to a 91 percent decrease in Lithuanian exports to China.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel