"Lithuania’s China policy is not old, is not new. We continue to expand our relations in Indo-Pacific. We see it as the alternative, to develop relations with countries that respect democracy, respect rule of law, respect the conduct of the business and are not delivering different type of threats that can be implemented through dependencies," said Budrys.
Relations between Lithuania and China deteriorated when the Taiwanese Representative Office was opened in Vilnius in 2021. China started pressuring Lithuania economically and downgraded the level of diplomatic representation from ambassadorial to the chargé d’affaires. However, the foreign minister stated that Lithuania was not the one to create uch circumstances.
"My interest is to normalise the relations to the point where we can as it was described once creating the different conventions and diplomatic relations, and creating the international traditions of diplomatic relations. We have to have our embassy in Beijing as we want also China to have their embassy in Lithuania," said Budrys.
Nonetheless, the head of Lithuania’s diplomacy emphasised that China’s assistance to Russia’s military industrial complex cannot be ignored, nor can be China’s economic coercion against Lithuania when the Taiwanese Representative Office was opened.