Lithuania's provocations on Taiwan doomed to backfire

Lithuania has shown its true color when it jumped out to openly provoke China on the Taiwan question. And the pro-independence Taiwan authorities will miscalculate if they take Lithuania's move as the island steps into a larger space on the international stage.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday night strongly protested Lithuania's approval of the establishment of the so-called Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania to show that China will never compromise on the one-China policy. .

The fact is unchallengeable that there is only one China in the world. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory, and the government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China.

The Lithuanian side shall be responsible for all the ensuing consequences because of its trick to establish official ties with the island. In fact, it disobeyed its promises when it established diplomatic ties with PRC in 1991, intruding into China's red line.

It seems that the Baltic country, used to face choices between China and anti-China forces, which now believe the Taiwan card can be played to disrupt rising China's reunification efforts and contain its development. Now it has given a clearer answer by putting itself as a pawn of the anti-China political camp.

The situation across the Straits used to be stable and peaceful before the Democratic Progressive Party came to power in 2016. Its refusal to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus that there is only one China and efforts to push its secessionist political agenda have deteriorated the cross-Straits relations.

Especially after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the DPP has further hardened its stance against Beijing to shift the Taiwan residents' blame on the island's stagnating economy.

With the encouragement of some Western powers, the Taiwan authorities and some countries like Lithuania may believe they can change and overturn the fact that both sides of the Straits belong to one China. However, their behaviors can only strengthen the Chinese people's determination to defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as achieve China's full reunification.

Lithuania should correct its wrongs. And the time is now.

The author is a writer with China Daily.