Lithuania’s Review of Its China Relationship through the Perspective of Small States Theory

• In Event: China, economic statecraft and renewable energy (Hybrid Panel)

Abstract

In 2021, Lithuania has attracted considerable global attention due to a series of actions that collectively amounted to a major review of its relationship with China. Most importantly, Lithuanian decisions to become the first to withdraw from the then 17+1 framework of cooperation between China and Central and Eastern European countries and especially to open a Taiwanese representative office caused a diplomatic crisis that included mutual recall of ambassadors at Beijing’s request, a measure rarely seen in Chinese foreign policy practice, as well as a high-scale economic statecraft campaign against the southernmost Baltic state. Leading international media outlets were quick to describe Lithuania as “the little nation that could (stand up to China)” and even the “West’s first line of defense” against the emerging Asian superpower. Although Lithuania’s change of heart on China was correctly interpreted as having a lot to do with the new cabinet’s proclaimed “value-based foreign policy,” its normative component has arguably been overemphasized by most observers and scholars. Similarly, the Chinese charge that Lithuania thus simply did the American bidding has actually amounted to only one factor among many. Instead, as the author argues in this paper, both the reasons and rationale behind Lithuania’s review of its China relationship should be accounted for by applying the small states/powers theoretical framework of international relations. The case study thus conducted would reveal that Lithuanian actions have indeed been characterized by calculated pragmatism, independent mindset and proactive foreign policy making befitting of a small country punching above its weight.

Short Bio

Konstantinas Andrijauskas – Associate Professor of Asian International Relations at Vilnius University (Lithuania); formerly a senior visiting scholar at China’s Fudan (Shanghai, 2011) and Zhejiang (Hangzhou, 2013) universities as well as Columbia University (New York City, USA, 2017, Fulbright Scholar Program); author of some thirty academic publications, including two Lithuanian-language books on contemporary relations between China, Russia and India (2016) and comparative history of pre-modern non-European civilizations (2018, co-authorship); participant of academic conferences and guest lectures in numerous institutions across Europe, Asia, America and Australia; associate expert at the Eastern Europe Studies Centre (Lithuania); member of the China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe multinational consortium of experts and the European Association for Chinese Studies. Dr. Andrijauskas’ research is focused on contemporary domestic and international politics of China and Russia as well as Eurasian studies in general, and he currently works on a book about the politics of connectivity in China’s border regions.

Author

• Konstantinas Andrijauskas, Vilnius University