Night view of Taipei 101, Taiwan, China. [Photo/VCG]
Three lawmakers from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia respectively visited the Chinese island of Taiwan last week. This is undoubtedly official interaction between the Taiwan authorities and the three Baltic states that breaches the pledges the three countries made to Beijing when they established diplomatic relations with it.
The political foundation for any country having diplomatic ties with Beijing is the recognition of one-China with Beijing as the sole legal representative.
Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in February last year, the three Baltic states, which are an anti-Russia vanguard in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and key pieces in Washington’s geopolitical game with Moscow, have actively tried to equate the Taiwan question with the Ukraine crisis under the cover of the US’ so-called value diplomacy.
In doing so, the three Baltic states, all self-claimed victims of the Soviet Union regime, hope to improve the profile of the countries in both NATO and to Washington, striving for a larger-than-life influence on the world stage that is disproportionate to their size.
At the same time, the secessionist-minded Democratic Progressive Party authorities of Taiwan, which have been keeping a close eye on the Ukraine conflict, are also trying to exploit the crisis to garner international support for their own separatist cause by attempting to draw an analogy between the Taiwan question and the Ukraine crisis.
By hosting the representatives of the three Baltic countries, which are held up by the West as models of bravely fighting for their national independence from the Soviet Union, the DPP authorities hope to present themselves in the same light.
With the number of countries that have official relations with Taipei having dwindled from more than 40 in the 1950s to 13 today, the DPP authorities are desperately seeking international endorsement and the expanding of the island’s “social circle”. The most visible form of such support is visits by foreign politicians who are paid handsome appearance fees.
In other words, all the handshakes, smiles and the “we stand together” talk generated by these visits is nothing but a hollow show of mutual back-scratching.
