Lithuania announced on Friday that it was expelling three Chinese embassy employees, as relations between the two countries deteriorate over Taiwan and the alleged involvement of a Chinese ship in the possible sabotage of cables under -sailors.
Two submarine telecommunications cables were cut in mid-November in the Baltic Sea, in Swedish territorial waters. One of these cables connected the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania. Sweden has opened an investigation into sabotage.
Suspicion is directed towards a Chinese ship, the Yi Peng 3, which according to maritime traffic monitoring sites passed over the cables when they were cut. Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Friday that “three personnel of the Mission of the People’s Republic of China have been declared undesirable in the country.”
The ministry did not give specific reasons for the expulsions, simply citing “activities that violate the Vienna Convention and the law of the Republic of Lithuania.”
On Wednesday, Lithuania said it was setting up a joint team of investigators, with Sweden and Finland, to work on the severed cables case, with the support of Eurojust, the EU agency. in charge of judicial cooperation. China has denied any responsibility in this matter and said on Friday it was “willing to cooperate” with investigators.
Relations between Vilnius and Beijing had already been strained since 2021, when Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open a de facto embassy under the island’s name. The move marked a shift in a widespread diplomatic practice of using the name of the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, to avoid angering China, which claims the island as part of its territory.
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