Lithuania announced on Friday that it was expelling three staff members of the Chinese embassy, as relations between the Baltic nation and Beijing deteriorate over Lithuania’s support for Taiwan and the suspected involvement of a Chinese ship in the damage to undersea telecommunications cables.
Earlier this month, two Baltic Sea telecommunications cables were severed in Swedish territorial waters, including one running from the Swedish island of Gotland to Lithuania.
Suspicion has fallen on a Chinese vessel, the Yi Peng 3, which tracking sites indicate sailed over the cables around the time they were cut.
In a statement on Friday, Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry said three Chinese diplomats had been declared "undesirable" in the country. The ministry did not specify the exact reasons for the expulsion, citing only "activities that violate the Vienna Convention and the laws of the Republic of Lithuania."
On Wednesday, Lithuania announced that it was forming a joint investigation team with Sweden and Finland to probe the damaged cables, with support from Eurojust, the European Union agency for criminal justice cooperation.
China has denied any involvement in the incident and said on Friday it was "willing to cooperate" with the investigation.
Relations between Vilnius and Beijing have been strained since 2021, when Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open a de facto embassy under its own name, a move that departed from the usual diplomatic practice of using the name of the capital, Taipei, to avoid angering China, which considers Taiwan a part of its territory.
With AFP
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