UK to Join EU’s World Trade Organization Dispute Against China over Beijing’s Lithuania Blockade

BEIJING - DECEMBER 09: A man walks past a billboard featuring the late chaiman Mao Zedong
Guang Niu/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

The United Kingdom will request to join the European Union’s dispute against China at the World Trade Organization in response to Beijing’s blockade of Lithuanian products and materials.

In a retaliatory strike to Lithuania’s decision to open a de-facto Taiwanese embassy in Vilnius last summer, Communist China has enacted a blockade on not only all imports from Lithuania but has also effectively sanctioned products made with Lithuanian components in third-party nations.

In response, the European Union has announced that it has filed a dispute with the World Trade Organization against what it believes are illegal trade practices from Beijing.

On Monday, Britain’s Secretary of State for International Trade and President of The Board of Trade, Anne-Marie Trevelyan said that the UK will be following suit, saying: “We support our allies, Lithuania and the EU, in standing against China’s use of coercive trading practices.”

“That’s why we will request to join the EU’s WTO consultation into these measures as a third party to ensure we combat economic coercion in trade together,” the MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed added.

On Tuesday morning, Boris Johnson hosted Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė at Downing Street.

A readout of the meeting from Number 10 said that Johnson “reiterated the UK’s disappointment in China’s use of coercive trading practices against Lithuania, and Prime Minister Šimonytė welcomed the UK’s support at the World Trade Organization on the issue.

On top of the EU and UK, Australia, Taiwan, and the United States have also signalled intentions to join onto the dispute against China, according to the Reuters news agency.

The process at the World Trade Organization provides a sixty-day period for the EU and Communist China to come to a settlement. If no agreement is reached, the EU will be able to ask the WTO for a formal ruling on the matter and if China fails to abide by the ruling it faces potential economic “countermeasures” being imposed.

China entered into the World Trade Organisation in 2001 after receiving support from both the Clinton and Bush administrations, as well as from then-Senator Joe Biden. It was argued at the time that through opening the Chinese market to Western trade the country would liberalise and shed the yoke of communism. However, with the ascension of Xi Jinping to near-emperor status, critics have claimed the lofty aim has backfired.

While the EU has come in support of Lithuania in its spat with Beijing, German companies — who have been facing the economic pinch of the blockade on their products made with Lithuanian components — have been attempting to pressure the Baltic state into a “constructive solution” with the CCP on the Taiwan issue.

Amid ramped-up rhetoric from the Xi Jinping-led dictatorship about an invasion to “reclaim” the island nation, the issue of Taiwanese sovereignty has once again become a central issue in global affairs.

Under the so-called ‘One-China Policy’, the Chinese Communist Party maintains that despite never ruling over the island, Taiwan should rightfully be under the rule of Beijing.

The current government of Taiwan dates back to 1949 when Chiang Kai Shek and the nationalists fled to the island after being defeated by Mao Zedong’s communists following the decision by Democrat U.S. President Harry Truman to withdraw support from the struggling nationalists.

Taiwan was recognized at the United Nations as the only representative of China until Democrat President Jimmy Carter decided in 1979 to officially normalise relations with the Chinese Communist Party and revoked the defence treaty with Taiwan.

Despite this, Taiwan has maintained an independent culture, currency, government, military, and even written language from mainland China to this day.

Though there have been mixed signals from the administration of Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Communist China, Britain’s House of Commons has been less equivocal, unanimously voting last Spring — with the exception of Johnson’s government ministers — to declare Beijing is committing genocide against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

The Commons will look to set the agenda once again later this month when MPs from the foreign affairs committee will travel to Taiwan.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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