Lithuania cooperation not checkbook diplomacy: MOFA
ROC Central News Agency
07/04/2023 10:17 PM
Taipei, July 4 (CNA) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Tuesday said Taiwan is not engaging in checkbook diplomacy with Lithuania amid controversy surrounding a 10 million euro (US$10.9 million) grant and technology transfers to the Baltic State.
Earlier Tuesday, Kuomintang Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) claimed that Vilnius had pressured Taipei into fully funding what was initially a co-financed investment agreement.
At a press conference at the Legislative Yuan, Wang also said that Taiwan had given into a Lithuanian demand to increase funding for the agreement from 6.5 million to 14 million euros.
According to Wang, 6.2 million euros of this was used to finance a private Lithuanian company's acquisition of 8-nanometer wafer process technology from the Taiwanese government-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).
Wang said that during a meeting last September, a Lithuanian representative had threatened to tell their foreign minister in Vilnius that Taiwan "was not as motivated as Lithuania to help the other side" before abruptly leaving.
Taiwan's representatives had advised the government that the terms of the investment agreement with Lithuanian tech company Teltonika did not make sense but were forced to go forward with the cooperation by National Security Council Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄), Wang said.
According to Wang, Koo demanded that the pact be dealt with "politically," saying it was a direct order from President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Eventually, the government decided to subsidize the project to the tune of 10 million euros, including a 6.63 million euro payment to the ITRI, Wang said, citing information provided by MOFA.
Following Wang's press conference, MOFA said in a statement that the investment agreement, which was forged on "mutually beneficial" basis, was expected to facilitate industrial cooperation between both sides and did not constitute "checkbook diplomacy."
The partnership not only abides by the law but also represents a practical action to foster the "resilience of global democracy," according to MOFA.
The ministry said the joint investment deal aimed to help build semiconductor manufacturing capacity in Lithuania, adding that future financing would be provided solely by Vilnius.
The deal was one of several bilateral cooperation projects agreed since China launched a series of punitive measures against Lithuania after it allowed Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius that used the word "Taiwanese" in its name in 2021.
(By Novia Huang and Lee Hsin-Yin)
Enditem/ASG
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