‘Washington minions’: Baltics have angered China
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Chinese President Xi Jinping / AP
Lithuania’s move to leave China’s 17+1 format and build cooperation with Taiwan has angered Beijing. However, resentment towards China’s overtures in the region has been growing for some time.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Communist Party officials are familiar with the the Soviet history of the Baltic states. Leaked party documents, published by the New York Times in 2019 and detailing Uighur repressions, contained telling details.
In his teaching on how to maintain unity in a large and ethnically diverse country, Xi Jinping refered to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, saying that economic growth alone was not enough – after all, the Baltic states were the first to declare independence, despite being relatively prosperous republics.