The Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm, popularized ancient folk tales and it would be great to bring Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel or Snow White alive in our imagination along the Baltic Sea
The tales would not be out of place in Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, with frozen lakes, low hanging clouds and wind gusts ripping through the trees...
However, the sanitized tales of our childhood - and the do-good movies - would hardly be relevant
It is the violence of the traditional folk stories, along with compassion, resourcefulness and fundamental human good, that stands out...
In recently published ‘EU – Byelorussia – Going to Pot(ash)’, we argued how the current migrant crisis along the Polish border could impact Byelorussian exports of potash, an essential fertilizer of which the country is rich
With a real possibility of losing market share for the benefit of the other two potash ‘majors’, Canada and Russia, the Byelorussian President Lukashenka discovers belatedly how his closest allies, Russia and China, walk a fine line
And, singularly, Lithuania, a small Baltic country nestled North-West of Belarus and bordering the Baltic Sea, got enmeshed in this shadow boxing, as the key railway transit corridor for shipping of Byelorussian potash to China
Russia has – very few exceptions – been punctilious in enforcing commercial contracts kept well separate from geopolitical tensions; this was true during the Cold War for oil and gas deliveries and remains so today
…which is why Russia will not tolerate disruption of energy transit by way of Byelorussia – an empty menace brandished occasionally by Mr. Lukashenka to (seemingly) universal indifference
China is different
Long term contractual potash deliveries are critical for the country’s agriculture, and presumably its 5-year plans laying out key priorities, with food supply coming out on top…
However, China's geopolitical choices, in the name of its 'One China' policy, drew Lithuania, and the European Union of which the Baltic state is member, into open commercial conflict
By inference, Chinese governmental policy may tend to put trade relations at risk, overriding commercial priorities for the sake of global influence…and of principle
In singular fashion, the China's diplomatic spat with Lithuania highlights how this fundamental inconsistency may undermine commercial contracts in the near future
Lithuania may be a small country, but its tortured past, in a region of shifting borders and perpetual war, strengthens in great part its current upstanding democratic credentials
Suffering, sorrow and contrition
In a pact with the Soviet Union, following immediately the June 1939 invasion of Poland by the German Nazi regime and by the Soviets, Lithuania extended its territory in a region, held by Poland since 1920, around Vilnius (Lithuania’s historical capital)
The consequences were dire – with the implementation of Sovietization policies a year later (1940), destruction of the Lithuanian economy, mass deportations to Siberia for 17 000 Lithuanians (in June 1941, just before the Nazi invasion of the USSR) and massacre of political prisoners by the retreating Soviets after that invasion
From liberators of the Soviet brutality, German occupation turned into the country's next disaster
Facilitated by the Lithuanian Anti-Soviet and pro-independence uprising, the German military administration did not tolerate a Lithuanian government at all and stamped their own vicious policies on the country, mostly by relying on Lithuanians themselves
This is how the Holocaust began in the very first days of German occupation (June 1941) with the complicit and active support of the Lithuanian administration and partisan forces – a dark sheet of Lithuanian history with the murder of 80% of the 210 000 (to 250 000) Jewish population before 1942, a genocide rate which reached 95-97% by the end of the war
If Nazi propaganda exploited anti-Jewish sentiment in Lithuania during the war, the country experienced a renew bout of suffering under the post-war Stalinist regime, with an estimated demographic loss of 500 000 people according to 4 different sources quoted by Wikipedia
In total, 1 million people lost their lives according these sources between June 1940 and 1953 – the fact that the census of 1923 counted 2 million Lithuanian residents would heighten the horror, if it were even possible
This history brief provides insights about Lithuania’s current international outlook
According to Pew Research, 75% of Lithuanians declare themselves as belonging to the Catholic faith, 3% as Orthodox Christian and another 14% as ‘Christian’ without specification make up a very influential group (92%) – much higher than in the two other Baltic states
Faith may – or may not – weigh on the conscious of contemporary Lithuanians, burdened by the fresh memory of tragedy
However, what is almost certainly true of the psychological and moral make-up of the country today is strong-headed resistance to bullying by any super-power – possibly at any cost
Challenging the dragon
Acute sensitivity to foreign interference can be expected to color Lithuania's foreign policy and, as if in echo, its affinity with peoples sharing its former plight
This is how Lithuania’s singular support of Taiwan may well have come about – we do not know for sure but the fact is a Representation opened in Vilnius, to the ire of China’s government
China expressed its protest by withdrawing its ambassador from Vilnius in September and, in a very undiplomatic move in November, by requiring of Lithuania’s embassy in Beijing to return all the diplomatic passports, and by downgrading the representation unilaterally to ‘chargé d’affaires’ caretaker
Lithuania would have none of it and closed the embassy, withdrawing all its personnel and dependents by mid-December
Seemingly ignorant of Lithuania’s entangled relations with neighboring countries, or possibly contemptuous of their implications, China upped the bullying with the notification that products including components manufactured in Lithuania would be banned from imports
With reliance on technological suppliers in Lithuania, global conglomerates, many of which are likely to be German , such as car part manufacturer Continental, are exposed to China's measures of coercion
China's trade weapon has been used in boycotts before, exposing commercial interests in Australia and Canada, in Japan and South Korea but the breadth of the assault on the Lithuanian economy stands out
According to the Economist, Lithuania's small band of importers have been unable to list Lithuania as a country of origin in Chinese customs databases, making it impossible to clear shipments
More impactful, there are rumours that the People’s Bank of China, the central bank, has forbidden banks from issuing letters of credit covering trade in or out of any port in the Baltic states
Encountering an unmovable object ?
In many ways, the killing fields of Lithuania will continue to haunt governments – foremost in Germany – and engage the European Union, of which Lithuania is a member
Understandably, China may have been ignorant of the deep undercurrents of the tragic European history, but its diplomats will be taking stock of the potential damage
Reverberating across Europe, unvarnished support has been voiced amongst the East Europeans, which China has been tempting with its 16+1 Cooperation programs
The heavy weights of the EU, France and Germany, are reaffirming their commitment to EU solidarity and to the Single Market
In a sense, China has managed simultaneously to sweep some of Europe's tragedies into the dustbin of history and to write off a founding principle of the Union
This will not go down well
Revealing its hand in this brutal poker play, China has put principle - its "One China" policy - above economic interests, demonstrating how its contractual commitments are certainly attractive but risky
...all of which leaves the shipments of Byelorussian potash to China to be resolved... at a later date