President Tsai meets delegation led by former Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Mantas Adomėnas of the Republic of Lithuania
On the morning of April 18, President Tsai Ing-wen met with a delegation of scholars and experts led by Dr. Mantas Adomėnas, former vice-minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Lithuania. In remarks, President Tsai thanked the Lithuanian government and Seimas (parliament) for repeatedly emphasizing the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and speaking out in support of Taiwan’s international participation. She pointed out that Taiwan and Lithuania have continued to deepen our cooperation in such areas as agriculture, semiconductors, and medicine and health, and that we have also enhanced economic and trade cooperation through the Central and Eastern Europe Investment Fund. The president expressed hope that the two countries will continue to expand exchanges and contribute to global prosperity and development.
A translation of President Tsai’s remarks follows:
I would like to welcome our good friend Dr. Adomėnas back to Taiwan. And I am delighted to meet and exchange views with all the scholars and experts who are here for the first time. I look forward to hearing your observations and suggestions about Taiwan a few moments from now.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Adomėnas for his support for Taiwan over the years. In 2020, as deputy chairman of the Lithuania-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group, he led a group of 200 Lithuanians from a diversity of backgrounds to call on the Lithuanian government to strengthen cooperation with Taiwan.
While vice minister of foreign affairs, Dr. Adomėnas facilitated the donation of vaccines by the Lithuanian government to Taiwan. He also provided assistance in multiple areas as Taiwan and Lithuania prepared to establish representative offices in each other’s countries. This has brought our bilateral relations even closer.
We are grateful that with the support of our guests, Taiwan and Lithuania have continued advancing our partnership. We have continued to deepen our cooperation in such areas as agriculture, semiconductors, and medicine and health. We have also enhanced economic and trade cooperation through the Central and Eastern Europe Investment Fund. In recent years, Taiwan and Lithuania have shared our experiences in countering disinformation and promoting cybersecurity in our common effort to safeguard the values of freedom and democracy.
The Lithuanian government and Seimas have repeatedly emphasized the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and have spoken out in support of Taiwan’s international participation. Following the earthquake earlier this month, the government of Lithuania announced a donation of 50,000 euros to help in the disaster reconstruction effort. This was yet another demonstration of Lithuania’s friendship with Taiwan. On behalf of the people of Taiwan, I offer my sincerest gratitude.
I am confident that cooperation between Taiwan and Lithuania will help strengthen the democratic community and contribute to global prosperity and development. I look forward to our guests continuing to make the case for expanding exchanges between Taiwan and Lithuania across multiple areas. I wish you all a pleasant and fruitful visit.
Dr. Adomėnas then delivered remarks, first saying that it is a great pleasure and honor to be here. It was nearly 14 years ago that he first set foot in Taiwan, he said, and he was immediately struck by the atmosphere of freedom and the bursting energy of this land. Mentioning that he was fortunate to observe the elections in 2016 when President Tsai was first elected president, he recalled that he felt in the atmosphere the palpable feeling of hope for the new period, for the new era that was dawning on Taiwan. Now eight years later, he said, he sees that the hope was justified, that President Tsai is leaving the office having transformed the country, and her leadership has taken us to new heights of commitment to freedom, democracy, and human rights, and to new high profile in the global affairs.
Dr. Adomėnas remarked that Lithuania and Taiwan share very many common traits, and that even though we are from different civilizations at different ends of the Eurasian landmass, our history and our present predicament have many commonalities. He said that they know from their experience what it is to be denied some rights to sovereignty and what it is to be denied the right to live in the way that the people of Taiwan choose to do. He also pointed out that through the years of Soviet occupation, Taiwan did not recognize the occupation of the Baltic countries, and was a consistent supporter of the right of Lithuania and other occupied countries to their sovereignty and independence, saying that for this they are extremely grateful.
And from this knowledge and experience, he said, Lithuania profoundly understands Taiwan’s aspirations towards sovereignty, towards independence, towards global recognition for the right to live the life of our nation according to the values which we have so deeply embraced in our everyday life and in our international profile. Dr. Adomėnas then said that Taiwan is truly the island of liberty and the beacon of human rights in the whole region and an example of how these values should be lived and implemented for the whole world.
Dr. Adomėnas pointed out that democracy is not a given, and it is not a state in which a nation, having achieved it, will remain forever, emphasizing that it has to be fought for permanently. He said that there are internal dangers, and that we see how democratic nations can backslide into autocratic tendencies. Noting that democracy requires constant vigilance and constant leadership in promoting those values, he said that under President Tsai’s leadership, our country has made enormous strides in the direction in which they follow with great admiration and from which they have a lot to learn.
Dr. Adomėnas remarked that democracy and adherence to human rights are perceived by nearly imperialist autocratic regimes in their vicinity as a threat because they show that, actually, democracy can be lived, and it can be lived in Eastern Europe as well as it can be lived in the best example of Chinese civilization which Taiwan represents. He noted that the narrative that democracy is not suited to some civilizations is denied every day by the prosperity and cultural flourishing of the Taiwanese people.
This is another circumstance which unites us, he said, in that we stand in the vicinity of major imperialist forces which are not content to respect the right of nations to self-determination and which are planning and preparing for further acts of aggression. He gave the example of Russia trying to demolish Ukraine’s determination to be democratic and European, and said that there are further plans being prepared to transform the whole global order from its commitment to democracy and human rights. This is the area, he said, where small states such as their state of Lithuania and Taiwan should cooperate, help each other, share experience, and prepare together, because preparedness is the only thing which can avert the misfortune of war.
Dr. Adomėnas said that Taiwan is entering this turbulent age greatly strengthened through President Tsai’s leadership through the years, and they follow with great admiration what she has done. In closing, Dr. Adomėnas said that they are here to learn and are very grateful for the opportunity to exchange views with President Tsai.
The delegation was accompanied to the Presidential Office by Lithuanian Representative to Taiwan Paulius Lukauskas.