Lithuania is to appeal to European leaders to resist Chinese pressure after the Vilnius mission. Its dependents hastily left China and amid Beijing's denials, raising concerns about the safety of Lithuanian diplomats.
China severed diplomatic ties with Lithuania last month in response to Taiwan's establishment of a representative office in Vilnius under its name.
According to a diplomatic source familiar with the matter, Lithuania's diplomatic mission to China departed the country on Wednesday in a hastily orchestrated evacuation.
On Thursday, China's foreign ministry stated that Lithuanian diplomats' safety in China was unfounded.
Later, an adviser to Lithuania's president told the Lithuanian public television that the Baltic state's leader would seek assistance from European colleagues.
"The president will speak with EU leaders about the pressure we are under, and we believe this will spark discussion about how the EU, and particularly the European Commission, can assist Lithuania in this matter," Asta Skaisgiryte said.
"We want our European partners to understand the conflict, and we want economic actions to be as broad as possible," she continued.
Claims that Lithuanian diplomats worried for their personal safety or that China prohibited its citizens from working in the country's office are "completely fictitious," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said earlier at a briefing in Beijing.
Lithuanian officials said on Wednesday that they had called their senior diplomat from China for discussions and that the embassy would temporarily operate remotely.
Like the majority of countries, Lithuania has formal connections with China, but not with self-governing and democratically governed Taiwan, which Beijing regards as its territory.
A party of 19 people, including embassy staff and dependents, departed Beijing on Wednesday on route to Paris, a diplomatic source told Reuters. Another diplomat described their departure as retaliation to "intimidation."
On Thursday, Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters in Vilnius that Chinese authorities had informed diplomats that their identification cards would soon become invalid.
"We were given a minimal amount of time...
We requested a longer duration merely because arranging that return would be difficult. We received no response to our request, and everyone returned as quickly as possible."
He added that changes to a country's delegates' standing unilaterally would contravene international conventions.
China's foreign ministry did not reply quickly to a request for comment on Landsbergis' Thursday statements.
China had requested that Lithuania downgrade the status of its Beijing embassy to that of a charge d'affaires. This would have been consistent with China's changes to its legation in Vilnius in response to Lithuania's Taipei office's opening.
"The Lithuanian side, on the other hand, has never raised the issue of personal safety with China," Wang added.
"If the Lithuanian side does not confront reality, if it does not reflect on and correct errors, but instead shirks its own responsibility, bilateral relations will deteriorate even further."
China has warned international corporations to cut connections with Lithuania or risk being shut out of the Chinese market, a senior government official and an industry association told Reuters, drawing businesses into the spat.
