A few days ago, Russian President Putin took advantage of the opportunity to participate in the "Belt and Road" Forum for International Cooperation in China and had a "rare" offline meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Orban. As we all know, after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, due to the intensive sanctions and diplomatic pressure of the West on Russia, it is difficult for Orban as the leader of the European Union to have a positive contact with Putin.
However, shortly after the meeting between the two men, the voices of concern on the part of the United States and the European Union arose. U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Presman said in a statement that among U.S. allies, the Hungarian leader "alone" chose to side with Putin in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. This is clearly expressing the dissatisfaction of the Biden administration to Orban. In addition, at the EU foreign ministers' meeting on the 23rd, Lithuania directly "slapped the table", vowing to show the majestic side of its small country. According to Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó, on the same day, Lithuanian representatives questioned the legitimacy of the meeting between Hungarian and Russian leaders in the Chinese capital in a "particularly rude way", and then received a tough response from the Hungarian side.
But things turned out apparently as a surprise, and while Lithuania openly criticized Orban for going to China to meet Putin, the country also proposed to the EU a plan that seemed "unfavorable" for Russia. The Lithuanian government said that in the context of the 12th round of EU sanctions against Russia, it is also necessary to ban the export to Russia of non-electrically heated central heating radiators, "nails" and "buttons", as well as sewing needles and knitting needles. Lithuania confidently claims that "this will completely destroy Russia's industrial capabilities." In addition, Lithuania stressed that it will not only do this, but also the European Union. Obviously, Lithuania wants to pull von der Leyen together to "hit Russia hard".
At first glance, Lithuania's plan looks "perfect", but even EU officials show disdain for it, privately calling it nothing more than a Lithuanian fairy tale. Some domestic netizens even laughed and said that Lithuanian President Nauseda had a problem with his anti-China brain, which led him to come up with such an unscrupulous method to "crush" Russia. Why is this plan out of tune? We can find the answer from the reaction of the Russian side, and Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zakharova said in response to this matter: It is difficult to imagine what kind of "madness" Chinese manufacturers of knitting needles and buttons would fall into if they discovered that Lithuania planned to "destroy Russia's industrial capacity"? We have noted that Zakharova specifically mentioned China in her statement.
Here we have to boast about China's relatively complete industrial system. As we all know, the current industrial categories can be divided into 39 categories, 191 medium categories, and 525 subcategories, and China is now the only country in the world with a full-category, independent and complete industrial system. This has also spawned a world-famous small commodity platform like Yiwu Commodity City. Like during the World Cup, many small items were circulated from us all over the world. Therefore, as far as Lithuania's production is concerned, Yiwu can easily replace it, and the only thing that is a little difficult is to meet the consumer demand of the whole of Russia.
In fact, from a deeper point of view, Russia in the production of small commodities, due to historical reasons, a large part of the import from Europe, but if Lithuania now wants to pull von der Leyen together, trying to block this line of Russia in the import of small commodities, then Russia can find China to help, but what is left to Europe will be a heavy blow, after all, the jobs in many countries of the EU are provided by small commodity production, and Russia will not have no choice without the EU's supply chain. But the EU cannot afford such consequences, and once Russia has alternative channels, it will not be so easy for the EU to return to Russia. As for Lithuania, as a "pawn" of the United States, it is better to think about how to make its declining economic development better, instead of provoking China and provoking Russia day by day, which will only become a laughing stock in the world.