State-owned Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp on Monday announced that it had purchased a shipment of 20,000 bottles of Lithuanian-produced dark rum. Originally destined for China, Beijing blocked the consignment as part of its campaign to punish Lithuania for allowing Taiwan to open a de facto embassy in its capital, Vilnius, on Nov. 18 last year.
Beijing had already retaliated by recalling its ambassador to Lithuania, downgrading diplomatic ties with the country, ordering Chinese businesses to enforce an embargo on Lithuanian goods, and threatening multinational corporations to do the same or risk being locked out of the Chinese market.