Europe needs to learn how to "swim and survive" in a new era in which it is "surrounded by sharks" as it faces pressure from China and Trump's US, according to Gabrielius Landsbergis, who was until December the Lithuanian foreign minister.

Landsbergis said the European Union was "clinging to a position that we are not an actor", while China and the United States were "creating their own ways of how to conduct business with each other". In response to the tectonic shift in geopolitics, he urged Brussels to toughen up.

"If you're in the middle of the sea, surrounded by sharks and screaming 'human rights', I don't think that you're going to convince somebody with your values-based approach," the conservative politician said.

"I'm not suggesting that we have to be sharks, but I'm suggesting that we have to figure out the way that would actually allow us to swim and survive."

The return of Donald Trump as US president has threatened to upend the EU's relationship with Washington. Much ink has been spilled about how the returning leader might also affect Europe's strained ties with Beijing, with the EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic saying on Wednesday that Brussels hoped to work with Trump on some facets of China policy.

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"History has not yet been written," Landsbergis said. "The geopolitical situation is changing quite rapidly."

He does expect, however, a deepening of the European divide on China - between those countries situated closer to Russia that rely on the US for their immediate security, and those in western Europe.

EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic has indicated that Brussels hopes to work with the new Trump administration on some parts of China trade policy. 

"We will see the EU even more fractured ... we will see a lot more pressures. There will be definitely some southern countries of Europe, where the Spanish Prime Minister [Pedro Sanchez] is saying, I want more relations with China, just to spite Donald Trump, for reasons that are not necessarily well understood in other parts of Europe," he said.

But among Baltic and other central and eastern European members, Landsbergis said he saw "countries moving closer to the US, despite what Donald Trump is saying".

"[They will be] cutting ties with China and performing anything that would be asked from Washington because of the security needs of this part of Europe - because breaking ties with the US in the face of Russian aggression is definitely not something that my part of Europe would be willing to do," he said.

Landsbergis' four years as Lithuania's top diplomat were dominated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But before that, his tenure was arguably characterised by a running feud with China.

In May 2021, his ministry took Lithuania out of the "17+1" partnership grouping coordinated by Beijing with central and eastern European countries. Later that year, he gave the green light to the opening in Vilnius of a Taiwanese Representative Office, a name that stoked controversy and broke from the norm across Europe, where such bases are typically referred to as "Taipei" offices.

This led to a bitter trade and diplomatic dispute after Lithuanian exporters found that the country had been wiped off the Chinese customs system. Its shipments to China subsequently plunged 91.4 per cent in November 2021, compared to a year earlier. In December, China expelled the Lithuanian ambassador.

The European Commission brought a case against China at the World Trade Organization early in 2022, arguing that Beijing had economically coerced Vilnius for its relations with Taiwan. But according to Landsbergis, the case was brought only reluctantly, even if publicly, Brussels insisted Vilnius had done nothing wrong.

"The [European External Action Service] was pressuring us very hard, not before [the opening of the office], but after, when it was already opened and when we were in the midst of the coercion," Landsbergis said, referring to the EU's de facto foreign office, also known as the EEAS.

"I remember having conversations with the representatives of the EEAS, and I said, 'You are the heads and the representatives of one of the richest, most powerful alliances in the world. Is your best instrument to use pressure against one of the smallest members, or should you be using your power and influence to convince [China] that they back off from a member of the European Union?'" he recalled.

The WTO case has returned to the news in recent weeks, with the EU resuming it last week following a year-long suspension, only to pause it once more on Thursday for another year.

Had it not been resumed last week, the case would have automatically expired, but Brussels sources said it still did not have enough direct evidence of state-sponsored coercion. Insiders said the case did not fit neatly within WTO rules and they were not confident that the EU would win. By pausing it again, the commission effectively buys itself another year.

Landsbergis urged the commission to fight the case to the end, even if it resulted in a loss.

"The current rules might force the EU to lose this case, but it's very important that we carry on, figuring out the rules that would allow us to win the next cases, so that we don't lose the lesson that through Lithuania, we all learned," he said.

"Because if we do that, then the next episode - and I'm sure that there will be - will be even harsher, because the adversary, China in this case, well, definitely they would have learned the lessons."

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