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Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

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Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#11

Post by baybal2 »

jeidz wrote: post #5
lmilcin wrote: post #4

There is a simple solution. If most of western world allowed Taiwan embassies China would have to relent. They can't afford having entire western world stand against them. Unfortunately, that would require western nations to agree on something.

They can. The western world can’t afford to be without China’s manufacturing, though.

Yes, and that's the problem.

The West will not go, and die without one xmass season, and a new Iphone 99.

But Western elites all holding stocks of companies valued in trillions will do.

I requires a healthy conversation in society about this. It will come to a time when people will have to decide what to do with these people.

Potential adversaries now do things which just 15 years ago would've meant a real hot war with the whole Western world by leveraging their financial influence on Western elites, and a threat of bankrupting them.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#12

Post by [deleted] »

someguydave wrote: post #9

Europeans were quick to scorn Mr Trump’s policies but the reality is that China has been unfair in its trade practices. Also, losing liberty in Hong Kong was sad but it will be much worse if free Taiwan is crushed by CCP ambition. The West should have alot of introspection about which battles are the right ones to choose. How will history judge the current leadership of the West if they abandon Taiwan?

[deleted]

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#13

Post by mantas »

thegreatdukd wrote: post #3

> But the Baltic republic points to its long history of standing up to bullying foreigners, including Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union Not sure about that. Against Soviet Union surely, but Nazis not at all.

Lithuania did sentence some Nazis in 1935 to deter Germany in Klaipėda/Memel. Then managed to hold onto it till spring of 1939. Then refused Hitler offer to join attacking Poland.

In 1941-1944 people tried to stay away from Nazis and keep a fighting chance against Soviets once they’ll be back. For example Lithuanian SS division was never formed as in other occupied territories. While Germans did push for it, locals actively sabotaged it to have more men for coming anti-Soviet resistance.

Now standing up to Soviets.. while 1944-1952 was pretty decent, summer of 1940 was rather sad.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#14

Post by csydas »

jeidz wrote: post #5
lmilcin wrote: post #4

There is a simple solution. If most of western world allowed Taiwan embassies China would have to relent. They can't afford having entire western world stand against them. Unfortunately, that would require western nations to agree on something.

They can. The western world can’t afford to be without China’s manufacturing, though.

I'm actually not sure why this is being downvoted.

I'm not a fan of the heavy dependence on Chinese manufacturing as it comes at huge human rights/ecological costs (in that order), but companies typically care about the bottom line above all else. How the product is made is less important typically than whether or not it __is__ made.

And it's a simple truth that right now a lot of companies are heavily dependent on China for production of goods, and if the US/UK unilaterally were forced to drop Chinese Manufacturing without time to plan, it would be pretty devastating to a lot of businesses.

Please don't misread this as "no action should ever be taken against China", as absolutely that is not my position; moral stands sometimes have a significant cost. Same with changes for a more sustainable future, you might need to have a higher upfront cost than you may want.

That doesn't mean these changes are bad, it just means that there is a non-trivial cost to consider. For me, this is a no brainer, as I like to look more towards the future and have the comfort zone to do so. Many businesses do not have that comfort zone, and regardless of the reason they're in that position, it's a reality for them that losing their chinese suppliers is a deathknell for them.

I'm not trying to propose anything except that I can understand why some businesses are against taking strong stances against Chinese manufacturing; I don't action _shouldn't_ be taken if China is not behaving well, just to be clear. But I can understand where people are coming from if they are opposed to it, as they don't want to bite the hand that feeds so to speak.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#16

Post by yardie »

someguydave wrote: post #9

Europeans were quick to scorn Mr Trump’s policies but the reality is that China has been unfair in its trade practices. Also, losing liberty in Hong Kong was sad but it will be much worse if free Taiwan is crushed by CCP ambition. The West should have alot of introspection about which battles are the right ones to choose. How will history judge the current leadership of the West if they abandon Taiwan?

If you are the referring to Trump cancelling TPP it was a dumb move that only emboldened China. The TPP was supposed to be the US and 12 smaller Asian nations vs China. TPP was created because of China's unfair trade practices and Trump dismantled it.

No one needs to rewrite his history. The guy was a complete fucking disaster.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#17

Post by mantas »

enkid wrote: post #7
thegreatdukd wrote: post #3

> But the Baltic republic points to its long history of standing up to bullying foreigners, including Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union Not sure about that. Against Soviet Union surely, but Nazis not at all.

There were certainly resisters and collaborators with both the Soviets and the Germans.

To be fair were was little anti-Nazi resistance. The general notion was that Soviets will be back in no time. So better not waste resources on fighting Nazis.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#18

Post by tata71 »

someguydave wrote: post #9

Europeans were quick to scorn Mr Trump’s policies but the reality is that China has been unfair in its trade practices. Also, losing liberty in Hong Kong was sad but it will be much worse if free Taiwan is crushed by CCP ambition. The West should have alot of introspection about which battles are the right ones to choose. How will history judge the current leadership of the West if they abandon Taiwan?

> How will history judge the current leadership of the West if they abandon Taiwan?

How does that affect how well their investments do? Maybe I'm not following.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#20

Post by jinguang »

lmilcin wrote: post #4

There is a simple solution. If most of western world allowed Taiwan embassies China would have to relent. They can't afford having entire western world stand against them. Unfortunately, that would require western nations to agree on something.

不可能的。西方文化决定了
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