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Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

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Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#81

Post by gnomewascool »

albeva wrote: post #68
jeidz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is much smaller than you think.

Not quite as small. Combined EU has the largest economy in the world, is by far the wealthiest region on the planet, possesses a huge & advanced military force and despite decline still has pretty substantial manufacturing capacity. (only reason US tops these rankings is because in EU each metric is tracked separately for each country). So if EU got its shit together and formulated a coherent unified foreign policy -…

> Combined EU has the largest economy in the world

Unfortunately (?) not. By nominal GDP the US is the largest. By PPP-adjusted GDP China comes first.

> So if EU got its shit together and formulated a coherent unified foreign policy - it would be at the very least on equal terms with both US and China.

On approximately equal terms, yes, probably.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#82

Post by throwaway6734 »

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.

China would hurt a lot more

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#83

Post by mtmail »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #64
factorialboy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. China is known to use undisclosed radiation weapons against diplomats. US diplomats have suffered on multiple occasions.

Sources?

5min searching for sources ... Might be a mixup with sonic weapons. "An employee at the U.S. Embassy in Guangzhou, China, allegedly suffered mild traumatic brain injury after hearing a vague and abnormal sound" https://www.theepochtimes.com/with-sonic-weapon-attack-china...

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#84

Post by United857 »

China can get away with their diplomatic isolation of Taiwan due to the large economic power imbalance between the two.

We never saw this with North /South Korea, nor West/East Germany. Countries recognized both as sovereign. There was no "Korean Seoul" or "German Bonn" competing at the Olympics, etc.

If anything, West Germany or South Korea could've done what China is doing now but they chose not to.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#85

Post by tenpies »

subroutine wrote: post #44

China would be much better off if they just gave up on the whole Taiwan charade. I understand how badly they want to put Taiwan under thumb like they did HK, but Taiwan is really the only issue I foresee with potential to derail China's progress.

[flagged]

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#86

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #46
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.

Nah, it would require them to put principles over the profit of a few constituents. China's geopolitical strategy is brilliant. They see that their adversaries in democratic western countries are beholden to the quarterly profits of a handful of corporations. China, unlike any of the Western nations, WILL take a stand on their principles over profit (At least they seem to, but more on that in a second.) So, they've r…

> China, unlike any of the Western nations, WILL take a stand on their principles over profit

Surely that's a joke, right? China, which still has the audacity to call itself a "Communist" nation, which is basically much closer to a Fascist system, with their authoritarian and state-directed control of capitalism?

China has one primary governing principle, which is to keep the CCP in power. Their primary way of doing that has been ensuring that bargain of "we get 8-10% annual growth, the populace is happy enough not to revolt", but they've also been phenomenally successful in using the Internet to stoke nationalism and Xi's personality cult.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#87

Post by yeetman21 »

14 wrote: post #39
baybal2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wi…

This is the truth the way I see it. I don’t care if I have to go back to coming over a wood stove with a stick if it meant stopping China. The only area of concern I do see is they provide a lot of pharmaceutical with the chemicals they need and they would not be able to produce the drugs they currently make. As for the rest, I’ve lived without a cell phone for decades I would love to go back to suck a time. Is there…

You might be content with living like a pre-industrial peasant but how many other Americans or Europeans would be? I would wager very few. People care about their own immediate needs (or what they perceive to be their immediate needs) first and things like China, HK, Taiwan do not even register in their minds. I would bet that most Americans would rather live in a vassal nation than to not have any of the convinces of modern day living, and I quite frankly, would also. When gas gets over 4 dollars a gallon, people get mad. When lumber prices jump by 25%, people get mad. When steel prices jump by 10%, people get mad. How do you think people would react if the next iPhone cost 5k or the BigMac cost 10$, they would vote out the current government and replace them with a new one.

I think you are being a bit too idealistic and have quite honestly drank the Kool-Aid and forgot about the original purpose of why America dislikes China. They are a rising power seeking to disrupt the current one. Good playing American jobs have been cut and Chinese jobs have sprang up in their place. People who had those jobs are now experiencing a reduced quality of life.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#88

Post by mantas »

albeva wrote: post #76
BrazzVuvuzela wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they did that, I hope they would coordinate the timing with America first. It would be American forces, not so much the EU, that would be helping Taiwan defend against the invasion that would probably follow.

While true, it is often ignored that combined EU does possess a huge, highly advanced and well trained military force. So more than that I'd hope EU can then put its squabbling aside and respong in unison to any military provocation as well.

How many aircraft careers does EU have? Especially after Brexit...

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#89

Post by manquer »

gedy wrote: post #67
subroutine wrote: post #44

China would be much better off if they just gave up on the whole Taiwan charade. I understand how badly they want to put Taiwan under thumb like they did HK, but Taiwan is really the only issue I foresee with potential to derail China's progress.

Yeah I don't see the point or value at this stage. They control their media tightly, and if they just stopped talking about Taiwan I doubt many people in the mainland would care. They've proven they don't need Taiwan and vice versa.

Control of South China sea is far too important for china to ignore Taiwan, also Taiwan's dominance in chip design/manufacturing would give china enormous influence over the world.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#90

Post by bredren »

mountainb wrote: post #66
chongli wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure we can. It may hurt a lot at first but we'll get over it. Think about how hard it was to rebuild after WW2. This would be nowhere near that difficult since none of the west is a bombed-out ruin today and all of the west is made up of advanced economies with highly educated populations. Furthermore, there are developing countries (such as Vietnam) that are going full-steam-ahead with ramping up production, especi…

It's possible, but the US and much of the western world would have to tolerate a decade or so of severely diminished standard of living when judged by consumption standards. The country as a whole would also have to work a lot harder and for more years. In the past I would have said "there's no way that we would tolerate that," but for the last two years we have seen substantially diminished standard of living alread…

The endgame is robotic replacement for skilled labor.

The pandemic has forced technology companies to push harder on communication products and development of virtual places.

Severely diminished trade with China would require an acceleration in manufacturing technology on a scale that could only be borne out of necessity.

Recognizing that robotics technology is orders of magnitude more challenging than an improved Zoom interface, It won’t come easy. But the demand will be there and so would be the creativity to overcome the challenges.

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