Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 727 posts

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#111

Post by notpachet »

RugnirViking wrote: post #93
fifilura wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In diplomacy "give them hell" is usually not the right answer. Closing all Chinese embassies will just leave a black hole with regards to intelligence. Politics is what it is, and the diplomats role is most often not to combat, but to ease communication. For the same reason the UN may often seem toothless and not able to execute. But it is just a reflection of world politics. It is hard sometimes. The precursor to UN…

What is the right answer then? Current approaches certainly don't seem to be helping, both on the China front but also at the UN

I believe the right answer lies at home. As other commenters have said, it doesn't help things that domestic corporations fall over themselves to appease the whims of the CCP for fear of losing access to [markets / cheap manufacturing / etc]. And those corporations have the loudest lobbying voice. Seeing as this is just one case of the kinds of ills that corporate lobbying brings about, I think we should try to combat that in order to buy (pun not intended) our political class some more freedom of motion in terms of standing up to China.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#112

Post by luckylion »

United857 wrote: post #84

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.

> There was no "Korean Seoul" or "German Bonn" competing at the Olympics, etc.

Are you aware that both China and Taiwan claim to be the legal government of both countries? Because that's completely different from Germany or Korea, where the states recognized each other.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#113

Post by throwaway12345n »

hirundo wrote: post #77

I think the right response to these provocations is to assist Taiwan in protecting itself. Essentially we should reverse the betrayal of Taiwan by Nixon in 1972, when he withdrew the US nuclear presence there. This time, to protect from changing political winds, the nukes should be under the control of Taiwan. Nothing much else will deter China.

I fully agree.

And the chinese should put nuclear nukes on cuba as well under the control of the cuban regime.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#114

Post by joshuaissac »

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

Second largest, at $17.1tn, after the US ($22.7tn), but ahead of China ($16.6tn).[1]

> is by far the wealthiest region on the planet

North America is the wealthiest region, with the United States alone having a total wealth of $126tn. European wealth is around $103tn.[2]

1. World Economic Outlook Database, April 2021

2. https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/ab...

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#115

Post by SuoDuanDao »

swarnie wrote: post #65
BrazzVuvuzela wrote: post #8

China pretending to be the victim of Lithuanian bullying really is a farce more ridiculous than usual.

Quoted post unavailable.

I do not trust that meme. Taiwan became the country it is today because it was heavily settled by the traditional Chinese Burgeoisie that became the target of Mao's revolution. It may be that China would now like to pivot towards a culture more informed by Taiwan's system than the leftovers of its own Marxist system. So 'Mainland Taiwan' may very well play into the CCP's current cultural intentions. Regardless, we should not lose sight of what this conflict is about; it is first and last about who controls the world's supply of semiconductors. Any cultural, idealistic, or legal considerations are secondary.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#117

Post by lnxg33k1 »

albeva wrote: post #54

I wish whole of EU would declare in unison support for Taiwan. Wonder if China would kick out every single EU nation embassy then?

As european, I think EU is too busy looking good to have time to actually something good, so I am not sure our political and entrepreneurial tools are willing to damage their wealth over something good, on the other hand, taiwanese people don't even seem to care https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y18-07g39g so why do we have to be this world police?

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#118

Post by phantomathkg »

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.

What needs to happen is for every countries that adopts the One China Policy [1] to drop that policy and establish formal recognition of Taiwan.

However, this will be tougher than other countries that are newly formed like Kosovo. China will surely use its influence to make sure it won't happened.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#119

Post by neither_color »

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.

In Lithuania, over-16s without immunity certificates proving full vaccination or recovery from Covid are banned from shopping malls, beauty salons, cafés and restaurants and indoor public events, but are permitted to shop at food, veterinary, optical stores and pharmacies, as long as these are under 1,500 square metres and have direct street access. They can also visit art and museum exhibitions and libraries.

I'm not so sure about its history, but it sure doesn't have a present of standing up for the rights of its citizens. I wouldn't call it a beacon of freedom or prosperity over China. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/the-rise-of-the-unvaxx...

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#120

Post by punnerud »

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.

Europe combined have more people and spend way more on military than US. On GDP Europe is lower, but they also have more than 2x the amount of people: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/European-U...
Post reply on HN