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Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

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Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#121

Post by yeetman21 »

My take on the whole China issue is this: no country actually cares about humans rights or any of that stuff but only about their national self interests and that most people do not actually care about humans rights, but only about their own personal self interests.

China is a rising power in the world and wants to at least be the primary power in its region (maybe the world, who knows), and the USA as the primary power in the world and the region wants to keep its position. The US and China also have a symbiotic relationship, China would not be able to be in the position it is today if not for American purchases, and Americans would not have the quality of life they currently enjoy if they did not have Chinese manufacturing.

Both countries know they cannot be openly hostile to each-other without huge ramifications so they use proxy conflicts to try to secretly bludgeon each other and propagandize their own populations. Americans can propagandize their population with HK, Taiwan, concentration camps, no freedom and Chinese can propagandize their population with drone strikes, Century of humiliation, US Imperialism... Nobody, except the misled population (who are being propagandized) or extremely dim-witted subsets of elites (who are doing the propaganda, and go high of their own supply so to say) actually care about these issues.

I do not think this will be as hot as the last cold war since the US and China are way more interdependent than the US and the USSR and the way to make sure that this semi-cold war will not turn into a hot war is to not trying to break the interdependence, but to strengthen it.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#122

Post by sudosysgen »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #99
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.

It isn't that easy. It's not just China's government that believes Taiwan is part of China — China's people also believe that. There is a saying that if China is democratic, they would have invaded Taiwan yesterday. Or another saying: if the president lets go of Taiwan, the CCP would be overthrown tomorrow. Another factor that complicates things is the fact that Taiwan is a strategic location for the US's military co…

This is exactly right. The people that think China is going after Taiwan for no reason are greatly underestimating the realism of States.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#123

Post by dustintrex »

Galanwe wrote: post #98
gedy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> if they just stopped talking about Taiwan I doubt many people in the mainland would care Not at all. For a mainlander, Taiwan _is_ a region of China, think of it as Hawai for the US. People in the west see Taiwan as a separate country that China tries to forcibly absorb. People in mainland see Taiwan as a region of China that tries to be independent. Also, there is a lot of eyes on the Taiwan case from mainlanders…

And the real shame is that nobody seems to care what the people in Taiwan themselves want. (Which, overwhelmingly, is to be independent and free to go their own way.)

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#124

Post by nabla9 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #99
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.

It isn't that easy. It's not just China's government that believes Taiwan is part of China — China's people also believe that. There is a saying that if China is democratic, they would have invaded Taiwan yesterday. Or another saying: if the president lets go of Taiwan, the CCP would be overthrown tomorrow. Another factor that complicates things is the fact that Taiwan is a strategic location for the US's military co…

Chinese Communist Party has tied it's legitimacy into uniting China. Xi has doubled down on it. Giving up would destabilize the party. It's and identity question for China. Chinese law ways that China must go to the war if peaceful unification is not possible.

Even Chinese people seem to think that Taiwanese want to be part of China. In reality support for unification is about 4% of the population. The official One China Policy exists to prevent immediate start of war.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#125

Post by BrazzVuvuzela »

angrygoat wrote: post #107
mantas wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Seven: France (4) Italy (2) Spain (1) Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_s...

That count is a bit deceptive, France has a single aircraft carrier with fixed-wing aircraft, the Charles de Gaulle. The other three are Mistral-class amphibious assault ships with helicopters.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#126

Post by Ekaros »

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 has history judged the Western leadership after WW2 for abandoning Eastern Europe to Soviets? I'm amazed we aren't telling the truth and west was only slightly above Germans in being evil. They had option to be good, but instead because they were unquestionably pure evil they sacrificed huge number of people to Soviets...

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#127

Post by awakeasleep »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #86
Enginerrrd wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When a “too big to fail” company misbehaves, China doesn’t bail it out, they nationalize the useful parts, send the rest to bankruptcy, and jail the responsible executives.

We’re talking past each other a bit, but this is evidence of principle driven behavior rather than government capture by the wealthy like we have in the west.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#129

Post by dustintrex »

luckylion wrote: post #112
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.

For what it's worth, I don't believe West Germany ever formally recognized East Germany. The closest was allowing a state visit from Honecker in 1987.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#130

Post by sudosysgen »

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.

Lol. No. Far from that. If a line of no return is crossed as far as Taiwan, the Chinese will invade.
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