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

161–170 of 727 posts

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#161

Post by toomuchtodo »

koolba wrote: post #134
bettysdiagnose wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like they want the rest of the world to hate them.

Not quite. They just don’t care what anybody else thinks outside of game theory analysis of how they will act. If the country was a person, we’d label their personality as a high functioning manipulative sociopath.

And yet, we don’t do what is best practice for dealing with such an actor: disengage.

We (the US primarily, but also the rest of the developed world) have a tremendous opportunity with a still productive labor force and cheap capital to boot up manufacturing capacity we offshored to China, and we won’t have the chance again when China decides to act against other countries (economically or militarily).

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#162

Post by thesuperbigfrog »

nindalf wrote: post #146
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.

Edit: apologies to anyone who read my comment analysing the situation and assumed that I’m some kind of warmonger. At no point did I advocate for Taiwan to be annexed. I merely pointed out that China really wants to and they’re stronger than ever in 2021. Shoutout to the dude who implied I’m a Nazi for saying this. Why would they give up on this “charade” as you put it? They’re closer than ever to annexing Taiwan in…

>> Why would they give up on this “charade” as you put it? They’re closer than ever to annexing Taiwan in 2021. They hold every card.

Except how the rest of the world would react.

It seems like a recipe for war.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#163

Post by sudosysgen »

BrazzVuvuzela wrote: post #156
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.

Taiwan could likely develop their own native nuclear weapons in a matter of months, if they chose to. They have a mature nuclear industry with several reactors, and likely already have plans for nuclear weapons drawn up.

You're forgetting about Chinese intelligence. It would never work once the Chinese notice and it would only provide an actually valid casus belli

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#164

Post by nabla9 »

China has had only one leader who was educated in the West: Deng Xiaoping. Deng was sent to Paris in 1920 when he was 16 where he attented middle schools, in 1926 he studied in Moscow. He moved back to China in 1927.

Deng understood the West and was able to advance Chinese interests. Xi Jinping is complete opposite of Deng. Xi has no understanding of other cultures.

Russia under Putin bullies and plays brinkmanship due to political weakness. That seems to work for them under the circumstances.

Chine under Xi bullies because they are incompetent. China under Xi can't even bully right. Wolf Warrior tactics of Chinese diplomats works against Chinese interest. Nobody is scared and everyone wants to resist.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#165

Post by ridewinter »

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…

If China went democratic then Taiwan wouldn't have much issue with becoming part of it, right?

Once people taste freedom they tend to not want to give it up, no matter how messy.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#166

Post by ricardobeat »

satronaut wrote: post #138
notpachet wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omicron is real. It's having very tangible impacts on the ability of countries to provide necessary healthcare services to their citizens. People who normally should be first in line to receive care (cancer patients and the like) are having their critical services interrupted or deferred. Just because you personally don't see the impact doesn't mean it isn't there.

Source please? It sounds like the most mild of all the 99.97% survival rate variants of covid. If you don't want to get sick, then stay home, but don't tell me how to live my life

Reduced death rate doesn’t change the fact hospitals are overloaded and you might not be able to get treatment for other emergencies.

> stay home

> don’t tell me how to live my life

I hope you see the irony there. If only it was that simple. You want to be out and about, unvaccinated, putting other people at risk, while the ones who took the vaccine and are trying to stay safe stay home? Yeah right.

If you want to live a “free” life you can go setup shop in an island somewhere away from civilization. Total freedom to do whatever you want.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#167

Post by Iolaum »

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.

I 'd say that the EU armies look better in paper than they would in practice.

One example is that several EU armies running out of precision bombs relatively early into the Libyan intervention [1].

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nato-runs-short-on-some...

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#168

Post by Krasnol »

VictorPath wrote: post #152
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?

> I wish whole of EU would declare in unison support for Taiwan. Sure, Spain can take a break from hunting down Catalonian referendum politicians in France, or hunting down the Basque separatists that Franco didn't wipe out in Guernica, and can declare Taiwan should be an independent country. The British PM can visit soldiers in Thiepval, Holywood or other UK barracks in north Ireland and declare support of Taiwan br…

Impressively colourful whataboutism.

Are we supposed to order them by which may be even close to what we see with Taiwan or doesn't it matter at all?

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#169

Post by strogonoff »

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.

Looks like CCP painted itself into a corner. Internally it has fostered the narrative that Taiwan is a renegade that should be brought to order for so long that citizens themselves now call for that. Walking that all back is tricky and would take a while since the government is worried about own popularity.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#170

Post by philliphaydon »

sudosysgen wrote: post #147
philliphaydon wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you believe the the propaganda spread by the CCP about falun gong to begin with.

You only need to believe them to realize they're an insane racist cult.

Considering the CCP has along history of going after religion and is persecuting religion and religious people to this day, its difficult to believe that it's a 'racist cult' when prior to 1999 it was fine, and then the CCP realised it was gaining popularity and all of a sudden it's declared an evil cult that the CCP has used to blame everything on over the years.
Post reply on HN