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Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

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Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#331

Post by notpachet »

sfe22 wrote: post #207
notpachet wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Split hospitals 50% covid and continue the rest as usual with limited capacity Let me know when you've accomplished this. We'll wait.

The percentage was just a wild guess. Its just that some resources need to be allocated to covid and the rest should continue as usual. That could be up to free market to decide, not me or you or some almighty “leaders”.

> That could be up to free market to decide

I honestly spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to formulate a good-faith response to this, and I couldn't. I don't even know where to begin.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#332

Post by SuoDuanDao »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #161
koolba wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Disengaging takes a while. If there's a strong desire to avoid things going kinetic, it takes even longer.

I feel as though the post-Obama era of US politics is oscillating around the best amount of caution WRT avoiding a hot war with China.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#333

Post by yoavm »

dexterdog wrote: post #315
BrazzVuvuzela wrote: post #8

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

Is it that different than the US complaining about Iran/NK/flavor of the week?

What? Yes, of course it is. Do you not see a difference between a nuclear threat to, well, agreeing to the opening of a Taiwanese office? In what world is this even similar?

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#334

Post by BrazzVuvuzela »

sudosysgen wrote: post #307
BrazzVuvuzela wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not capable of being denied, challenged, or disputed; closed to questioning. There is no such thing as incontrovertible evidence.

Of course there is. Of course the West would still try to dispute it, but just like how the world saw through WMDs in Iraq if present with adequate evidence they would see through a thin denial.

> Of course the West would still try to dispute it

Yeah, that's what I just said.

> the world saw through WMDs in Iraq

And Iraq got bombed anyway, it's a great example of how the actual validity of a casus belli doesn't matter.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#335

Post by scottLobster »

whimsicalism wrote: post #280
lui8906 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look to their diplomatic behavior around the South China Sea for the last couple of decades.

The US views itself as the enforcer of UNCLOS for all navigable bodies of water in the entire world, a treaty it hasn't ratified. It has tons of military bases in the SCS, a region not even close to it, compared to the furor when it becomes possible that China might build a single military base along Africa's atlantic coast. It seems like a bit of a double standard to me. I wish a good faith discussion about China wa…

What-aboutisms and calling people jingoist. Who exactly do you think you're convincing other than yourself?

Point me to the last time the US used its navy to directly threaten merchant shipping.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#336

Post by ipaddr »

baybal2 wrote: post #258
ipaddr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize many American are from Chinese decent. Not selling to a citizen of China regardless of race (not all Chinese are from the same race) is much different than not selling to anyone who has a Chinese gene. The nation state you think China and the US to be doesn't exist.

Most Chinese Americans are extreme right wing, and that includes ones who aren't specifically Taiwanese, or Fukienese Americans.

63% voted for Biden.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna12...

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#337

Post by lustitia »

croes wrote: post #244
motiejus wrote: post #200

I am Lithuanian; Lithuania Taiwan PRC conflict is frequently a topic of discussion these days among my peers. My position, shared by a few others, is that this is the next best thing that happened in Lithuania after leaving USSR: the first being joining NATO and EU in 2004. Everyone in the world can (and almost everyone do) endorse PRC. "You won't get fired for picking IBM/Oracle/PRC". While very few countries have t…

The whole west depends on cheap labor and cheap resources that doesn't fit with human rights and economic interdependence prevents wars. Lithuania is small so the impact of a chinese boycott could be compensated by other countries, a full trade war has lot more impact, short term and long term. You understimate the chaos that then comes into being.

according to chinalawblog.com, China WFOEs are now closing left and right https://harrisbricken.com/chinalawblog/china-wfoe-closures-f... and manufacturing are leaving China at an increasing pace https://harrisbricken.com/chinalawblog/manufacturing-outside...

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#338

Post by whimsicalism »

scottLobster wrote: post #321
whimsicalism wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling disproportionate imprisonment (and racist imprisonment by ethnicity) "genocide" is genocide-trivialization, in my view. It wasn't a "genocide" when we imprisoned 1 in 3 black people in this country, even though it was pretty awful. The Holocaust was a genocide.

Forced sterilization and religious conversion (not to mention the occasional organ harvesting) isn't genocide?

Let's recenter the definition of genocide. From google:

> the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group

Now to your points:

> religious conversion

1. No, forced religious conversion is not genocide in my book.

> Forced sterilization

2. Look, I'm not a fan of this law either, but sterilization in-lieu-of fine is one of the remedies in China for breaking the two (previously one)-child law and is also applied to Han Chinese. The Uyghur population is still growing at a faster rate than Han Chinese.

> the occasional organ harvesting

3. Awful and at large scale, absolutely a genocide. My understanding was that this had been done against Falun Gong in the early 2000s - do you have evidence on this practice continuing against Uyghurs circa now?

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#339

Post by gorgoiler »

jessaustin wrote: post #172
Galanwe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

For a mainlander, Taiwan _is_ a region of China, think of it as Hawai for the US. Where I live in the Midwest USA, nobody would care if Hawai'i claimed its independence in some not-harmful-to-tourists-nor-threatening-to-military-fuel-depots fashion. That doesn't mean it would be easy. Much as was seen in the original USA annexation of Hawai'i, it is very common for interested parties to create violence where none nat…

You might if Fort Knox was in Oahu.

Taiwan still has 400+ tonnes of gold the Guomindang took with them on their way out. I have no idea if good reserves have any relevance in this century but it’s just one part of the long term animosity.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#340

Post by stickfigure »

sudosysgen wrote: post #228
petilon wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unification is Chinese core value Is warring with all neighbors a core value too? Chinese government, through censorship, controls the minds of the Chinese people. The government needs to update the core values.

This is naive. The government simply doesn't have that power. If they tried to downplay Taiwan people would be absolutely furious. The extent of "mind control" is really not that great. The internet exists, and despite imperfect controls people have access to information. It would probably take Xi down to try to abandon Taiwan.

Then maybe Xi should take more interest in the wellbeing of his people than in his personal political dynasty.
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