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Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

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Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#461

Post by CogitoCogito »

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…

Catalonia, the Basque region, Ireland, etc are not comparable to Taiwan. Taiwan _is_ a separate country today already. There is no separatist movement. It’s all just Chinese propaganda. (Officially Taiwan has similar claims, but they clearly have stopped actually exercising them hence that fact isn’t really relevant).

If you want a more accurate comparison it would would be as if Spain started claiming that Portugal is a part of its territory and pushing the world to accept that position.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#462

Post by whimsicalism »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #455
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.

You seem to love to trot out the "1 in 3" statistic, and have done it several times in this thread. Maybe time to look behind this catchy headline: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/...

1. I don't see how "slightly more than 1 in 4" is all that better.

2. I used the past tense intentionally. It is true that it is no longer 1 in 3 today, but the rates were much higher in the 80s and 90s.

3. In 1997, "one in three young African-American men are incarcerated, or on probation or parole"

In my hometown (Washington, DC), this number was closer to 50%.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#463

Post by skeeter2020 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #338
scottLobster wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

If the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II, involving forced labor,suppression of religious practices, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, forced contraception and forced abortion does not qualify in your view as genocide than you are out of touch with the accepted definition of the word.

>> 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?

Yet you seem to really like the "1 in 3 black men" behind bars headline, based a study from 2001, at the peak of US incararation rates across all population groups. Even the authors state its' gone down significantly.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#464

Post by eunos »

pphysch wrote: post #241

1. Beijing rejects being merely the "workshop" of the unipolar world, embraces sovereignty (GFW), high quality development (HSR), technological innovation (4IR), including in the military space (space, cyber, hypersonics). Oh and BRI. 2. Washington doesn't like that because it will displace the unipolar moment. USA has been in economic decline for half a century while PRC has been on a dramatic rise. Washington tries…

It's not really decline but relative decline, otherwise the rest of statements stand. The most amusing thing is that people forgot that US threw the firebrand Taiwan independence advocate Chen-sui Bian under the bus.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#465

Post by eunos »

cosmodisk wrote: post #326

Lithuanian here too. I'm 100% certain PRC will try to inflict as much pain on my own country via some side pressure to larger companies that have footprint in the country or by pressing applying political pressure to other countries. Some say we just do what the US tell us. The others say we should shut up and know our place. But the reality is that this isn't Nazi Germany v2. It's a country that is unparallel in pop…

Pressures for replacing Lithuanian products already started. Ironically, commerce between Taiwan and mainland do not show sign of weakness.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#466

Post by whimsicalism »

qwytw wrote: post #446
whimsicalism wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is self-contradictory. It is my opinion that your opinion is wrong. You are telling me to not express that opinion. But sure, we can agree to disagree about whether the killing of 6 million people of a specific ethnic group should be "discussed equally" with cultural genocide practices like Burqa bans in France, child marriage bans, or limits on having more than 3 children.

Equating Burqa bans in France and what China is doing to Uighurs is maybe not as extreme as what you're disagreeing with but is also very distasteful.

Fair enough. My intention was not to equate them, but merely to disagree that cultural prohibitions of any kind should be "compared equally" to genocides which kill people.

I think what's going on in Xinjiang is broader and much worse than merely trying to restrict certain "cultural" practices, but I also don't think it is a genocide with the intent to exterminate the Uyghur people.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#467

Post by qwytw »

whimsicalism wrote: post #398
scottLobster wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. There's also such a thing as cultural genocide, which forced religious conversion certainly qualifies as. Not to mention wiping out a culture is part of an overall genocide, usually it's the objective. 2. Oh, so the Chinese are just enforcing their population control law? Then what are the internment camps for? And why the Uighur birth rate plummeting far faster than the reported national Chinese birthrate? https:…

> 1. There's also such a thing as cultural genocide, 1. Yes, referring to "cultural genocide" as "genocide" is genocide trivialization. There's an obvious difference between killing 6 million people because of their ethnic background and outlawing a practice (say, child marriage in India or wearing a burqa in France) that happens to be a large part of a certain culture. 2. You're conflating a few different things I'm…

You're trivializing "cultural genocide" by comparing it to child marriage bans in India or Burqa bans in France. Cultural genocide is not just banning random specific practices, the near complete eradication of local languages or cultures by the French state throughout the 19th and 20th centuries is a better example or what the British did in Ireland. And if "cultural genocide" is not the appropriate name for that what would be a better one?

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#468

Post by ratww »

gpm wrote: post #421
Aeolun wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you lose all business with China, in the long term that is better. It’s disturbing I cannot buy goods that are not (at least partially) made in China.

One component of this seems to be that by moving online we've lost access to the labels on goods. In a store, you can usually just look at the "made in " label printed on the box. On amazon, that information is pretty much never available. Possibly this is partially because they're commingling inventory made in different places, but I think a lot of it's just that amazon doesn't see any reason to force people to list…

I once asked a person working on a large music instrument website why products "Made in USA" or "Made in [European Country]" were labeled as such, but the ones made in other countries aren't, and the answer was pretty simple: they A/B tested it, but "Made in China" or even "Made in [Asian Country]" drives people away. Japan and Korea have a good reputation for instruments, though.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#469

Post by whimsicalism »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #458
whimsicalism wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean a "fair bit beyond"? I don't think imprisoning a large proportion of a certain ethnic group due to BS laws around extremist ideology is all that different from imprisoning an even greater number of a different ethnic group (1 in 3 black men imprisoned) due to BS laws producing a 100:1 sentencing disparity based on which drug is more popular among a certain ethnic group.

Please review the data behind your catchy "1 in 3" headline. At the very least it's out of date, if not sensationalist. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/...

I've been using the past tense this whole time, I am not claiming that it is occurring in the present.

In the 80s and 90s, 1 out of every 3 young black men was under current custody by the criminal justice system, and the lifetime rates were close to the 1 in 3. Today, you are correct that it is closer to 1 in 4 (although still above).

I don't think this makes a very large difference in my point.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#470

Post by pedrosorio »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #444
jelly wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its incorrect to call opening an office for Taiwan a "rash, emotional move". It's a simple ackowledgement of the way things already are (two nations who talk and negotiate with each other) and helps Taiwan and France build their relationship. The concern is that the CCP will have a rash, emotional response (as they did with Lithuania) because they imagine they can set the terms for any Taiwan-related business. These…

France, like everyone else, has all the communications channels it needs with Taiwan, and does business with Taiwan as it sees fit, but I was not specifically referring to that but rather to closing the embassy in China and other actions against China.

> Its incorrect to call opening an office for Taiwan a "rash, emotional move"

> but I was not specifically referring to that but rather to closing the embassy in China and other actions against China

Could you clarify what other actions did Lithuania take against China? This is the timeline afaik [0]:

- In August 2021, the ROC opened its representative office in Vilnius under the name of "Taiwanese"

- In response, the PRC recalled its ambassador in Vilnius, Shen Zhifei, and demanded that Lithuania recall its ambassador in Beijing, Diana Mickevičienė.

- On 3 December 2021, Lithuania reported that in an escalation of the diplomatic spat over relations with Taiwan, China had stopped all imports from the Baltic state. It said Beijing has delisted Lithuania as a country of origin, preventing items from clearing customs, and was rejecting all import applications

- As a result of the conflict China pressured Continental AG and other international companies to stop doing business with Lithuania.[7] The spat spilled over to the rest of the EU when China banned the import of goods which contained Lithuanian parts potentially disrupting integrated supply chains in the common market.

^ not included in the timeline: internal propaganda to smear Lithuania as a nation once the PRC deemed the tiny country a threat for allowing ROC to open a representative office under the name "Taiwanese" in its capital

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Lithuania_relati...

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